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Rookietwoshoes
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Rookietwoshoes
I've used herbal tinctures in the past and I like them because they work quickly, but have never used one for kava . I was actually looking into this product given the good reviews but hesitated to purchase it because I started reading all the news about tinctures being the culprit in the liver failure cases. Basically, is this tincture pretty much unsafe as well despite kava standards being improved?
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Rookietwoshoes
@Deleted User - that concentrate is 1/3 boronguru . Have you tried it yet?
kavaloveraz
Kava Curious
Here is the latest info I pulled from their website about their tincture.
The Finest Kava Tincture in the World
We use hand selected, premium Noble variety Kava roots to make our tincture, not leftover scraps and chips or undesirable cultivars such as “Tudei”. Our Kava is then thoroughly washed and hand peeled in an FDA GMP facility before being air dried indoors, rather than being left outside to be sun dried. Air drying preserves the Kavalactones while the UV rays and heat from the sun degrades them.
Our Proprietary Processing Method Achieves Unheard of Potency
After drying, a certificate of analysis is performed on the roots, which tests for potency, as well as pesticides, microbiological and heavy metal contaminants. Once the roots are certified by third party, independent labs, they are extracted through a process called “cold distillation,” which extracts 95%+ of the Kavalactones from the roots. Simple tincturing can only extract 25-30% of the kavalactones from Kava. Our unique process uses low temperature and cycles pure alcohol through the root several times before reducing the volume of the extract until a saturation point is reached. That saturation point is an astonishing 20lbs of Kava per gallon of tincture! This is to say that we are able to pack the Kavalactones from 20lbs of Kava into a gallon of tincture, making our product 5-10 times the potency of even the best available Kava tinctures!
The Finished Product
Our final product is reduced to 20% alcohol content and is made into a glycerine base. As such, it does not burn the mouth, and the taste is sweet, unlike most kava tinctures which taste horrendous and are made with 75% alcohol. The result is an incredibly potent, no-burn, palatable Kava product that is made from Premium hand selected roots from varieties prized for their desirable effects.
The Finest Kava Tincture in the World
- Premium, hand selected roots from Noble variety Kavas
- Grown without Chemical fertilizers or pesticides
- Produced in an FDA registered GMP certified Facility
- Unheard of 20lbs of Kava per Gallon of Tincture
- 5 times the strength of standard Kava tinctures
- Glycerine Base lends palatability and no burning
We use hand selected, premium Noble variety Kava roots to make our tincture, not leftover scraps and chips or undesirable cultivars such as “Tudei”. Our Kava is then thoroughly washed and hand peeled in an FDA GMP facility before being air dried indoors, rather than being left outside to be sun dried. Air drying preserves the Kavalactones while the UV rays and heat from the sun degrades them.
Our Proprietary Processing Method Achieves Unheard of Potency
After drying, a certificate of analysis is performed on the roots, which tests for potency, as well as pesticides, microbiological and heavy metal contaminants. Once the roots are certified by third party, independent labs, they are extracted through a process called “cold distillation,” which extracts 95%+ of the Kavalactones from the roots. Simple tincturing can only extract 25-30% of the kavalactones from Kava. Our unique process uses low temperature and cycles pure alcohol through the root several times before reducing the volume of the extract until a saturation point is reached. That saturation point is an astonishing 20lbs of Kava per gallon of tincture! This is to say that we are able to pack the Kavalactones from 20lbs of Kava into a gallon of tincture, making our product 5-10 times the potency of even the best available Kava tinctures!
The Finished Product
Our final product is reduced to 20% alcohol content and is made into a glycerine base. As such, it does not burn the mouth, and the taste is sweet, unlike most kava tinctures which taste horrendous and are made with 75% alcohol. The result is an incredibly potent, no-burn, palatable Kava product that is made from Premium hand selected roots from varieties prized for their desirable effects.
kasa_balavu
Yaqona Dina
Well there you go. Avoid this product.
verticity
I'm interested in things
Alcohol extraction is not necessarily bad. That's how Gaia capsules are made. Alcohol is relatively non-toxic, so it's really the only thing you can use to make a tincture for human consumption. Of course I would always prefer traditionally prepared root powder...
kasa_balavu
Yaqona Dina
As far as extracting from kava is concerned, I'm under the impression that it is. Alcohol isn't selective about what it extracts. Along with the good stuff, you'll get hepatotoxins like Flavokavain B.
Then you ought to avoid them too.
Zac Imiola (Herbalist)
Kava Connoisseur
This still makes no sense to me. Consuming a tincture .. not an isolated extracted chemical. Aka do the same 5hing for the tincture as you would for traditional. You would end up with the exact same thing as if you toss and wash micro... it's not like Chris can remove the FKB from the kava just by removing the fibers ? . The only time alchohol extracts seem inherently unsafe is if the chemical your looking for is water soluble and their is bad stuff in there that you usually don't pull out. This would make sense with kava if medium was the only ROA ... but its not people toss and wash micro and even medium and don't end up with liver failure ? So why would you if you used an alcoholic tincture of noble kava root.
Just because they used alchohol extracts to make the bad kava stuff in the 80s and 90s doesn't mean it was the fact that they were using tuedi and aerial parts. It's not anything in noble kava root that causes this issue.
Just because they used alchohol extracts to make the bad kava stuff in the 80s and 90s doesn't mean it was the fact that they were using tuedi and aerial parts. It's not anything in noble kava root that causes this issue.
verticity
I'm interested in things
The most notorious "bad stuff" in the early 00's was actually made from an acetone extract. That was the stuff that allegedly caused liver problems in Germany. It was probably tudei with aerial parts as well: there was no quality control whatsoever.
I have seen papers that purport to show that water extracts less FKB and alakaloids than alcohol, but, the thing is, as you say, traditional kava consumption does not involve extraction with water in the chemical sense. It involves creating an emulsion of resin and also fine whole plant particles. Everything in the whole root is going to be in the drink except the coarse fibers/makas. If you centrifuged your grog before drinking, then you would have true water extraction, and it would be so weak as to be worthless.
Zac Imiola (Herbalist)
Kava Connoisseur
More like micro I would assume.
Zac Imiola (Herbalist)
Kava Connoisseur
So what are you saying @verticity ? Idk why I keep reading your post oddly or something
verticity
I'm interested in things
lol, what? I'm saying what I said. There is a distinct possibility that what I said makes no sense, of course.
Zac Imiola (Herbalist)
Kava Connoisseur
Also is there any where in there the volume of liquid used ?? I assume they were all equal ?
kavaloveraz
Kava Curious
I emailed Root Of Happiness and asked them if their tincture is safe and how many servings each bottle has here is what they wrote back.
Hello John, thanks for writing!
There are 30 servings per bottle.
There is no appreciable risk to utilizing Kava tincture versus drinking standard Kava. In many ways, drinking a standardized tincture, with a certificate of analysis from a credentialed lab which includes chemotype, microbiological, and heavy metals testing, is much safer than making a traditional preparation of most of the kava bought online. Let me explain why.
Consider that Kava is an agricultural product grown in the third world, using non potable water for irrigation and manure for fertilizer. Overseas, access to FDA approved facilities that have GMPs in place are RARE. Even when processed in these facilities, there is no testing that happens in exporting countries in terms of microbiological contamination. I have been testing kava for over 10 years. The real risk with kava is the microbiological contamination such as E coli, psuedomonias, yeast and mold. I could go on forever on this topic, but let me just make it brief and tell you that the sanitation practices from exporting countries are terrible and it shows in the 200 plus tests I have done over 10 years.
When making an extract from kava, heat and ethanol are used to sterilize the product. This outweighs any risk of solvents extracting minute amounts of Flavokavains etc., from kava. The fact is that when you drink kava, you’re ingesting these same chemicals because you are swallowing all of the small particles from the kava anyway. While the internet is ripe with half cocked ideas about flavokavain, tudei kava, and extracts being culprits in liver incidents from 20 years ago that have never been replicated, thousands of Kilos of kava is being sold on the internet that is full of serious threats like e coli, mold, etc..
I wish I had more time to go in depth on the topic, but I will likely make a blog post because its something that should be addressed for the consumer to weigh their options.
Sincerely,
Tyler Blythe CEO
Root of Happiness.
verticity
I'm interested in things
So... just wondering... does anyone know if there are any documented cases of people getting sick from e. coli in kava? Chipotle doesn't serve kava, do they? Or documented cases of sickness from any other microbial contaminant in kava? I'm not saying doing that testing is a bad thing: it is a very good (and lawful) thing to do. But I'm a bit put off by the scare mongering about those "dirty third world countries" that kava comes from. (Apparently Hawaii is a dirty thrid world country also...thanks Obama) ::sarcasm:: Now I buy things like cucumbers and other vegetables in the grocery store. Sometimes there are outbreaks of salmonela in those vegetables. After the fact they try to track down the farm that was the source, but do they do anything proactively to test the cucumbers in your grocery store? Do those cucumbers meet cGMP standards? The cucumbers responsible for the outbreak were from the "dirty third world country" known as Mexico ::sarcasm:: But there have been outbreaks in God-fearing US produce as well: In 2011 tainted cantaloupes from Colorado killed 30 people. So what am I saying? Plants are dangerous: they should not be consumed, ever. Eat meat!
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