Delicious Living's Best Whole Food Supplement for 2018

Pines won the Delicious Living and New Hope Communications 2017 Delicious Supplement Award for its new product Mighty Greens. Now, the magazine announced Pines International won the 2018 Delicious Living Supplement Award for Pines Wheat Grass. Pines Wheat Grass is the original green super food that was introduced in 1976. Both these honors were for the best product for the year in the whole food supplement category. They presented these awards to Pines because we offer the "highest quality, purity, efficacy and innovation of any other products in the competition."

Delicious Living Recognizes Our 40-Years of Excellence

Pines is the original green superfood company.  For more than 40 years, we have followed the highest quality standards. Early on, we registered the trademark, "The Wheatgrass People." We also own wheatgrass.com as our website domain. Pines is unquestionably the company that established the green food segment in the Natural Products Marketplace.  Our products are found in leading natural food stores and online.

WCEF

Since 1976, PINES' has supported goals of environmental sustainability & preventing hunger. Our record of contributions shows our commitment.

Vegan-Friendly and 100% Organic

Pines is the only 100% organic green superfoods grower in Kansas. We are also the only one using 100% organic facilities. All our products are certified organic, Non-GMO Project Verified and Kosher. We have never used our facilities to supply pesticide-based animal feed for the industrialized, confined-animal meat industry. That means we are the only vegan-friendly producer of wheatgrass, barley grass and alfalfa from Kansas.

We are also the only Kansas green superfood producer that does not depend on irrigation. Everything we grow is in appropriate regions that receive ample rainfall. Others farmers in the dry region of our State pump water from the depleted and contaminated Ogallala Aquifer. For more than 40 years, Pines has supported sustainable agriculture. The destruction of the Ogallala Aquifer by irresponsible farming methods in other parts of our State is an abomination.  Farmers wasted most of that precious water growing pesticide based animal feed. One animal feed company also grows many of the green super foods for natural food products.  This pristine fossil water resource took tens of thousands of years to accumulate. Chemcial farmers nearly depleted that aquifer in less than 100 years.  These farmers contaminated what water remains with poisons they used to grow animal feed for the meat industry and corn for ethanol.

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Grown and Packaged in Accordance with Scientific Standards

Pines still grows wheatgrass on many of the same fields in Northeastern Kansas that Charles Schnabel and other scientists used for the medical research. We continue to operate one of their laboratories. In the 1930s and 1940s, doctors and hospitals used their wheatgrass for medical research. That body of research served as the basis for books on wheatgrass by Ann Wigmore and other authors. Steve Meyerowitz, author of Wheatgrass: Nature's Finest Medicine, dedicated his book to Schnabel. He called him the "Father of Wheatgrass."

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Pines still operates one of the laboratories used by Charles Schnabel and his team of scientists for the research praised by Ann Wigmore and other authors.

Pines still operates one of the laboratories used by Charles Schnabel and his team of scientists for the research praised by Ann Wigmore and other authors.

Schnabel Did Not Grow Wheatgrass in Trays or Extract the Juice

Schnabel and other scientists determined the best way to grow wheatgrass and other cereal grasses. They discovered the best quality wheatgrass grows outdoors through often-freezing winter temperatures in rich glacial soils. To grow the wheatgrass used in the research required slow growth for nearly 200 days in cold weather. The often freezing winter climate causes real wheatgrass to reach about seven inches in height even after 200 days. The cold weather also induces the roots to go down a foot deep in the rich glacial soil. Because we grow wheatgrass naturally, Pines Wheat Grass is four times greater in chlorophyll and is higher in vitamins, minerals and enzymes than wheatgrass grown unnaturally in trays.

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Schnabel's data showed that wheatgrass harvested only once each year in the spring after a winter of slow growth contains the highest nutritional density. He developed methods to quickly dry the leaves and mill them into a nutrient-rich powder. Pines follows his methods. Although we offer juice powders, Schnabel found that cereal grasses and other vegetables are best consumed as whole foods, containing not only the juice but also the fiber. Because they are whole foods, Pines Wheat Grass and our other whole leaf green superfoods are prebiotic. They protect the digestive tract by providing roughage for the perfect environment for probiotic bacteria.

For 40 Years, Pines has NEVER used Plastic Packaging

The scientists also established standards for packaging green super foods.  Green vegetable powders easily oxidize. To prevent that, Schnabel used glass bottles with special metal caps and removed the oxygen. From the beginning in 1976, Pines has also followed that safeguard.  Removing the oxygen prevents oxidation and loss of nutrients that occurs with plastic tubs or packets.  By not packaging in plastic and not using contaminated irrigation water, Pines prevents contamination of our green super foods. Our products are free of the toxic petrochemicals from the plastic as well as herbicides and pesticides from the irrigation water.

alfalfa comparison

A Recognized Leader in Organic Agriculture Since 1976

Pines International helped write the organic standards for Kansas in the early 1980s.  Since then, we have directly converted more than 2,000 acres of farmland to Certified Organic. Pines has also worked with other organic farmers to convert several thousand additional acres. Unlike other producers of wheatgrass and alfalfa, Pines farmers and facilities are 100% organic. We disagree with USDA allowing "dual farming" operations.  Chemically-based agribusiness with "organic sidelines" capitalize on the hard work of sincere organic farmers and fool the consumer into believing the producing companies are something they are not. Pines is the only Kansas producer of whole food cereal grass and alfalfa that does not use dual farming practices.

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Thanks to Delicious Living and New Hope Communications for recognizing our excellent growing, harvesting and packaging standards.  We proudly accept the both the 2017 Delicious Living Supplement Award and the 2018 Delicious Supplement Award and deeply appreciate these honors.