Ann Wigmore
Wheatgrass Pioneer—Living Food Educator
by Loretta Harmony Kohn

Ann Wigmore was born March 4, 1909 in Lithuania. She died in a fire in her home the 16th of February 1994. This great lady probably did more than any other person in recent history to educate people about the healing benefits of wheatgrass and a living food diet. [a diet of raw sprouts, fruits and vegetables, and sprouted nuts, seeds, and grains.]

I called Ann Wigmore “Doctor” in respect to her pioneering quest to help both herself and others. She dedicated her life to helping others. Her holistic manner of teaching is much too advanced for the medical profession. Only those who saw beyond the rough exterior of an immigrant forging her way through the snakepit of advancing disease and decay of the American way of life can attest to her truths.

Dr. Ann always professed that deficiency and toxemia are the causes of all disease. Cleanse the body and it will heal itself. She has given me more opportunity for survival and self-improvement than any one in my life. Her faith in God and people has strengthened my own religion.

Working at the former Hippocrates Institute, and the Ann Wigmore Foundation in Boston: plus her research center in Puerto Rico have been very awesome.

When I was at her institute working for her voluntary or not, I was a different person. I must admit being alone is not as easy as being with a group of people keeping the same healthful life-style. The greatest achievement would be to have a support group nationwide. I’ve had this dream since I first visited her school in the 70’s.

Personally I feel we as a nation cannot afford to discount the importance of yesteryear when (before the 40’s) we were a healthier people. Food was real then. The additives, preservatives, dyes, and drug therapies were not in existence compared to the 90’s. Life had more meaning and purpose. We expected a lot, respected work; and cared about our country, our families, and most of all our God. I’m sorry to see what is happening today. I’m grateful to the holistic field of natural medicine that has saved me from destruction. Doctors have their special place and I respect them, but they don’t have to live our individual lives. What we get from people like Ann Wigmore is what we want from life. All she wanted was to get people back to the basics. I am eternally grateful!

I went to Ann’s institute in Boston in 1977. I was overweight, emotionally stressed, hypoglycemic, and was on Dilatin for epilepsy.

I spent two weeks on her wheatgrass, living food program (she taught sprouting, raising, growing, and composting your own food. Anything that was bought was organic.  Wheatgrass and living food constituted the therapy. Wheatgrass cleanses the body by eliminating toxins, and wheatgrass plus the other living foods in the diet rebuild it.

I took to her wheatgrass and living food diet and felt well enough to stay on as an employee. I was there six months and witnessed in addition to my own healing: crippling arthritics live normal lives; diabetics able to give up insulin shots and have a pleasing diet, cancer and tumors shrink from every part of the body; lupus symptoms and burn scars disappear; skin disorders heal; heart and lungs pump with health; emotional stresses flee; chronic fatigue fade, intestines that assimilate and eliminate the way they were intended to.

In a recent John Hopkins study, 95 percent of 200 arthritis patients found almost complete relief after taking two ounces of wheatgrass juice a day for three weeks. I can attest to this fact when witnessing a crippled lady unable to climb stairs do so in three weeks on wheatgrass juice and living food. A recent publication called Scientific Appraisal of Dr. Ann Wigmore’s Living Food Lifestyle is a book all should read who have doubts about her lifestyle and why it saves lives.

In my own healing, my body has cleansed from toxins, I became emotionally sound, drug free, had more energy, felt more self worth, lost weight and returned home to live a more fulfilling life.

I became a health practitioner after receiving a diploma from Dr. Ann, I would say: May the fire that took your life burn in the hearts of all the people whom you touched. I love you.