Kava Nutrition

[HeadHodge]

Hi,

I've been trying to use Kava as a substitute for Alcohol consumption. For the most part I've been using a combo of instant (i.e. N@K Shaman and BKH Instant) and extracts from Paradise Kava.

Recently I've bought some N@K Stone and BKH Boroguru (1 lb bags). To prepare my Kava, I'm using a blender with 4 tablespoons Kava per 4 cups of water.

I'm generally happy with the results of using the ground Kava root, but I get an uncomfortable side effect of stomach gas.

I tried looking into the reason for this and the best I can figure is that Kava might have a lot of Carbs in it. I'm on a low carb diet (to control blood sugar) and I'm worried that it might not be such a good idea to continue using Kava, for dietary reasons.

I've looked around quite a bit and can't really find much info about the nutritional components of Kava.

Does anyone have any insight as to how many calories and carbs I'm consuming with my 4 tablespoons of Kava? Also, does anyone have any idea if there would be less caloric and carb intake per Kavalactones if I just stuck to using the instants and extracts (like I've been doing for the past year or so)? Does straining the root and tossing the solids help remove the nutrients from the brew (i.e. do the carbs and calaories stay in the solids or is it mostly transferred to the liquid)?

To make my Kava prep taste better I was using Splenda for sweetner and a Banana for flavor. But the banana made the gas even worse, plus I found out an average banana has over 25g of carbs So I'm still using the Splenda but quit using the banana.

There's a lot of discussion on the safety of Kava but little on the nutritional components of it. So any insight on Kava nutrition would be much appreciated.

 

[yepimonfire]

Large amounts of glutathione, also it probably contains trace amounts of carbs considering roots are starchy, don't think you need to worry about it. I've been dieting down and still drinking kava with no effect on weightloss. Also stop using a blender, it's bound to get more of the starch out of the kava, every time I've used it I end up with a thicker starchier liquid. It's also bound to cause more GI upset in my experience.


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[sɥɐʞɐs]

you can also drastically reduce the amount of water you use for only 4 Tablespoons of kava. Having 4 cups of water sloshing around your belly probably adds to bloating and discomfort.

 

[HeadHodge]

.... Also stop using a blender, it's bound to get more of the starch out of the kava, every time I've used it I end up with a thicker starchier liquid. .....

Thanks for the reply. You're right the resulting brew is fairly thick. I'm also using warm water too (4 cups of water in microwave for 3 minutes. Hot but not boiling.) So I'll try without using the blender and see how that goes (good idea).

 

[yepimonfire]

Just a tip for everyone....blenders also increase dermopathy potential drastically in my experience. Try also using cool water, a lot less gross and only a minor difference in potency.

Also hope you're straining it too. Just making sure lol.


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[infraredz]

According to Wikipedia,
Dried root contains approximately 43% starch, 20% dietary fiber, 15% kavalactones,[5] 12% water, 3.2% sugars, 3.6% protein, and 3.2% minerals

 

[kavadude]

Fwiw I've lost a lot of weight since swapping out alcohol for kava. I don't know the calorie content but I'm guessing negligible. Digestive upset is fairly common particularly if you are getting a lot of fine powder in your drink, I doubt it is carbs. Try changing up your prep like the other guys suggested.

 

[violet]

@HeadHodge I eat a very low carb diet and I have found that whatever carbs I might be ingesting from the kava are negligible, I've never gotten a blood sugar spike when drinking kava, which leads me to believe no digestible carbs. Eating LC has made me very insulin sensitive, so even small amounts of carb give me pretty significant blood glucose shifts.

Are you straining the kava before you drink it? When I first started drinking kava (Boroguru) I got lots of gastric effects in the beginning, but they stopped happening after a little bit.

ETA: also have you tried drinking your kava unsweetened? I started with sweetening mine the first few times, but discovered that sweetening also made it taste more foul. I add some heavy whipping cream or half and half to my brew, it mellows and mutes the worst of it, makes it go down much smoother.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

http://www.awadevelopment.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/awabook-web-part-2-of-2.pdf <---skip to chapter 7 and look at table 7.1 ...might not be what you're looking for, but, it's a pretty detailed breakdown nonetheless

 

[HeadHodge]

...Also hope you're straining it too. Just making sure lol...

Oh yea, forgot to say, after blending, I strain with a nylon bag I bought from N@K. I bought a muslim bag from BKH too, but it takes significantly longer to squeeze the water out of it than the nylon bag. So I've been using the nylon. Don't know which is better for end results.

 

[HeadHodge]

According to Wikipedia,
Dried root contains approximately 43% starch, 20% dietary fiber, 15% kavalactones,[5] 12% water, 3.2% sugars, 3.6% protein, and 3.2% minerals

Someone used those numbers from another forum to come up with (for a 100g of Kava):

43 grams starch
3.2 grams sugar
= 46.2 grams of carbs

3.6 grams protein
20 grams fiber
15 grams kavalactones

From: hxxp://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=135844#ixzz2rwA1LH5K

[EDIT- We shouldn't link to forums such as this. If linking to a "druggy" website, try firstly by avoiding it if all possible.
If you feel it's relevant, then"break" the link by putting "xx" instead of "tt" [http vs hxxp] then, users can create a unique visit so the traffic isn't traced back to us.]

I hope "violets" previous post here is right about the carbs being negligible and the guy from this quote is wrong, because for a low carb diet 46g of carbs is an awful lot. I don't know if that's a valid way to compute carbs or not.

BTW Thanks for all the feedback from everyone!!!

 

[infraredz]

The problem is that most of those carbohydrates (including the fiber) are insoluble in water and therefore one would not see numbers that high in a bowl of traditionally prepared kava.

 

[yepimonfire]

Yup, and you're also not getting 15g of kavalactones, you'd be completely hammered beyond comprehension.


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[HeadHodge]

Yup, and you're also not getting 15g of kavalactones, you'd be completely hammered beyond comprehension.

All I know is that if I did have to consume 46g of Carbs, I definitely would want my 15g of kavalactones for it!!

 

[Crunked]

The questions that jump out at me is how much of this starch makes it past the strainer and of the starch that does escape, how much is resistant starch that is not absorbed?
http://www.kavaforums.com/forum/threads/wow-super-good-extraction.1835/page-4#post-19001

 

[HeadHodge]

I was cruising a nutrition blog and came upon this post regarding resistant starch (RS) which is getting a lot of good publicity. It occurred to me that maybe the reason you are not getting a spike from the kava starch is because it is resistant starch and just passes thru. That would be a win-win because RS is supposed to be good for gut bacteria. Another reason to be a kava addict.

A quote from your link: "Resistant Starches May Help You Lose Weight by Improving Satiety"

I've read in several other places that using Kava is an appetite suppressant. Don't know if that's true, but if it is, RS may provide a possible explanation for it. Which would provide further evidence that the Kava contains some RS type starch.

I'm really interested in trying the boiling method for preparing Kava, but now wonder how cooking it would affect the starch. For example cooking a potato or letting a banana get ripe changes the properties of the starch from RS to some other type. That would kinda of rain on my parade, if that's true for cooking Kava.

(Moved per request) - Kapm

 

[violet]

I'm really interested in trying the boiling method for preparing Kava, but now wonder how cooking it would affect the starch. For example cooking a potato or letting a banana get ripe changes the properties of the starch from RS to some other type. That would kinda of rain on my parade, if that's true for cooking Kava.

A couple of us have taken multiple blood glucose readings after and before consuming kava prepared by the boiling method, and we saw no appreciable fluctuations in the measurements. This gives me cause to believe that although the boiling method may break down more starches in the root, what starches, if any, end up in the grog, are not digestible.

The only way to know how your own body reacts to kava would be to take a fasting blood glucose measurement before drinking and a series of them afterwards to monitor for any spikes. If you mix your kava with fruit or artificial sweeteners this will cause readings that don't accurately reflect the effects of the kava. Also keep in mind that excess amounts of protein earlier in the day can keep fasting levels elevated or cause slow spikes hours later, especially in the presence of insulin resistance or diabetes.

 

[HeadHodge]

A couple of us have taken multiple blood glucose readings after and before consuming kava prepared by the boiling method, and we saw no appreciable fluctuations in the measurements. This gives me cause to believe that although the boiling method may break down more starches in the root, what starches, if any, end up in the grog, are not digestible.......

That's great (and encouraging) info. Thanks!!

It seems though that there is still little available on the nutritional stats for the various forms of Kava we ingest (i.e. traditional prep, extracts, instants, etc.). It's even spotty what's available in the Kavalactone stats too.

So I guess in lieu of that info, we could try to draw conclusions obtained from empirical evidence (like @violet's glucose readings).

I would be interested in whether people were losing or gaining weight when using Kava (among other things) It would possibly help to determine whether Kava had a detrimental or positive effect on dieting.

For example, I've been using Kava extracts and instants on and off for about a year now. Lately I've stopped drinking alcohol for a couple of months now and have been using Kava exclusively. I've since lost 3" off my waistline. But then about a week or so ago I started consuming Kava root powder and I've gained 1/2" on my waist. It's totally unscientific but it just seems that the root powder is aiding in weight gain (for whatever reason).

I read that Kava could be an appetite suppressant and there are other posts that indicate they have lost weight from Kava. I would be interested in knowing what dietary effects everyone else is having based on their experience with using Kava.

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

I would be interested in whether people were losing or gaining weight when using Kava (among other things) It would possibly help to determine whether Kava had a detrimental or positive effect on dieting.

For example, I've been using Kava extracts and instants on and off for about a year now. Lately I've stopped drinking alcohol for a couple of months now and have been using Kava exclusively. I've since lost 3" off my waistline. But then about a week or so ago I started consuming Kava root powder and I've gained 1/2" on my waist. It's totally unscientific but it just seems that the root powder is aiding in weight gain (for whatever reason).

I read that Kava could be an appetite suppressant and there are other posts that indicate they have lost weight from Kava. I would be interested in knowing what dietary effects everyone else is having based on their experience with using Kava.

Kava is absolutely an appetite suppressant, some strains more than others. It also has so few calories, that you would not gain weight from drinking it like you would with drinking alcohol regularly. The combination of the daily ritual; not eating after lunch and only being capable of eating a very small dinner after kava -- along with cessation of alcohol consumption and low calories in kava, naturally takes weight off you. I suppose if you ate incredibly ridiculously for breakfast and lunch you could still pack on pounds with kava...but it seems to me like it would really take some effort.
I used to only drink kava occasionally, but, this past year I started drinking it full-time and I lost almost 15 lbs without trying. Now I hover around 'my high-school weight'.

 

[kavadude]

Kava is absolutely an appetite suppressant, some strains more than others. It also has so few calories, that you would not gain weight from drinking it like you would with drinking alcohol regularly. The combination of the daily ritual; not eating after lunch and only being capable of eating a very small dinner after kava -- along with cessation of alcohol consumption and low calories in kava, naturally takes weight off you.

This is basically spot on in my experience. I don't even know if its an appetite suppressant so much as I don't want to eat a very large or greasy, unhealthy type of meal after drinking kava because I know it'll upset my stomach.

I've lost around 20 lbs since I started drinking kava instead of alcohol for the most part. Lose weight with this 1 weird trick discovered by Pacific Islanders...