I drink this most weeks, and mostly because it is the only way I have found to get wheatgrass down without feeling like I am chewing a lawn. A wheatgrass shot at a juice bar is 30 ml drunk fast with a grimace. Blend the same grass into a full glass with apple and cucumber and it turns into an ordinary green juice with a grassy edge, which is a much nicer thing to have with breakfast.
Wheatgrass is usually sold as a living tray of grass, which most health food shops keep, and you can grow your own from wheat berries on a windowsill in about a week. Cut what you need, keep the tray in the fridge and it holds for several days.
Why these ingredients work
Most of what gets written about wheatgrass comes from claims made in the 1950s rather than from trials, and there is no good human evidence that it detoxes you. Your liver and kidneys do that job, and no glass speeds them up. The line on juice bar menus about one shot being worth a kilo of vegetables is marketing rather than a measurement. What wheatgrass does contain is chlorophyll, folate, a little iron, some vitamin C and a decent amount of vitamin K, in a form you can drink. That is worth having. It just does not do anything a green vegetable would not.
The apples and cucumber are doing the real work here. They bring the water, the sweetness and most of the vitamin C, and the cucumber keeps the glass light rather than thick. The lemon matters more than you would expect: its acidity knocks back the grassy bitterness, so the juice finishes fresh instead of muddy, and the vitamin C in it also helps you absorb the iron from the grass.
One honest note about the straining. A whole apple is a good source of fibre, but almost all of that fibre stays behind in the pulp when you juice it, so this is a drink rather than a substitute for eating fruit and vegetables. At roughly 17 g of sugar a glass it is not a low sugar drink either. It is simply a better habit than something fizzy.
FAQ
Do you need a special juicer for wheatgrass?
No. A masticating or cold press juicer handles it well as long as you alternate the grass with the apple or cucumber, which keeps the dry blades moving. A centrifugal juicer is hit and miss with grass and may clog. If you only have a blender, use the blender method in the recipe card: grind the grass with water first, strain it, then blend that green water with the fruit and strain again.
Does wheatgrass juice detox your liver?
No, and it is worth being straight about that. Your liver and kidneys process everything you eat and drink and they do it on their own. There is no evidence that wheatgrass, or any other juice, makes them work faster or flushes them out. What the glass does give you is water, vitamin C, folate, some iron and vitamin K from the grass and the fruit, which is a reasonable thing to have in a day.
Who should be careful with wheatgrass juice?
Wheatgrass is the young shoot of the wheat plant, and although the gluten sits in the grain rather than in the young grass, some people with a wheat allergy or coeliac disease report reacting to it, so be cautious and ask your GP if you are unsure. It is also high in vitamin K, which matters if you take warfarin or another blood thinner, because a sudden change in vitamin K can affect how well they work: keep your intake steady and tell your anticoagulant clinic. Finally, wheatgrass on a completely empty stomach makes some people feel sick, so have it with or after food.
More detox recipes: see the full Detox collection.
Wheatgrass, Apple and Cucumber Juice
Equipment
- Nut milk bag
Ingredients
For the juice
- 1 large handful of fresh wheatgrass about 30 g of blades
- 2 sweet apples about 300 g, cored and quartered
- 1/2 cucumber about 150 g
- 1/2 unwaxed lemon peeled
Instructions
Juicer method
- Rinse the wheatgrass and shake it dry, then cut the blades into short lengths of about 5 cm so they cannot wrap themselves around the auger.
- Core the apples and cut them into wedges that fit your feed chute, leaving the skins on. Top and tail the cucumber and cut it into batons, and peel the lemon half.
- Feed the grass through a little at a time, alternating it with the apple and cucumber. The wet fruit carries the dry grass through the machine. The lemon goes in last.
- Stir the juice and drink it straight away. It settles as it stands, so give it a stir before you pour.
Blender method
- Put the wheatgrass in a high-speed blender with 150 ml of cold water and blitz for 60 seconds. Grinding the grass on its own is what stops the drink turning stringy.
- Strain that green water through a nut milk bag or a fine sieve into a jug, squeezing the pulp hard to get everything out.
- Rinse the blender, then blitz the strained green water with the chopped apple, cucumber and peeled lemon for 30 seconds.
- Strain the lot through the nut milk bag again, pressing well, then chill and drink it within a day.