Mucuna pruriens extract: the velvet bean concentrated
Mucuna pruriens is a climbing annual legume in the pea family (Fabaceae, also written Leguminosae). The literature traces the species to southern China and eastern India, where it was once grown on a large scale as a green vegetable crop, and it is now cultivated across much of the tropics. Its pods are what people remember. On the wild forms they are covered in long stinging hairs that contain serotonin and a protein called mucunain, and touching one of those pods leaves you itching for a good while. That trait gave the plant its English names: cowhage, cowitch and itching bean. The cultivated forms without stinging hairs are the ones usually sold as velvet bean.
The seeds are the reason the species sits in a smartshop at all. They contain L-dopa, in full levodopa, an amino acid that serves as the biochemical precursor of dopamine in the body. Raw mucuna seed is reported to hold somewhere between three and six percent of it; this product has been worked down to a powder standardised at 98% L-dopa. That makes it a heavily concentrated raw material rather than anything like ground beans. The jar contains 3 grams.
Working with the powder
This is loose powder, not capsules. The usual approach is to dissolve a small amount in water or a warm drink, and to start low: at this strength a few tens of milligrams already make a noticeable difference. Use a precision scale rather than a spoon so you know what you actually have in hand. Avalon Magic Plants sells this item as a botanical raw material, not as a medicine or a food supplement.
Storage and good to know
Keep the jar cool, dry and dark, and out of reach of children. If you take medication, are pregnant or are breastfeeding, speak to your doctor first, which goes double for a standardised extract like this one. In the same category Avalon Magic Plants stocks ginseng extract 20%, ginkgo biloba extract 10:1, motherwort extract 12:1, hops flower extract 10:1 and bay bean 25X.
