Why Can We Eat Salad But Not Grass?

Have you ever wondered why you can eat salad but not grass? Well, both are leafy. Both are green. And yet, it is annoyingly so that we can eat spinach, lettuce and kale, but when it comes to grass, why is our reaction *sputtering* *nausea* and *never again*?

#1 CELLULOSE

Every living thing around you is made of cells – some might be single-celled (unicellular) and some like you are made of millions of cells (multicellular). Grass too is made of cells. Even though one blade of grass is not even as thick as your fingernail, that too is made of cells with numbers ranging in their millions. Plant cells have a layer of cellulose surrounding them. Our bodies manufacture enzymes to break down substances we eat to make them small enough to be digested. Cellulose however cannot be broken down, because our bodies don’t make its enzyme.

Salads like spinach and lettuce contain wayyyy less cellulose as compared to grass and wayyyy more nutrients. Our digestive systems aren’t designed to extract nutrients from grass and so eating it would be harmful to our bodies.

#2 THE HARMFUL STUFF

Imagine a lawn of grass. It’s had:

-          pesticides (kill pests)

-          insecticides (kill insects)

-          herbicides (kill weeds)

-          chemicals

-          parasites

-          bacteria

Now imagine all that going into your body. Forget that, imagine putting something like that into your mouth. Ew.

These harmful substances cause you to have digestive issues.

But doesn’t salad also have all of this? Well, yes, there can be bacteria on them as well, but they undergo a cultivation process to make them safe for humans and you usually wash the leaves before consumption. Plus, our body is adapted to digest it. It’s a win-win.

#3 SILICA

Furthermore, grass also contains a lot of silica (a major component of sand), which is harsh to human teeth.

But how can animals graze them?

Animals have specialized bacteria and enzymes in their digestive system to break down cellulose and extract nutrients. With teeth that can re-coat their surfaces continuously, silica has no effect on them.

THE CONCLUSION

Salad is great for health, but grass is not. While some types of grass are consumable, the rest are a big no! Unless you want to roleplay a cow, don’t eat grass – you’ll just end up messing with your digestive system.