Learn about Moringa Powder Supplement quality and dosage!
Answers to Questions people ask regarding the nutritional benefits of taking Moringa Oleifera products.
- How much Moringa should I take daily?
- Should I stop taking my multivitamin?
- What steps are involved in processing Moringa and why do these steps matter?
- How can I tell the quality of the product?
- The graphs stating Moringa’s nutritional qualities are in grams and confuse me.
- Is the of most Moringa products the same basically?
The problem with those questions is there is no simple cookie-cutter answer. In many of the projects in countries such as Africa, the people often are starving. Mothers are dying. Their babies are dying because of the lack of food in those areas. Mass starvation with babies who are barely hanging on to life is not America. We do not see bodies on our streets because of starvation. In those situations, Moringa is an easy-to-grow tree for those families in those countries where they grow everywhere.
It is a huge tree with lots of edible leaves. It grows leaves quickly after you pick them. It is a food source that is easy and cheap to grow and use. They just pick the leaves off the trees in their yard or in the community.
Buying quality Moringa leaf powder is knowing how it was processed.
With all the trees growing in each area, it is education that teaches them that the leaves of the Moringa tree are edible and nutritious. We have over 50 different trees that grow in TN but most of them do not have edible leaves. A few do but how would I know that unless someone told me or I read it? We have May Apples here that grow wild. Most locals do not know that the May Apples can be eaten, even though the plant is not. Only the local herbalists seem to know what is edible in the plants growing here. So it is also true that often people living near the Moringa trees, do not realize you can eat the leaves, pods, and flowers.
Below are commonly asked questions about Moringa Supplement Quality and Dosage:
Moringa Does not grow year-round in most of the United States
In the United States, it only grows year-round in places like Southern California, Florida, or Hawaii. In Hawaii for instance, you can buy fresh leaves in the market to use in teas and dishes. It is like buying lettuce here for your salads. It is eaten as a standard In everyday salads. In the rest of the climate areas, it is a seasonal tree that will die off in the winter. Water and land here are more expensive so growing it costs more. Rules and regulations take up thick binders that relate to the Moringa leaves once taken off the trees. So it is not available in your local market in most areas of the U.S. Asian markets in the states listed above do often carry the fresh leaf in their produce department or at the local farmer’s markets. So most Americans have access to Moringa products only by buying it in bulk powder, capsules, tea, or extract form.
Most families in the U.S. eat a diet filled with many different foods, some of them, junk food and highly processed but their stomachs are not swollen from starvation but from obesity. Neither one of them is good for longevity. Still, our children do not die daily from massive starvation as in parts of Africa suffering from drought and war.
Moringa is a supplement for most Americans in the United States, other than Hawaii and Florida, not a main food source.
A supplement means food that is not a main food item but is taken in addition to your normal diet. In the Philippines, Moringa is eaten fresh off the branch. It is eaten every day in various dishes. It is like we eat spinach or romaine lettuce here in the U.S.
Here we take it in a capsule, in a tea, or add the powder to juice or a smoothie so it is considered a supplement.
Supplements have a few hundred pages of more intense regulations than food. They are under different rules altogether including labeling and other factors.
Americans for the most part buy Moringa, a superfood, as a supplement for their diet.
How much you need as a fit, healthy person is very different for someone who has marginal nutrition or is starving. In those countries, they eat fresh leaves or dried Moringa powder in a gruel.
They consume a lot of Moringa because they have few quality food sources that are high in protein, calcium, iron, Vitamin A, and all the other nutrients that Moringa contains. If it is your ONLY food source for protein and other vital nutrients, you eat a large portion. It is your main nutritional food source.
How healthy your diet determines your need for Moringa and other supplements.
If you are a picky child who doesn’t like to eat vegetables, he would get more than a child who loves veggies like my granddaughter who is three.
If I were a person that was unhealthy, had a lot of health issues, was not eating well, was elderly, and had no appetite, I would need more.
Each person has a different health situation and a different need for a Moringa supplement or any superfood supplement.
There can be NO cookie-cutter answer for each person has individual needs for different nutrients.
Should I still take a multivitamin?
There are many junk multivitamins out on the market. They come in tablet form which is hard to break down in the digestive system with synthetic vitamins, ingredients, fillers, flow agents, and low quality. You need to read the label carefully. They will say it is high B-complex when it only has less than 10 mg of the B-Vitamins. If you are taking a good quality multivitamin, I would continue that unless you are going to consume several tablespoons of Moringa Oleifera.
Or you can discontinue the multivitamin and see how you feel and how your energy is after about two weeks. You could cut down how much of the multi you take, and see how you feel replacing it with Moringa.
The problem is that some people can tell a difference with one cap of Moringa or one tsp while others need 6 caps or three teaspoons to feel the difference in their energy and well-being. You must listen to your body! Start out with a 1/2 tsp first, then work up to more.
How much Moringa powder supplement should I take? The research shows grams in their graphs! How accurate is the product label?
There are now a hundred or so different companies selling Moringa products. Most of them show the product in either grams or ounces. A few of them actually break down their serving information into teaspoons or tablespoons. They actually state how much protein is in a tablespoon of their product. Most don’t because they don’t want to get pinned down and accused of false-label information.
What you must understand, is that the label statement is just a general statement for their product. The actual real amount of protein in each tablespoon is going to vary, along with the other nutrients stated on the label.
Most of the research performed on Moringa is stated in grams. That research was performed on samples given to them from different areas. Those quoted nutrients are for that sample only. They are general guidelines for the nutritional value of Moringa. Each shipment or each pound of that shipment can differ in nutrient content.
Even though you can take more as stated below from WebMD, most people start out with a tsp and then work up to more. Remember if you are healthy, you need less as a supplement. If you are very deficient nutritional-wise, take more. Work up on the amount of Moringa you take daily, slowly. It is good to start out slowly because of possible allergies to the product or effects on your bowel and gut flora.
“Consuming moringa powder is proven to be safe, even at higher levels. Daily dosage should be limited to the equivalent of 70 grams of moringa leaves per day or 11 teaspoons of moringa powder.” https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-moringa-powder#:~:text=with%20human%20studies.-,Amounts%20and%20Dosage,11%20teaspoons%20of%20moringa%20powder.
Factors that affect the quality of Moringa powder supplements:
Climate area the trees are grown in.
Quality of the soil the trees were grown in and the fertilizer used.
Water purity: India waters many thousands of acres with the Ganges river which is one of the most polluted in the world containing dead bodies, industrial pollution, human and animal waste and chemicals, cholera, and other diseases. Water is unfit for watering or health. The chemicals and heavy metals are taken in by the plant and taint the products. India is one example but China and Mexico are bad as well.
Climate pollution: India and China are among several countries with horrible air pollution from industrial waste.
Steps in the manner of picking, washing, and drying the products.
How and by what method was the product dried?
What chemicals were used if any in the different processing steps?
How and under what conditions was the Moringa packaged?
How long did the products sit in the warehouse? How hot was it? How clean was it? Were there mice and rats in the area?
How clean was the equipment? Was there contamination in the equipment?
Was there contamination in the storage facilities?
Quality equals nutritional value for any given bottle or bag of product.
Grams…Ounces….teaspoons….it is so confusing!
Generally, 16 ounces of Moringa Powder contain 453 grams. One ounce contains generally around 28.3 grams. One dry ounce equals generally around 9 tsp or 3 tablespoons. So 100 grams or 3.5 ounces of Moringa powder equals around 10 tablespoons.
When they say 100 grams of Moringa contains this much of each ingredient, they are talking about roughly 10 tablespoons. That is how much you would have to consume to get the number of nutrients they are stating. That still doesn’t tell you exactly how that compares to the same number of carrots, or other normal food eaten. It gets pretty complicated to do that.
Determining the nutrition of the vegetables and fruit you buy is the same problem in Moringa supplements
The problem is vegetables in general vary in the nutrients they contain for the same reasons Moringa does. All veggies are not equal in their nutritional value. How long did yours sit in the refrigerator before you cooked them? How long were they at the supermarket? How long did they sit in the where house before being shipped to the market? How many days did they sit at the processing plant? There are few foods that go from the field to the farmer’s market. Most of them involve a number of steps that reduce their nutritional value. I remember when we lived in Imperial Valley, CA. The huge trucks of picked carrots would sit in the fields for a day or two in the heat before being taken elsewhere.
Generally, 1 tablespoon of the Moringa Powder supplement contains 24 calories, 3.24 grams of protein, 3.6 grams of carbohydrates, 240 mg of Calcium, 44 mg of Magnesium, 159 mg of potassium, 2 mg of Vitamin A, 50 mg of choline, 0.3 mg of Thiamine or B1, 2.5 mg of Riboflavin or B2, 1 mg of Nicotinic Acid or B3, 500 mg of Vitamin C, 23.5 mg of Vitamin E, 35 mg of Potassium, and 3.4 mg of Iron.
If the growing environment was exceptional, the above nutrients would be higher. But the processing could still ruin its nutritional value.
There are many micronutrients that cannot be measured.
Chlorophyll which is why leaves are green has many great health benefits.
Moringa contains many factors that are anti-inflammatory, provide antioxidants, and provide elements that have nothing but positive effects on the body.
Much of the benefits in the Moringa cannot be easily tracked for each pound of product. They are a part of Moringa as a whole food. It takes hundreds of dollars to analyze products for micronutrients. The testing period is costly.
Buy Organic Moringa products that are tested in this country for heavy metals, contamination, E-coli, and other elements that degrade the nutritional quality of your Moringa powder.
Read my article here on how to grow Moringa trees
So I hope this article helps you to decide how much Moringa you should take for your diet and lifestyle.
Cathryn Freer, the Herbladyisin
