From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg
Subject: Re: Wheat Grass Juice and Leaf Protein
Date: 1 Oct 92 19:12:02 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

bj368@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mike E. Romano) wrote:
> I am doing a writing project on wheat grass juice and something called leaf
> protein which was discussed more in the 1960's I believe, in England as a
> way to feed the Third World.

I think this might have been one of Norman Pirie's bright ideas.  His book
"Food Resources: Conventional and Novel" might be one place to look (it's
a long time since I read it and I don't have it handy).


> Wheat grass juice, which I drink regularly, has an undeniable energy gain
> feel from it.  I am looking for information on the vitamin and other
> nutrient analysis of it.  I do not think the U.S. publications include it
> in vitamin composition, since I have looked recently.

Pure guesswork, but I would worry about the phytate levels of this stuff.
It seems unlikely that any grass is going to work as a human food supply;
every famine throws up accounts of families found dead of hunger with a
potful of boiled grass on the hearth.  Piero Camporesi's "Bread of Dreams"
goves a few.  He also describes people trying to live off doveshit, which
is probably more nutritious.


> Leaf protein as described in one old clipping I have is to take a
> nutritional green such as spinach leaf and cook, strain, and extract
> the juices to form a sort of green jello which is supposed to be very
> high in protein and other nutrients, after discarding the cellulose, etc.

Which sounds like a ridiculous energy expenditure for the nutrition you get
out of it; far more than any Third World community could afford.  A recipe
for spending all your available income on oil or for deforesting your
neighbourhood for firewood.


> I am also studying the blue green algaes and how to grow them for Third
> World use, etc.

These things taste disgusting and have a totally unacceptable level of
purines for a human food.

This whole line of thought is one even the World Bank is now ashamed of.
It starts from the patronizingly racist position that Third Worlders don't
have a clue how to feed themselves.  What Western researchers have finally
been forced to concede is that they usually have a damn good idea of how to
get the most out of their environment; naive scientism usually produces
agricultural techniques that are non-sustainable, energy-intensive to the
point of ruinous dependence on oil imports, drought- and flood-prone, or
all those at once.

What Third World farmers are lacking isn't *knowledge*, it's *power*.  If
you're up against a land ownership system that hands over all the best soil
for extractive use growing cash crops for rich Americans, get your water
supply confiscated in the interests of agribiz, and get half what you do
manage to produce stolen by a debt-bonding landlord, it's not surprising if
you have problems growing enough to eat.

-- 
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