Anwavla'aksa

Picture the gray-bearded grandpa with the hand-made straw hat and a sprig of grass shaking from his teeth. We all know this quintessential and cliche image of a southern American farmer, but if you replace the man under the straw hat with a dark brown African human and the dead yellow stick in his mouth with a freshly picked rich green stock of wheat grass, the image will only then be historically quintessential. You see, chewing on straw actually has its origin in American slave culture. Needless to say, slaves never enjoyed many work related benefits, and in fact the overwhelming majority either starved to death or lived most of their lives profoundly malnourished. What’s a dying slave to do if he don’t feel like dying working in a wheat field? Pluck one or two individuals of grass (literally the only food and water available to him), pop ‘em roots first into his maw, and chew from sun up ’til sundown until he adsorbs at least enough nutrients to remain conscious, albeit a non-the-less hellish consciousness in spite of the fact. He uses his molars to pulverize the plant one slow inch at a time letting the water from the roots turn on his saliva glands full-blast until the whole of his mouth is filled with enzyme-rich fluid, tiny pulls of which he can periodically swallow throughout the day. Saliva is digestive fluid after all, and one’s mouth is potentially the first of two stomachs available to a human. If you wanna eat raw wheat grass, however, I’d recommend you soak it in water and then put it in a Ninja or a Bullet or some shit like that…turn it into smoothy town madness, ‘cause the aforementioned method of the slave will not leave your mouth with much room for conversation. And actually, speaking of soaking plants in water, an even better way to make unpalatable shit malleable and digestible is through fermentation! Just sayin… Let lil tiny microbes digest your food for you, and THEN eat it ;) The beautiful benefit of breaking plants down before you swallow them is in the deconstruction of the greater molecular matrix freeing minerals, vitamins, proteins, and amino acids which would otherwise pass through your system unabsorbed, and you would simply poop them out. The miracle of fermentation is in the bacteria who participate proficiently in this dismantling process, if cultivated with enough care, better than your own bile (which is teeming with bacteria BTWz). Furthermore, by introducing your system to these “pet” bacterias, your own bacteria will evolve and you will inevitably develop the capability to digest things, which before this integration you could not. Those with gluten allergies, for instance, will soon be able to deconstruct glutens, which are merely elastic molecular matrices that hold three-dimensional forms in order to house nutrients. The implications are revolutionary, and the research is fulfilling and enjoyable. I would encourage you to go learn more about the magic of things like sauerkraut, kimchi, water kefir, sourdough, vinegar, and the list goes on!