Barley Greens = Super Nutrition

Barley greens and wheatgrass make green food nutrition complete. You may already be familiar with the green foods from the ocean, Chlorella, and Spirulina. These two green foods are extraordinarily rich in protein and healthy fatty acids. The two most important green foods from the land are barley greens and wheatgrass. They are extraordinary sources of vitamins and minerals. The combination means super nutrition for your body and well being.

A Health Food Recommended in Natural Medicine for Over 1500 Years

Barley greens have been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine as early as about the year 500, when they were mentioned in the medical text known as the Mingyi Bielu, or, in English, “The Supplementary Records of the Great Physicians.” Cultivated by sprinkling water over clean barley seeds, and then collecting and drying the sprouts, ancient herbalists used barley greens as a remedy for stomach ailments.

These green sprouts were important in formulas for stimulating sluggish digestion, and also for stopping excessive lactation in nursing mothers. Barley greens were also prescribed for “stagnation of the liver,” which was Chinese medicine’s way of describing depression following emotional turmoil.

A Great Way to Alkalize

In modern-day, barley greens are considered an exceptionally balanced food. Dried barley greens are about 4 percent glutamic acid. This is the amino acid that “alkalizes” the urine. With enough glutamic acid, the kidneys do not need to leach calcium out of bone to counteract acidity.

Barley greens are also a significant source of the methionine, the amino acid the body uses to make the pain and depression relieving chemical S-adenosylmethionine, also known as SAM-e.

Just one tablespoon of dried barley greens contains a day’s supply beta-carotene, betaine, biotin, boron, copper, iron, lutein, magnesium, niacin, riboflavin, and thiamine. Barley greens offer alpha-linoleic acid, oryzanol, zinc, potassium, and selenium, as well as the alpha-, beta-, and gamma-tocopherols that makeup vitamin E. You cannot get absolutely every nutrient your body needs from barley greens, but you can come very close.

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A Great Source of Antioxidants

Wheatgrass is the tender shoots growing from sprouted wheat. Wheatgrass can be juiced, or it can be dried, concentrating its nutrients. You don’t get a full range of nutrients from wheatgrass. In fact, you take wheatgrass just for its antioxidant power, but this nutritional feature of wheatgrass makes it extraordinarily useful in human nutrition.

According to research published in the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology, wheatgrass contains biologically significant concentrations of two enzymes, catalase, and peroxidase. These two enzymes are not yet known to be medicinal, but they are being investigated as anti-aging agents. Researchers at La Trobe University in Australia have even found that wheatgrass is potentially healing when it is used on you, rather than in you. Making a cream of wheatgrass to be applied to tired feet and legs, three researchers published in the medical journal Complementary Therapies in Medicine report that users of the wheatgrass cream experienced less foot and ankle pain as they used the cream over a period of six weeks.

Chlorella and Spirulina

Barley greens and wheatgrass, of course, are not the only green foods. Balancing the Minerals, Vitamins, and Antioxidants of Barley Greens and Wheatgrass with the Complete Proteins and Essential Fatty Acids of Chlorella and Spirulina can be extremely beneficial.

Chlorella is a green algae that grows in the ocean, and Spirulina, a spiral blue-green algae that grows in tropical freshwater lakes, add complete protein to the vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants provided by barley greens and wheatgrass.

A serving of tofu is about 6 percent protein. A hamburger patty is about 7 percent protein. Chlorella is about 45 percent protein, and Spirulina powder contains up to an astonishing 77 percent protein. The protein in these oceans and lake green foods, moreover, is a complete protein. It contains all the amino acids that the human body needs to make its own proteins.