Those wheatgrass shots that are popular today have a long (and kind of dark) history. In 1956, Ann Wigmore founded the Hippocrates Health Institute, and Refinery 29 says it earned itself a bit of notoriety in 2015 when an 11-year-old girl died following their grass- and enema-based treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia. T
he clinic’s foundation was built on Wigmore’s steadfast belief that not only were raw foods the best, but that they could cure disease. Especially effective? Eating wheatgrass.
The Lithuanian-born Wigmore helped her grandmother treat the injured during World War I, and it was then she started developing the idea that eating grass was the best thing you could do for your body. That idea was cemented when - she says - she healed two broken, gangrenous legs by eating grass, and once she started preaching that grass and weeds were the manna described in the Bible, she kicked off the trend of adding grass to not just diets but medical treatments.
Calling herself Reverend Ann Wigmore, she started down the road of insane claims and less insane lawsuits, swearing grass could do everything from relieving arthritis to curing cancer and AIDS. It can’t, but when she died in 1994, she left behind a mansion and a fortune. That says something.
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