Grass you can drink

As promised, here is my first installment on the benefits of grass.

Yes, you can drink grass and one of the most powerful, healing and nutritive is wheat grass. Often sold frozen in freshly pressed cubes or powdered, it has been a mainstay in holistic health and natural remedies for years.

It became popular due to Dr. Ann Wigmore, founder and educator of the Hippocrates Health Institute in Boston although it was first discovered in the 1930s by Charles Schnabel. Dr. Wigmore reported that "wheat grass therapy along with a diet rich in "living foods" helped eliminate cancerous growths along with many other disorders. Wheat grass is rich in chlorophyll.  The molecular structure of chlorophyll is similar to hemoglobin which is the oxygen-carrying protein of red blood cells." Because of the similarity, the body easily recognizes and absorbs it readily. The only difference between human hemoglobin and wheat grass juice is that hemoglobin has iron at the middle of its molecule while wheat grass has magnesium. Several small pilot studies have taken place and the efficacy of wheat grass is proving to be worth more research to the clinical community. You can read more about some of this work through the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

I've been drinking 'green water' for years. That's what my four year old calls it and I can tell you first hand, that it improves my mood, my digestion and increases my energy. Chlorophyll, an important component of wheat grass is liquid sunlight and oxygen just waiting to nourish your body.  It is definitely a vibration raising food.

Nature has a cure for most anything an "illusional"  mind can manifest. I say illusional, because it connotes that one has bought into the illusion that this reality is the only truth. Dis-illusion would be separation from the illusion of what many of us call reality. Dis-illusion may just be a glimpse of pure Faith. Trust that all is good and that the answers can be as simple as we choose.

Well, enough contemplation for now. Get some green water, drink it up and feel good!

(PS; I'm reading an awesome book called The Passion Test. I hope to share insight on it soon!)

Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheatgrass; Prescription for Nutritional Healing, Phyllis A Balch

Image courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wheatgrass.jpg#filehistory

Licensed work under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

Greener Grass

As I mentioned in my newsletter, green is the theme this month. I've been called to explore those laws of the Universe which we've taken for granted. The simple proverbs we heard growing up, "What goes around comes around; What goes up, must come down; The grass is always greener on the other side; The early bird catches the worm." Jesus and Buddha gave us more. One that comes to mind is, "As a man thinks, so he is."  These are simple truths to the guiding laws of the Universe.

The grass is always greener on the other side. The other side of what - a fence, a road? The idea is that we are looking away from ourselves thinking that what we have is substandard to what the other has. Everything we could possibly want is already within our grasp. What if there is no other side? What if the "Grass is always greener" is enough? Meaning it only gets better and better right where you are and the fence or the road is only your limiting belief system in the way of experiencing greater joy in life, right now?!
Something to contemplate.

I'll be writing about cereal grasses next week.  Grass you can actually eat that make life greener right where your standing!

Coffee with Tom

The house is full of relatives! My mother, aunt and cousin. More are on the way for the coming weekend. I've never had so many family in town all at the same time! It's great! They have many things in common, but the most obvious and consistent are coffee and wine. You can be giving birth or dying, running a 5K or sleeping all day, alone or with friends - the time is always right for either of these beverages. At least that's how it is in my family!

Today,  mom sent me out for a coffee. She wants to cut it out of her diet, but the more she pushes, the more the craving pushes back. So, what did I do? I'm a good daughter, I bought her the coffee at the local coffee shop up the street. This crazy thing happened as I walked through the door. I saw a man I thought I knew. I walked right up to him and said, "Tom?" He said, "Hello". It was not the Tom I knew. I apologized profusely, then he said, "My name is Tom. Nice to meet you." Something... someone was at work through me in that five minutes of embarrassment. I bought the coffee for mom, told Tom to have a great day and decided Tom must have needed a Hello that morning. The Holy Spirit works in mysterious ways. Even through coffee. It seems obvious now, anytime is the right time for whatever is happening at that exact moment.

Just like life, coffee has it's ups and it's downs. I love the smell, but can't touch the stuff. My brother, a RN, swears by it. Here are a few Pros and Cons to help you decide if it's time to cut back, try it out or banish it all together. By the way, next time you see Tom, say "Hi" for me.

Perks:
1. Alertness: Even in relatively low doses of 100 milligrams (the amount in about 8 ounces of ordinary brewed coffee), caffeine makes people more alert.
2. Mood: At 200 milligrams people report an improved sense of well-being, happiness, energy, alertness and sociability.
3. Concentration: Studies suggest that caffeine can help you perform a variety of cognitive tasks, such as recognizing visual patterns, more quickly.
4. Performance: Research shows if 3-9 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight is consumed one hour prior to exercise it increases endurance.
5. Reduce muscle pain: Stanley Segall, Ph.D., has found that caffeine might stimulate the release of B-endorphins and hormones that depress the sensation of pain or discomfort.

Quirks:
1. Cardiovascular Problems: Caffeine increases heart rate, elevates blood pressure and can contribute to the development of heart disease. Drinking both decaf and regular coffee may increase cholesterol and homocysteine, the biochemical that science has linked to increased risk for heart attack. Caffeine is also linked to coronary vasospasms. Coronary vasospasms cause 20% of all fatal heart attacks that kill otherwise perfectly healthy people.
2. Stress: Caffeine stimulates the excretion of stress hormones, which can produce increased levels of anxiety, irritability, muscular tension and pain, indigestion, insomnia and decreased immunity. Increased levels of stress can keep you from making healthy responses to normal daily stress.
3. Emotional Disturbances: Anxiety and irritability are hallmark mood disturbances associated with caffeine consumption, but equally important are depression and attention disorders. Depression may occur as part of the letdown after the stimulant effects of caffeine wear off. It may also appear during the recovery period after quitting caffeine while the brain's chemistry is readjusted. Rather than increasing mental activity, caffeine actually decreases blood flow to the brain by as much as 30% and negatively affects memory and mental performance.
4. Gastrointestinal Problems: Many people experience a burning sensation in their stomach after drinking coffee because coffee increases the secretion of hydrochloric acid, which leads to an increased risk for ulcers. Coffee, including decaf, reduces pressure on the valve between the esophagus and the stomach so that the highly acidic contents of the stomach pass up to the esophagus, which can lead to heartburn and gastro-esophageal reflux disease.
5. Adrenal Exhaustion: Caffeine consumption leads to eventual adrenal exhaustion, which can leave you vulnerable to a variety of health disorders related to inflammation and fatigue.

Resources: 
Caffeine Blues: Wake Up to the Hidden Dangers of America's #1 Drug by Stephen Cherniske.
Integrative Nutrition, 2009