I still remember, as a little girl, the displeasure I felt when eating most vegetables (I am sure most of us felt the same way). Little did I know of its value to health at that unripe age. In many traditional diets and medicines, green plants take an important place due to their nourishing and healing effects. With the invasion of fast food, they were set aside. Fortunately in the last couple of decades, they have regained their significance as nutrients and remedy in their natural form and in supplement form. Green plants are green, because of their high content of chlorophyll, which is synthesized by sunlight. This does not mean that fruits and other vegetables lack it, but the greener the plant the greater is the amount of chlorophyll. What makes them therapeutic is their green-colored substance, which has the power to detoxify the system, suppress inflammation, and rebuild health.
Chlorophyll detoxifies by preventing bacterial and yeast growths in the digestive tract. It has a resisting effect on toxins, cleanses drug residue, and neutralizes cancer-causing substances. The green matter acts like a natural deodorant on bad body and breath odors. In the form of powder, it stops dental decay and gum disease. As an anti-inflammatory agent, chlorophyll acts on sore throats, intestinal infections and ulcers, skin rashes, and joint pains. From the point of building, greens strengthen the blood during anemia, resist radiation effects, increase intestinal beneficial bacteria, stimulate enzyme production to synthesize vitamins A, E, and K, rebuild tissue and bone, and enhance liver capacity. Chlorophyll is found to decrease hypertension, probably due to its high magnesium content in some greens, which relaxes the arteries and calms the nerves.
Plants rich in chlorophyll are dark green leafy vegetables, barley, oats, and wheat grasses, and algae. Each kind offers different actions and potencies with different healing properties.
For the purification of the body, people living in very polluted environments are advised to increase their consumption of chlorophyll-rich foods. To achieve continuous cleansing, dark green vegetables should be 15 to 20 percent of their daily diet. With such a diet, the renewing and detoxifying properties of the green color should counteract the effects of environmental toxins and pollutants.
Carotene, another chemical compound found in green plants, is a catalyst to vitamin A. Carotene stimulates the production of digestive enzymes, which make vitamin E and K and catalyze carotene into vitamin A. Carotene is a precursor to vitamin A, which is a co-factor for the body’s assimilation of calcium. The highest content of carotene is found in most types of the algae family, followed by cereal grasses (barley, oats, and others), yellow and green vegetables (carrots, kale, parsley, spinach, beet greens, green onions, squash, and other greens), and fruits (mango, cantaloupe, apricots, and others). By the way, most of the carotene in plants is beta-carotene, which was found by many cancer researches to have anti-tumor properties, making it a powerful free-radical neutralizing agent that deters healthy cells from becoming cancerous, thus arresting the progress of many types of cancers or preventing them.
However in supplements, beta-carotene does not seem to prevent normal cells from turning malignant, as it is seen with plant consumption. As a result of plants’ supply of vitamin A, skin tissue and cell surfaces are protected and infections and viruses are substantially reduced. It detoxifies by counteracting the action of toxins, improves skin texture, and enhances immunity. It stimulates glandular functions and promotes the building of bones, teeth, skin, hair and nails as it regulates calcium and other nutrients in the body. Vitamin A is also essential for the mucous membrane in the respiratory, digestive and reproductive systems. It is known to maintain good vision and helps in the formation of healthy blood, preventing blindness and anemia.
To help you increase chlorophyll rich foods in your diet, I suggest starting with a rich salad, consisting of a variety of greens, carrot, radish and other healthy ingredients. Protein dishes should be accompanied by vegetables like spinach, kale, squash, tomato, carrot, cabbage, or turnip greens. Vegetable juices are a good way of ensuring vitamin and mineral intake. Make different mixtures everyday. With carrot or tomato juice as a base, alternate the greens (parsley, rucola (jarjeer), watercress, spinach, or lettuce) and other vegetables (cucumber, beetroot, cabbage), adding lemon, salt, ginger if you like. Make the concoction that pleases you the way you usually choose your fruit juice.
As for barley or oat grass, which is very rich in carotene and boosts immunity (it is easily grown at home from simple grains), it can be taken as juice as well in small amounts due to its high potency.
Because most algae come in the form of dry powder or tablets, it is more commonly available in the form of supplement and should be taken according to instructions. Both cereal grasses and algae should be taken for deficient conditions such as anemia, fatigue, and low immunity, resulting from chronic or other illnesses, such as hepatitis, joint and other inflammations, hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, hemorrhoids, prostate difficulties, extreme stress, depression, and metal (lead, mercury) toxicity.
The benefits of high-chlorophyll foods are evident enough to convince us to include them in our diet in order to promote body purification, enhance immune efficiency, and restore energy that make physical, mental, and emotional fitness possible, leading to a disease-free life and healthy longevity.
(Mariam Alireza is a holistic science specialist. Send comments to [email protected].)
