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Probably the strangest question ever asked....

SystemSystem Raw Newbie

Can we, as humans, eat plain ol' lawn grass? I mean, I'm sure it doesn't taste so great but in my opinion, either does spinach. Just curious :)

Comments

  • joannabananajoannabanana Raw Newbie

    you know, my grandmother does. i used to think it was so weird that she would come in from the garden with flowers and grass and just it eat. i'm totally serious, too. we've always said she eats rabbit food. she's probably one of the healthiest people i know, too (and most youthful grandmas). people ask if she's my mother and she's 70 years old.

  • eechoeecho Raw Newbie

    Human beings can't eat every type of raw food. For instance, raw legumes are toxic to us. Regarding plants, we can't digest every type of plants. Animals like cows have stomaches with multiple compartments to digest their food a certain way. A good way to know if a certain type of plant is "edible", i.e. part of the human diet, is 1) if it is palatable, 2) if you can chew it (properly)

    I've never tried grass, but I would guess that humans can't digest it. I don't think we could chew it up properly (to a liquid) either. Experiment I guess. As far as spinach goes, it might not taste good to you but I am sure there are other greens that do taste good to you. Taste is not the only indicator of a good food.

  • JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

    I wonder what the big difference is between lawn grass and wheat grass used for juicing. Growing wheat grass seems like a huge pain in the butt. Now what if you could just pick some grass from your lawn everday and juice that!? (I agree that eating lawn grass might not be easy to digest but what about juicing it??)

  • waterbaby12347waterbaby12347 Raw Newbie

    It's the stringy fibers in the grass that we can't chew or digest... But you can juice it without problems... Hope this helps... smile

  • I remember hearing that if you don't have an appendix then you can't digest grass. I am not sure why or if this means that you can if you do have one, lol. Hmmm.....

  • The reason I ask is because the greens I have access to are very limited and I can't get large quantities of anything so green smoothies - especially daily ones - are out of the question. I feel like my body could benefit from more greens and I live in the african savannah - there is so much unsprayed, "organic" grass out there it's not even funny! I was curious whether or not I could use some to make green smoothies without killing myself or making myself seriously ill... hMmMm... I'll let you know if I try it! :D

  • JoyceHJoyceH Raw Newbie

    What about just juicing the grass? Start out with just a tiny bit and see how you do?

  • Check out this link about edible grasses:

    http://www.pfaf.org/leaflets/ediblawn.php

  • I think lawn grass is a hybrid which should exclude it for humans right there.

  • Wouldn't recommend it. Grass contains sharp silicates, which would wear your teeth right down if you ate it regularly. Look at a horse - their teeth grow non-stop out of sheer necessity! I don't think our digestive systems are able to properly cope with that amount of fibre either. But provided a lawn isn't pure monoculture (eugh), there are several edible plants likely to be growing in it like (in this part of the world) dandelion, plantain and wild rocket.

  • You should be careful about eating just any gras- there are some fungus growth on grasses that can be deadly to humans- its rare tho.

    About growing wheat grass- its so easy! Jusst soak- rinse and its up in a few days!

    Thanks for the edible lawn link- very interesting

  • Ann Wigmore tells her life story (annwigmore.com/index.php/dr-ann-autobiography.htm) and the following is an excerpt from it where she eats grass and heals from a terrible accident where her legs were injured.

    " God will always send someone to help if you just pray and call out. It was my alcoholic uncle who answered my call and helped me through these trying times. He placed me underneath a tree in an area where there was grass, and I kept chewing the grass and weeds like dandelion, purslane and lambsquarter. I wanted some water, but no one would come near me because my father said I was in that condition because I had disobeyed him. It was months before I could even walk with my crushed legs, but they healed."

    Of course we don't know how much and what kind of grass, but it certainly did her some good!!

  • germin8germin8 Raw Master

    I knew an older couple that (when they left Germany during the ware) they didn't have much to eat... so they ate grass soup. Although, I never asked which grass...

  • ambiguousambiguous Raw Newbie

    Deadly Steve is right--lawn grass will wear down your teeth, and chances are there are more nutritious wild greens out there. Plus gasoline lawnmowers emit lots of toxic fumes (more than cars, actually), and there's likely to be residue on the grass.

  • I know that living in the African bush means things in my yard are edible but I also know there are things in my yard that would kill me in a heartbeat (I have a cactus-looking candelabra that oozes skin-burning toxic latex!)... the problem is differentiating between what is edible and what isn't without being rushed to hospital :)

  • RawEverythingRawEverything Raw Newbie

    8), I thought also about this there is plenty of grass every where and there is no real difference between grass and greens but recently I noticed (this week 8) ) that digesting of greens is really hard. Better it barely digest at all, grass (and greens) have very long cellulose structures it can't be broken down by humans you need more stomach's (or as a colleague said cook it). Strange I must think about this some more.

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