Not All Wheat Grass Is Created Equal

Here’s why PINES’ wheatgrass is healthier, more nutritious and environmentally sustainable

The most nutritious wheat grass is wheat grass that is grown naturally and harvested at the peak-nutrition time, called the jointing stage. Pines Wheat Grass grows in that nutrient-rich, certified-organic, glacial soil for nearly 200 days and only fed by natural rainwater. During most of that time, the temperatures are below freezing at night and sometimes below freezing during the day. This slow growth in cold temperatures is natural to the plant and results in a very dark green vegetable with very concentrated levels of chlorophyll, enzymes, vitamins, minerals and other nutrients.

Why Laboratory Tests Show Tray-Grown Wheatgrass Contains Much Less Nutrition than Naturally-Grown PINES Wheatgrass

Tray grass does provide nutrition; however, because it is grown unnaturally, there is a definite difference in the amount of nutrients it produces. When visually compared side by side, it is easy to see that true wheatgrass has many times more chlorophyll than tray grass. Tray-grown wheatgrass is known for producing mold, which can cause nausea and other adverse reactions. As seen from the glass of juice on the left and the true wheatgrass surrounding the tray, wheatgrass grown naturally outdoors through the winter in its appropriate climate provides much more chlorophyll and other nutrients associated with dark green, leafy vegetables.

Beware of Flag Grass!

Flag Grass is essentially wheatgrass that is more than a week past the jointing stage. The photo on the right shows what flag grass looks like—it is several weeks past the jointing stage. You can see at the base of each stem, some dried grass. That was the wheatgrass! It has now been literally drained of its nutritional concentration. Yet, growers who put increased profits and production over quality let their wheatgrass grow well into the flag grass stage. Because the wheatgrass has been drained of nutrition to make the flag grass, products made from flag grass are incorrectly labeled as “wheatgrass.” Instead of being less than 10 inches tall, flag grass can be as tall as 23 inches and produce as much as four times more pounds per acre, but the quality is very poor. Only cereal grass harvested at the jointing stage contains the high nutrition levels discovered by the “father of wheatgrass,” Dr. Charles Schnabel.

PINES products are packaged in oxygen-free amber glass bottles with specially-designed metal caps to keep outside air and humidity from devitalizing the high quality ingredients. The fact that we do not use plastic bottles, plastic caps or packets made from paper, foil and plastic for products we sell, clearly indicates that the PINES products are exceptionally high-quality. We want you to have a food as fresh as the day it was made! Even a glass bottle with a plastic cap results in a poor quality product because a plastic cap cannot hold an oxygen free environment and protect against the oxidation that results in the poor color of these other products. The richness of the green color in a vegetable powder best indicates its nutritional value. Oxidation slowly turns a green food from vibrant green to dull green or even grey or brown. Not only does a more vibrant green color indicate more chlorophyll, vitamins, phytonutrients and enzymes, it is also true that the greener the food, the higher the antioxidant value (ORAC) it has. Products packaged in plastic containers or foil/paper/plastic packets quickly lose vitality. When a company uses poor quality packaging, it conveys that they feel their ingredients are not worth preserving. PINES wheatgrass is currently the only green superfood that is packaged in oxygen-free amber glass bottles with the special caps designed by Dr. Schnabel in 1937.