The benefits of green food such as spinach, leaf green vegetables, wheat grass, barley grass and blue-green algae will impress you so much that you will find yourself in the growers’ market or farmers’ market trying to make a decision on what to eat for the greatest benefit. Barley and wheat grass are considered “green” food when they are young and before they form the grain pods that we’re most familiar with. All green vegetables offer the greatest level of nutrients, but the dark green leafy greens, grain grasses and blue-green algae have highly concentrated levels of phytonutrients, greater than in any other food.

The benefits of eating green food were first demonstrated in a comic strip by the cartoon character, Popeye. Popeye was big and strong and he attributed that to the use of cans of spinach that he would pop open when he needed extra strength. While the comic may have been tongue-in-cheek, the underlying truth is still there. Chlorophyll is responsible for the deep green color of the vegetables and grasses, and is the plant equivalent of hemoglobin in human red blood cells…responsible for carrying life-giving oxygen to cells. Ingesting chlorophyll lowers cholesterol, reduces high blood pressure, improves our immune response and even helps to inhibit the growth of some cancers.

Wheat and barley grass are commonly found in “juicing” establishments where a single ounce serving of the grass “juice” is said to be the dietary equivalent of pounds of vegetables. The best news is that the wheat juice has no added sugar, something that cannot be said for the other juices available. Wheat and barley grass is naturally sweet. In the early 40’s tablets of dried wheat or barley grass served as an early form of a vitamin. While science wasn’t quite up to the marketing at that time, the health benefits of those who purchased those vitamins were very real. If you aren’t crazy about the taste of wheat or barley grass, the dried tablet form is still available, and the health benefits are now very well known.

Blue-green algae is a single-celled plant that is sold via mail order and in health food stores because it is an excellent source of chlorophyll, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, and protein. Modern research indicates that blue-green algae functions as an anti-viral, even against HIV. It also inhibits mumps, measles, herpes, and even flu viruses.

The algae has a compound in it called calcium spirulan that keeps the virus from being able to enter human cells, thereby preventing infection. Blue-green algaes are also known to be a liver detoxifier, reduce blood pressure and cholesterol, and are full of antioxidants. They are also full of B vitamins, essential fatty acids, and minerals. They simply cannot pack this much nutrition into a vitamin tablet.

In general, green foods sound like a veritable fountain of youth in the way they attack age related illnesses such as heart disease, cancer, cataracts, and macular degeneration. It really is easy to add a handful of these greens to regularly prepared meals to pack a nutritional punch.