By Linda Kavanagh and Ellen Walsh
Photographs provided by Sweet Wheat

You mean to tell me that HBO’s Sex in the City episode, where Samantha takes her latest conquest to a Natural Foods Restaurant for wheatgrass juice “cocktails” in the hopes of taming his offensive body odors, holds up to reality? With the phenomena of wheatgrass juice making it’s way into mainstream life (and media), it is not surprising to see sales taking off at Kim Bright-Cassano’s Sweet Wheat, Inc., located in Clearwater, Florida. Wheatgrass juice is an intriguing natural healer, containing properties found in nature that have been known to help everything from high blood pressure to clarity in thinking.

Although it is most common to enjoy a shot of wheatgrass juice at your local juice bar, not all parts of the country offer this. However, it is important to add wheatgrass juice to your life on a daily basis in order to enjoy optimum results.

Co-founders Mark Sheldon with Sweet Wheat's Kim Bright-Cassano

Nutrition expert, Kim Bright-Cassano has found a way to consistently capture this essence in both capsule and powder form, offering an even higher quality product, by concentrating on the elements that matter most, using state of the art greenhouses. “We build our own soil, harvest and plant everyday and use the ‘Rolls Royce’ of drying methods, freeze-drying, so the live, active enzymes stay intact,” Kim explains.

Benefits
The strength of wheatgrass juice is that it is continuously oxygenating the blood, as well as providing minerals and chlorophyll, which is vital for cleaning and building the blood. You are getting more oxygen everywhere. Chlorophyll is almost the exact structure of blood. Magnesium is the center molecule in chlorophyll and iron is the center molecule in blood. Wheatgrass juice is high in enzymes and amino acids. We are learning more and more about the role of magnesium and how it makes nutrients absorb better. Chlorophyll is the blood of plants and blood touches every cell in the body. These benefits alone can drastically improve one’s immune system.

“Much of the food we eat today has been denatured due to our modern farming methods.” Kim goes on to explain. “Amino acids, proteins, enzymes, sleep, sunshine, water, air and exercise are all necessary to promote a healthy body. You strengthen your immune system and all it’s functions by getting this wonderful stuff into your body.”

About Wheatgrass
Wheatgrass begins with the soil. To put it in a language wine enthusiasts can understand, vineyard soil, just like wheatgrass soil, is the basis for a healthy plant or fruit. Mark Sheldon, Kim’s partner, spent 18 months developing the mineral enriched soil mix that we use to grow Sweet Wheat. “Most soils have only 9-16 minerals in them” says Kim. “The soil that we build here at the farm has 88 minerals. We get minerals from around the world and then we make the soil. That is why there is so much consistency in the product.”

Wheatgrass contains no gluten. Gluten is found in the whole wheat head (seed) – grass is what sprouts from that seed. So, when you are allergic to wheat, you are allergic to gluten, not the properties of the wheatgrass in its vegetable form. In fact, wheatgrass juice can help build up your immunity toward glutinous foods.

The seed is planted and sprouting ensues. Sprouting is a process that utilizes the sunshine – chlorophyll being the main ingredient. Within 10-12 days these sprouts become grass. Before the jointing stage, the grass reaches its maximum nutrient level (6-8 inches in height) and sweetest flavor. Anything past 15 days produces a bitter and even tougher blade of grass. Once the blades are cut, a second cut is not performed since the most nutrients are found in the first cutting. Juicing is ideal at this juncture and freeze-drying assures longevity and live active enzymes.

About Kim Bright-Cassano
A chef and natural healer by trade, Kim’s true passion is addressing health issues that could be identified at the root cause. “Modern medicine addresses the symptoms, not the cause,” Kim explains. “I wanted to be part of a process that addressed issues at cellular level.“ Kim expressed this desire by creating health friendly meals for various food institutions, and even her own organic restaurant in Westport, CT in 1985. It was the first non-smoking, meat and alcohol free eatery in the area. Serving fish, organic chicken and organic vegetables wasn’t enough. Sugar was replaced in desserts by organic rice and maple syrup and even the flour was organic. Wheatgrass juice has been popular since the 1960’s due to Dr. Ann Wigmore. Now-a-days, juice bars, vegetarian restaurants and health food stores offer wheatgrass products consistently – and creatively.

Kim’s customers enjoyed the physical benefits of eating healthy, and she enjoyed the healing power it had physically and spiritually. She began consulting and touting the benefits of healthy eating and a healthy lifestyle. Research found a trend in modern medicine looking to deal with the symptoms of illness and disease rather than the source of these ailments and deficiencies. Boosting the body’s immune system was an obvious priority and wheatgrass juice was the lifesaver. The idea was to put nutrients back into the body, strengthening it. She also used some algae, such as spirulina and blue-green algae, which has a high concentration of proteins and minerals, but none as high as wheatgrass juice grown as Sweet Wheat. Sweet Wheat, Inc. is the result of all those years of exploration and research.

Sweet Wheat's Greenhouse

For more information on this company or how you can order Kim Bright-Cassano’s book “Please Pass the Grass” visit her at www.sweetwheat.com.

Copyright 2002 Sweet Wheat, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of these photographs may be reproduced by any means without the express written permission of Sweet Wheat, Inc.