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Kava Preparation Kava and Cacao

_byron

Kava Enthusiast
I posted this on r/kava and figured I share it here in the off topic as it is not truly only kava related.

But wow, I did not think cacao would have this effect with kava. There is something to the cacao that adds to kava, its produces an extra sense of well being.

after drinking about 5-6 shells of kava, I took 3 tablespoons of 100% cacao powder and put it into a cup of water with some added sugar for taste. The first cup was fine after consumption I felt very talkative and had more energy.

I drank some more kava about 4 shells and had another cup with about 3 tablespoons. This time the cacao made my stomach upset, but resided shortly after.

I feel krunk off the amount of kava I drank, but I also feel an extra layer from the cacao. It takes away some of kavas sedating effects and creates a similar but different peaceful mind noted that it is my first experience.

I know there are some kava bars that do kava and cacao. I never understood why until I tried it. I will not be including this in my regular kava drinking as I am wary on any health interactions between the two. But it is something I will experiment with again.

Does anyone else mix kava and cacao?
 

Groggy

Kava aficionado
Admin
Personally no, but we can lave it in the kava lounge, under kava preparation.

I tried those flavored kavas from Kava Time, they're pretty good but seemed more like a novelty rather than a regular thing for me, I don't mind the taste of kava.
 
Cacao has theobromine in it, which can act like a mild version of caffeine at sufficient doses.

The theobromine certainly does have some stimulating effect that may explain your sensations, but I wouldn’t be surprised if your experience was at least partially placebo. Nothing wrong with that — feeling good is feeling good!

It’s hard to control for these things, especially with sample size 1 experiences.

Give it a few more tries with varying doses and see if your effects repeat. It’s unlikely there’s much risk of combining kava and cacao, assuming non-heroic doses of both. As you say, kava bars frequently add chocolate to kava to mask the flavor.
 
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Intrepidus_dux

Kava O.G.
My only concern is that caffine has some negative effects with kava , such as nausea. Cacao has caffine in it. If it doesn't bother you, then great! Experimenting with kava is a joy and is encouraged here. I wish to hear how this goes next time.
 

_byron

Kava Enthusiast
I tried it again for science. I feel more upbeat then just having kava alone. Still not ruling out placebo, but on r/kava some responded saying.

"Kava is said to be a mild maoi specifically hits the maoi-b. Cacao has PEA in it rather known as phenylthylamin . People have been known to take cocao intranasally to get the stimulating effect. If ya mix a maoi-b and cacao it can turn the 15 min effect and extend it to an hour. Look up phenylthylamin on Amazon and read the reviews on it , it's pretty interesting stuff."

Maybe there is something that does synergize...
 

Saghloqh

Kava Curious
I tried it again for science. I feel more upbeat then just having kava alone. Still not ruling out placebo, but on r/kava some responded saying.

"Kava is said to be a mild maoi specifically hits the maoi-b. Cacao has PEA in it rather known as phenylthylamin . People have been known to take cocao intranasally to get the stimulating effect. If ya mix a maoi-b and cacao it can turn the 15 min effect and extend it to an hour. Look up phenylthylamin on Amazon and read the reviews on it , it's pretty interesting stuff."

Maybe there is something that does synergize...
There are some pre workouts or "study pills" that will mix hordenine with phenethylamine to achieve similar results. Hordenine is an MAO-B inhibitor.

Si in theory there may be something... however, in practice...

Cacao contains at most 0.7% phenethylamine by mass. Phenethylamine, taken orally, seems to need at least 500mg paired with a good MAOI to have threshold effects. So you would need about 75 grams (1/6th of a pound) of cacao to hit that much.

Paired with the fact that MAO-B inhibition seems rather secondary within kara's effects, you'd likely need even more as I doubt kava is reaching anything close to the inhibitors people have experimented with such as selegiline.

So it's significantly more likely in my opinion that the caffeine and theobromine in the cacao are causing stimulation. Cacao does also have some compounds which act on the cannabinoid system, although in what quantity (and whether they make it through the first-pass metabolism and blood-brain barrier intact) I'm unsure.

In any case, people do use cacao as a mild psychostimulant alone, so unsurprising there's an effect with kava!
 

ThePiper

Kava Lover
The effect might be from anandamide (sp?) which is a CB agonist or pleasure compound in cacao. Cacao has plenty of theobromine which should account for most of its effect but considering that yerba mate doesn't trigger quite the same despite having lots of theobromine i think there could be something to it. I like to take whole minimally processed cacao beans for the effect.
 

Saghloqh

Kava Curious
It looks like anandamide has a half-life of around 5 minutes or less, which I really believe rules it out as a possible effect of cacao.

The thing about anandamide it is an endogenous neurotransmitter, meaning it is found within our bodies. Any neurotransmitter that is endogenous is tightly controlled, oxytocin for example is another compound that, while pharmacologically it is interesting, the half-life of three minutes means it's pretty much useful to supplement.

These endogenous neurotransmitters are mean to quickly perform their required action, and then cease activity as soon as they have carried out task required of it. Our body doesn't really have use for psychoactive endogenous compounds that last hours, because it makes it significantly harder to maintain homeostasis if everything coming into your body lasted for hours on end.

The only way to actually increase the action of anandamide is by a taking a drug which inhibits the enzyme that breaks it down (FAAH inhibitors). This means the naturally produced anandamide in the body sticks around a bit longer.

Simply eating anandamide orally means it's practically going to be 100% degraded before making it to the relevant parts of your body.

Whenever there is a compound that is endogenous to your body, generally the half life will be mega low because your body has fine-tune itself to get rid of anything it doesn't need once a task is complete. And after that task is completely, your body doesn't want those molecules hanging around longer because who knows what would be thrown out of what.

The TL;DR is your body has an incredibly tight control on anandamide as an endogenous substances, often pushing for rapid turnover or recycling, and getting rid of any excess anandamide coming in an unnecessary. Any excess put into the body will not make if far and it's dubious it would have any really effects since it degrades very quick.

No, modulators of the enzymes which break it down may be a more promising method to let ot stick around long enough to have an effect.

On the other hand.... you could use some marijuana instead of going through a rather convoluted regimen. But what's the run in that?
 
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