Kava Fact of the Day Iron in kava.

[The Kap'n]

Iron content of Kava.

Today’s fact of the day will be dealing with the content of kava not necessarily related to kavalactones. I’ve seen a few posts recently regarding the iron content of kavas, and this could possibly shed some light on the situation. Kava, as a natural product, contains an array of minerals and other compounds we see in plant material. Dried kava was found to have 43% starch, 20% fiber, 12% water, 3.2% sugars, 3.6% proteins, 3.2% minerals with between 3% and 20% kavalactones by weight [1].

In figure 7.1 above you can see the breakdown of the constituents of kava. I would like to focus our attention on the minerals column, and specifically iron [1]. Iron is an extremely important mineral in the life cycle of plants. Plants utilize iron in the creation of chlorophyll and is essential for the maintenance of chloroplast structure and function [2]. Given iron’s functional role in plant life, it would make sense that we also see it in our prepared kavas. Several kava drinkers have brought up issues of finding what looks like iron filings in their kavas after preparation and settling. The jury is still out on it’s source, however I propose here that one possible source is the kava itself. Going back to the table above we see that the iron content in kava was found to be .106%. This comes out to somewhere around 10.6mg 106mg per 100g of kava (thank you, Shulgin46 from reddit for the correction). If we look through research about iron fortification in common food items, we find that we can see an elemental iron amount as high as 14mg per 100g of standard breakfast cereals available on the US market [3]. An experiment was formulated to visually identify the iron in these cereals by simply crushing the flakes, spreading them over a surface, and running a magnet under it to see what is collected [4]. It was found that elemental metallic iron would be pulled out by the magnet to an extent that it was identifiable by vision alone. It’s important to understand that metallic iron, while it seems like something you wouldn’t want to eat, is actually around 13% bioavailable for absorption into the body [3], and used quite commonly to fortify foods. Another source could be due to the hammer action of the hammer mills when grinding the kava, however if this amount of iron were to be in every batch of kava from the mill, they would be replacing the hammers after every batch because they would become ineffective quickly if they were shedding that much mass in iron. Blades are normally changed once per year. It looks, based on research, that the wear of hardened steel blades wouldn't necessarily even account for that much iron in kava [5].

In summary, while we can be confident that the black sediment at the bottom of the kava bowl is likely iron, the jury is still out on it’s source. The amount of iron present is not harmful, and seems to roughly be the amount found in fortified cereals about 10 times what is found breakfast cereals. I propose here that kava itself is the source, however more testing and observation is necessary to elucidate the confirmed source of this metallic iron.


[1] Klaus Dragull Jim Henderson Mel C. Jackson Ed Johnston Jerry Konanui G. David Lin Kepā Maly Scot Nelson Jeri Ooka Tom Osborn Helen Rogers Chung-Shih Tang. 2006. Hawaiian ‘Awa Views of an Ethnobotanical Treasure. Edited by Ed Johnston and Helen Rogers. Association for Hawaiian ‘Awa.
https://gourmethawaiiankava.com/hawaiian-awa-views-of-an-ethnobotanical-treasure

[2] Rout, Gyana R., and Sunita Sahoo. 2015. “ROLE OF IRON IN PLANT GROWTH AND METABOLISM.” Reviews in Agricultural Science 3: 1–24.
https://doi.org/10.7831/ras.3.1.

[3] Lermyte, Frederik, Wen-Ying Zhang, Jake Brooks, Steven Huband, Joanna F. Collingwood, Martin R. Lees, Margaret P. Rayman, and Peter J. Sadler. 2020. “Metallic Iron in Cornflakes.” Food & Function 11 (4): 2938–42.
https://doi.org/10.1039/c9fo02370d.

[4] Maynard, J., & Jacobsen, E. K. (2004). Iron in Breakfast Cereal. Demonstrations for National Chemistry Week 2004. Journal of Chemical Education, 81(11), 1544. doi:10.1021/ed081p1544
https://sci-hub.st/10.1021/ed081p1544

[5] Roy, Sougata, Kyungjun Lee, Jeffrey A. Lacey, Vicki S. Thompson, James R. Keiser, and Jun Qu. 2020. “Material Characterization-Based Wear Mechanism Investigation for Biomass Hammer Mills.” ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 8 (9): 3541–46.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b06450.

 

[Alia]

Iron content of Kava.

Today’s fact of the day will be dealing with the content of kava not necessarily related to kavalactones. I’ve seen a few posts recently regarding the iron content of kavas, and this could possibly shed some light on the situation. Kava, as a natural product, contains an array of minerals and other compounds we see in plant material. Dried kava was found to have 43% starch, 20% fiber, 12% water, 3.2% sugars, 3.6% proteins, 3.2% minerals with between 3% and 20% kavalactones by weight [1].

In figure 7.1 above you can see the breakdown of the constituents of kava. I would like to focus our attention on the minerals column, and specifically iron [1]. Iron is an extremely important mineral in the life cycle of plants. Plants utilize iron in the creation of chlorophyll and is essential for the maintenance of chloroplast structure and function [2]. Given iron’s functional role in plant life, it would make sense that we also see it in our prepared kavas. Several kava drinkers have brought up issues of finding what looks like iron filings in their kavas after preparation and settling. The jury is still out on it’s source, however I propose here that one possible source is the kava itself. Going back to the table above we see that the iron content in kava was found to be .106%. This comes out to somewhere around 10.6mg per 100g of kava. If we look through research about iron fortification in common food items, we find that we can see an elemental iron amount as high as 14mg per 100g of standard breakfast cereals available on the US market [3]. An experiment was formulated to visually identify the iron in these cereals by simply crushing the flakes, spreading them over a surface, and running a magnet under it to see what is collected [4]. It was found that elemental metallic iron would be pulled out by the magnet to an extent that it was identifiable by vision alone. It’s important to understand that metallic iron, while it seems like something you wouldn’t want to eat, is actually around 13% bioavailable for absorption into the body [3], and used quite commonly to fortify foods. Another source could be due to the hammer action of the hammer mills when grinding the kava, however if this amount of iron were to be in every batch of kava from the mill, they would be replacing the hammers after every batch because they would become ineffective quickly if they were shedding that much mass in iron. Blades are normally changed once per year. It looks, based on research, that the wear of hardened steel blades wouldn't necessarily even account for that much iron in kava [5].

In summary, while we can be confident that the black sediment at the bottom of the kava bowl is likely iron, the jury is still out on it’s source. The amount of iron present is not harmful, and seems to roughly match the amount found in fortified breakfast cereals. I propose here that kava itself is the source, however more testing and observation is necessary to elucidate the confirmed source of this metallic iron.


[1] Klaus Dragull Jim Henderson Mel C. Jackson Ed Johnston Jerry Konanui G. David Lin Kepā Maly Scot Nelson Jeri Ooka Tom Osborn Helen Rogers Chung-Shih Tang. 2006. Hawaiian ‘Awa Views of an Ethnobotanical Treasure. Edited by Ed Johnston and Helen Rogers. Association for Hawaiian ‘Awa.
https://gourmethawaiiankava.com/hawaiian-awa-views-of-an-ethnobotanical-treasure

[2] Rout, Gyana R., and Sunita Sahoo. 2015. “ROLE OF IRON IN PLANT GROWTH AND METABOLISM.” Reviews in Agricultural Science 3: 1–24.
https://doi.org/10.7831/ras.3.1.

[3] Lermyte, Frederik, Wen-Ying Zhang, Jake Brooks, Steven Huband, Joanna F. Collingwood, Martin R. Lees, Margaret P. Rayman, and Peter J. Sadler. 2020. “Metallic Iron in Cornflakes.” Food & Function 11 (4): 2938–42.
https://doi.org/10.1039/c9fo02370d.

[4] Maynard, J., & Jacobsen, E. K. (2004). Iron in Breakfast Cereal. Demonstrations for National Chemistry Week 2004. Journal of Chemical Education, 81(11), 1544. doi:10.1021/ed081p1544
https://sci-hub.st/10.1021/ed081p1544

[5] Roy, Sougata, Kyungjun Lee, Jeffrey A. Lacey, Vicki S. Thompson, James R. Keiser, and Jun Qu. 2020. “Material Characterization-Based Wear Mechanism Investigation for Biomass Hammer Mills.” ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 8 (9): 3541–46.
https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.9b06450.

I wish more research papers focused on the nutritional content as opposed to always just kavalactones.
There is also a good bit of cinnamic acid in kava beverage.
Here I cut and paste an analysis done a few years ago on a cup of fresh Borogu beverage (note the potassium):

 

[kavakarma]

Thank you. Interesting! Now I want to take a photo of the bottom of a shell of my kava, I often see a lot of sediment and minerals. I am glad you are doing the facts of the day.

One thing I had not considered (thanks Henry,) is the possibility of machine grinders leaving bits of metal in kava. I have heard of stone ground kava being advertised before.

I would like to learn more about the proteins and amino acids found in kava. How do they compare to the amount of proteins found in a wildcaught fish, or a protein powder?

@Alia 533mg potassium for one shell seems like a lot. That's about as much as a whole potato offers. Do you know of any risks associated with eating more than one or two grams of potassium in a day?

 

[The Kap'n]

I wish more research papers focused on the nutritional content as opposed to always just kavalactones.
There is also a good bit of cinnamic acid in kava beverage.
Here I cut and paste an analysis done a few years ago on a cup of fresh Borogu beverage (note the potassium):


View attachment 11904

Had a person ask for this exact information maybe 10 minutes before you posted. He was searching for caloric amounts. Thank you!

 

[Alia]

Thank you. Interesting! Now I want to take a photo of the bottom of a shell of my kava, I often see a lot of sediment and minerals. I am glad you are doing the facts of the day.

One thing I had not considered (thanks Henry,) is the possibility of machine grinders leaving bits of metal in kava. I have heard of stone ground kava being advertised before.

I would like to learn more about the proteins and amino acids found in kava. How do they compare to the amount of proteins found in a wildcaught fish, or a protein powder?

@Alia 533mg potassium for one shell seems like a lot. That's about as much as a whole potato offers. Do you know of any risks associated with eating more than one or two grams of potassium in a day?

I do know that the individual who had this analysis done was a very intelligent person with extremely high "Kava IQ".
He was impressed with the potassium content also.
My understanding is that the nutrition found in foods like kava beverage are quite bio-available to our bodies and a little goes a long way
as opposed to supplements. I do not know much more than that but can you OD on potassium? Like getting too much Vitamin A...I don't know.

 

[kavakarma]

Potassium helps roots share nutrients underground, it also is essential in developing starch and protein. Potassium by itself reacts with water in a way that generates heat and flares. I'm sure in natural sources there are buffers which prevent this reaction or utilize it in a constructive way.

 

[Alia]

Potassium helps roots share nutrients underground, it also is essential in developing starch and protein. Potassium by itself reacts with water in a way that generates heat and flares. I'm sure in natural sources there are buffers which prevent this reaction or utilize it in a constructive way.

One of the reasons this "Fact of the Day" is so important is that it shifts focus of kava beverage to a broader perspective, a nutritious drink .
You rightly point out the value of nutrients to the kava plant! I was stuck on the value of these nutrients to the people who
consume the kava beverage. You reminded me of yet another broader perspective!

 

[The Kap'n]

Made a boo-boo there and transposed decimal places. Luckily this one didn't bring down the internet, but it does mean there is quite a bit MORE iron in kava than previously noted in my fact.

A user on reddit (Shulgin46) pointed out that my calculations were good other than my decimal place was one off. Turns out kava has around 106mg/g of iron, so this is looking even more probable as the source.

 

[Crunked]

Does this mean there are 5,338 mg (5.38g) of potassium in a cup of kava or was the decimal place only out for the iron component?

 

[The Kap'n]

Does this mean there are 5,338 mg (5.38g) of potassium in a cup of kava or was the decimal place only out for the iron component?

Nah, that was just my calculations where I said "10.6mg/g". It should have been 106mg/g for iron. All the figures up there are correct in the pictures, but I managed to mangle the simple multiplication.

 

[nabanga]

I wonder if kava somehow has an effect on absorption of iron and minerals in general. In the 90's when I first lived in Vanuatu I was drinking large amounts of kava for about 6 hours every night for several years. A guy where I worked was very sick in hospital and the whole department went down to test blood type & give blood for him. Mine was sampled and the doctor told me it was deficient in most minerals and especially low in iron - so could not be given to the patient. I was eating plenty fish & green veg at the time but was still very anaemic.

 

[TheKavaSociety]

I wonder if kava somehow has an effect on absorption of iron and minerals in general. In the 90's when I first lived in Vanuatu I was drinking large amounts of kava for about 6 hours every night for several years. A guy where I worked was very sick in hospital and the whole department went down to test blood type & give blood for him. Mine was sampled and the doctor told me it was deficient in most minerals and especially low in iron - so could not be given to the patient. I was eating plenty fish & green veg at the time but was still very anaemic.

Very interesting!
PErhaps local soil might have been deficient in specific minerals? A bit like our NZ story with boron.. Some seemingly super fertile soils can still lack certain vital minerals.
Though I suspect it's also possible you just weren't eating enough haha considering how much of appetite killer kava can be.

 

[Crunked]

Yes @nabanga, very interesting. Would you describe your diet of red meat at the time as low? Your results must have come as a surprise.