By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
At The Source in Kailua, owners Damian and
Karen Paul stock a wide range of Kava products.
The humble, ancient shrub
By Burl Burlingame
may be just what doctors order
for stress and anxiety
Star-BulletinIT'S a popular image of Pacific peoples, from the very moment dour Westerners first laid eyes on them -- laughing, singing, smiling natives, mellow as all get-out, cheerful tree-huggers at one with Mother Nature and their own natures, happy, happy, joy, joy.
Maybe these happy campers knew about something Europeans didn't. That something is kava.
Despite this long history in the Pacific, kava is virtually unknown in the rest of the world. But all that's about to change. It looks like kava is The Next Big Thing. The herb du jour.
"The natural-foods industry is very trendy, and kava is on the upswing," said Damian Paul, owner of The Source, a natural-foods store in Kailua and an inspector for Hawaii's Organic Farmers Industry.
"St. John's Wort, Echinea, garlic, gingko, all of these have had their day, but kava looks like it could become the most popular ever."
By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Kava is better appreciated for the narcotic properties
of its stalk and roots, rather than its knobby,
bamboo-like appearance.
What's the deal? According to a publication from the Herbal Information Center in Overland Park, Kan., kava is "a safe, non-addictive, anti-anxiety medicine, and as effective as prescription anti-anxiety agents containing benzodiazepines such as Valium ... kava is the most relaxing botanical herb with the exception of the opium poppy."
A non-addictive stress reliever with the brain-kick of opium and the therapuetic benefits of Valium? A natural herb that both grows wild and in your backyard without being bio-copyrighted by multinational pharmacological corporations with wall-to-wall lawyers?
Yes, people are interested. Some will become happier human beings from ingesting kava, others will become wealthy human beings from marketing kava.
Also growing wild are web sites devoted to kava, which is another aspect of the phenomenon. Kava is the first herbal product of its type to truly benefit from the no-walls, international information-sharing capabilities of the 'net.
It's a knobby shrub with heart-shaped leaves, requiring a fair amount of water and shade. The active ingredient is called kavalactone, and it's primarily concentrated in the roots and stems. Potency varies.
An e-mail query to vitamin specialist Dr. Andrew Weil resulted in the observation that "in this country, you can generally only buy kava as a coarse powder or as large chips of root. The quality is fairly uneven."
Weil notes that "kava could turn out to be very useful as a natural alternative to Valium and other addictive depressant. I imagine it may become a major pharmaceutical product in the Western world as drug companies start adapting natural medicines to the market here."
But taking the capsules as a regular dietary supplement may help those who already take mood levelers like Valium or Prozac or Xanex. Like those psychotropic drugs, kavalactones operate directly on the amygdala, that little smidgen of the brain that controls anxiety and fear. Make the amygdala happy, and the rest of you relaxes.
"That where kava is becoming known, as a reliever of anxiety," said Karen Paul. "It's provides tranquility without a sedative effect."
This is the sort of thing that makes marketers drool. You can count on kava showing up in dozens of products in the next few years. Kava-Cola? They're working on it.
"A year ago we were selling three bottles of kava a week, now it's up to three cases," said Damian Paul. "And all sorts of people are coming in. I just had a health inspector from Kauai stop by, whose boss wanted him to pick some up."
"It was pretty static for years; there would be little runs on kava every once in a while," said Karen Paul. "But nothing like now."
By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
Kava is most easily used in dry, ground form.
Kava, known in Hawaii as 'awa and in botany books as Piper methysticum, has roots throughout the Pacific. It's such a powerful part of daily life that it's treated with ceremonial reverence. An all-occasion kind of beverage
"It is significant to note that here in Hawai'i, 'awa was important in many aspects of Hawaiian life," said Kepa Maly, cultural resources specialist for Kumo Pono Assn., at an " 'Awa in Hawai'i" conference last month on the Big Island.
"Uses of 'awa ranged from ceremonial observances and offerings -- including ceremonies in the affairs of state -- to residential use. It is not uncommon to learn from kupuna around the Hawaiian islands, that following a hard day's toil in the agricultural fields or upon the ocean fishery, their own kupuna often found comfort and restoration in a cup of 'awa."
The stuff fills the same niche as coffee for breakfast, soda for lunch and wine at dinner. According to Irvine Richards' "Hawaiian Medicinal Plants and Herbs," ancient Hawaiians used 'awa as medicine, for weight loss, for child-weaning, as offerings to hula goddess Laka, for divination (by "reading" bubbles), and as a narcotic drink.
Kava is one of 20 or so non-native plants that arrived with the first Hawaiians. Essentially a kind of pepper plant, it lost its ability to make seeds. Without people to cut sprigs and transplant them, kava would have trouble reproducing.
Traditional kava is a beverage made from the pulverized roots. In ancient Hawaii, the roots were given to children to chew and placed in a bowl, making a kind of communal spit soup, leavened with water or coconut milk, with varying consistency. Concoctions made from fresh kava root make more of a buzz than the dried root, which tends to be more relaxing than intoxicating.
These days, the root is ground, placed in a strainer cloth, then kneaded with water in a bowl until the desired dosage is achieved.
Kava is definitely an acquired taste. "It's sort of like drinking dirty phlegm," notes one website; another says it's "like chalk swimming in body sweat." Paul Theroux's "The Happy Isles of Oceania" describes it as "revolting." Kava-drinking parties (or "faikava" in the Tonga) measure it out in polished coconut hells, where it's consumed in one slurp, not a sip, as with wine. Kava's a wonder; but it sure
doesn't taste like chicken"Actually, I think the saving grace of kava is the taste," said Ron Fenstemacher, a Board of Water Supply chemist who became interested in kava while researching native plants for the university's Hawaiian Studies center.
"Alcohol tastes good, so people drink a lot of it, and become intoxicated and drink even more and pay for it later with fighting and hangovers.
"With kava, there's not much tendency to want to drink a lot of it. And even though your mood is elevated and you have a pleasant buzz and your reflexes are slowed, your senses remain clear. Even sharpened. But no one likes the taste."
There's the rub. As your taste buds become fine-tuned by ingesting kava, the worse the stuff tastes. But you may not notice because the stuff also numbs everything it touches, starting with your throat.
This is hardly the experience of the average beer drinker.
-- B.B.
