white rat report: fava bean and PD
 

Well, we have harvested our crop of fava beans and ate some tonight, steamed, with butter. We ate the whole pod and bean, not just the bean. Maybe a cup or so, cut up, and here are the effects:

1. pain virtually gone (this is huge, as those who suffer with pain know all too well)
2. rigidity almost gone as well, neck can rotate side to side with barely noticeable cog-wheeling
3. feel "tingly"
4. feel very relaxed, good, almost drunk but not staggering or tipsy
5. vision good, double vision gone, tracking not a problem like it usually is
6. feeling "cuddly" (this is very rare!)
7. tremors virtually gone

This is better than any time we have EVER taken sinemet, FYI. It hit quickly, too, no sixty to ninety minute delay...and is still going several hours later.

What do you all think? Granted, we ate these at the end of the day, after a day build-up of the usual meds, so the fava is piggy-backing on all that sinemet....but still. I'll add that we had some three nights ago with very similar effects, although then I sauteed the pods in olive oil (they were not nearly as good, some were a bit bitter, for those who are thinking of trying this).

I've also read conflicting reports that you CAN eat favas if you take azilect and some that say you shouldn't....but I tend to not worry about this so much because our neuro told us they also tell you not to eat aged cheese but you'd have to eat a whole wheel of cheese to have a reaction and no one is going to do that. So if you ate a bucketful of beans and pods, perhaps then I'd worry about a reaction, but not with the small amount we are eating.

We are going to have some more for breakfast and I'll report again. Just wanted to share what we are experiencing, and after we eat all the bean pods, we are going to eat the leaves and try to find some way to eat the stems as the whole plant has varying amounts of dopamine in it. If anyone has any recipes for fava leaves or stems, please let me know.

I think this is like mucuna, and Fiona is right, the plant has who knows what all additional compounds, enzymes, flavanoids or whatever, that help synergistically. But somehow, this is better than the mucuna powder we tried, at least so far in our limited experience.

Yeah..!.one more convert to using the natural PD medicine God gave us. I hope your experiences will be as wonderful as mine with the favas. I am growing favas & mucunas this year. So far have 720 up and the last planting is just now starting to pop their heads out of the ground. God is good.

where to obtain
 

I'm rather new here so please forgive me if this has already been addressed. For those who may not be able to grow their own, is there anywhere to obtain fresh favas and mucunas? I'm in southern California.
Thanks!

Pain-free?
 

I'd better get signed up!

Peggy

International Gourmet has a couple of products( canned beans / juice/ dry seeds to sprout)Afriend has just ordered the juice to try. Will let you know how they like it

Seeds?
 

Where do you all get the seeds? Anything in particular you need to know to buy the seeds or raise the plants?

I purchased Windsor Favas from Fedco Seed . Many varieties from Prairie Seed in Canada. Goya Favas (unknown variety) from grocery stores have sprouted & grew
They like cooler weather. Depending where you are as to planting time< TN to the end of April /March good planting time. Read Aunt Bean's earlier postings for more info

Fava seeds
 

I bought mine from two online suppliers, both get them imported from Italy. The lovely cranberry flowered ones are beautiful, make a ton of blooms, but not one bean....at least in our garden. The black and white flowering ones, though, they produce very well. We planted the cranberry favas in 4" pots indoors and then transplanted outside...those gave us no beans.

The black and white flowering seeds we sowed directly into the ground and they are still producing a little but have really tapered off. We are in central texas and it gets very humid and hot here, very early. I don't expect we'll get many more beans, to be honest.

I was reading Ken Hodges' webpage about favas, and he said you can sprout the seeds and the sprouts contain FIVE times as much levodopa as eating the beans! I don't know about the pods, though, they are supposedly very rich in the levodopa. Here is what I have learned so far about acutally using them:

1. the immature pods and beans have the highest levodopa content, unless you sprout them;

2. the tough skins covering the beans inside the pods have practically no levodopa, so removing those before eating will not significantly decrease the levodopa content (but removing them is a real pain, not worth it to us);

3. you get the most levodopa if you lightly steam the pods and beans and eat immediately (again, unless you sprout them)....steaming reduces the levodopa content about 10% and if you set the cooked beans aside to cool...you'l lose a lot more levodopa (I think Ken's site said something like 80-90%); And I can confirm this to be case: one night we ate them pretty much right after they were cooked, had very beneficial effect (see my first post on this thread)....when we ate them after they had cooked and cooled, the effect was much less (realizing, the reduced effect could be attributed to many factors, including a building tolerance to the fava, but I question whether that could occur in just a few days...)

4. washing and cutting the bean pods into bite-size pieces for a few hours BEFORE cooking will cause the exposed ends to turn BLACK and they are unsighly and very unappetizing (so much for prepping dinner in advance)!

We are going to try sprouting this weekend, should be interesting as the seeds are huge, I have no idea what kind of container we will use, but shall dutifully report back. If anyone has sprouted the fava before, please share anything you learned from the experience, thanks.

I never heard of Ken Hodge...how do you get to his web page??

Dear LFAC,

Thank you so much for this post. Have you successfully sprouted any favas? seems like a LOT of rinsing would be necessary since these beans are so large. Do you make tincture?

Kind regards,
MD