Look at all that iron!

[Kalm with Kava]

Any updates on this issue. I put a magnet in my vula waka and Pouni Ono this week and got iron oxide.

I haven't made a ton of progress with this. As others have stated, this is a common sight in any vendors kava. In my testing it doesn't seem to make a difference if we grind it, or the farmers on the islands grind it; they all have small sandy bits at the bottom. Since it's ubiquitous among all of the islands, I tend to think it might be naturally occurring? I struggle to believe that all grinders foreign and domestic exhibit this problem.

It's really hard to even know unless you had fresh roots that you could pulverize without using any metal equipment just to be sure. A bit of an iron needle in a kava haystack scenario (har har)

 

[kavamehameha]

I haven't made a ton of progress with this. As others have stated, this is a common sight in any vendors kava. In my testing it doesn't seem to make a difference if we grind it, or the farmers on the islands grind it; they all have small sandy bits at the bottom. Since it's ubiquitous among all of the islands, I tend to think it might be naturally occurring? I struggle to believe that all grinders foreign and domestic exhibit this problem.

I suppose your grinders are of higher quality (and more frequently maintained) than the more sketchy ones used on some islands. If that is the case, then the iron is, for the most part, probably of natural origin.

Besides, most of you drink that iron sediment regularly, some here for the past years or decades, without any health issues. That should put your minds at ease.

 

[The Kap'n]

I haven't made a ton of progress with this. As others have stated, this is a common sight in any vendors kava. In my testing it doesn't seem to make a difference if we grind it, or the farmers on the islands grind it; they all have small sandy bits at the bottom. Since it's ubiquitous among all of the islands, I tend to think it might be naturally occurring? I struggle to believe that all grinders foreign and domestic exhibit this problem.

It's really hard to even know unless you had fresh roots that you could pulverize without using any metal equipment just to be sure. A bit of an iron needle in a kava haystack scenario (har har)

I really have a hard time thinking it's from the processing equipment too. If it were, they'd be replacing hammermills once an hour with that amount of iron. I mean, you can get an appreciable amount to collect with a magnet at a 40g prep dose, so if we scale that up to tons it would be like an entire car's worth of iron. I just don't see how the grinders or pounders could lose that much metal during the process.

 

[Candiru1]

I think this could resolved if somebody with access to fresh kava processed it traditionally (hand tools) and took a magnet to the sediment. Maybe from that farm in Hawaii that sends the fresh frozen kava. I think they hand pound it? It would be an interesting finding if kava was a good source of iron.