Taste of Fava Bean Leaves

[pvw2]

I ate a few fava bean leaves today. To me they taste like spinach.

[AmyLindy]

The beans are easy to cook and eat. Not sure how to Dose them, though. Lots of variables.

[pvw2 in reply to AmyLindy]

Everything we do to them drops the L/C amount, but drying out is the worst. The sprouts have the highest L/C.

[Lionore]

Where do you buy them?

[pvw2 in reply to Lionore]

I get leaves by growing them. You can buy seeds for growing fava/broad beans over the internet. Sometimes you can find a supermarket, such as H-mart selling green fava beans in the pod. I planted those. If you can find dried fava beans that aren't scalded and pealed, you can plant them. Dried fava beans have much more L/C if you sprout them, but I haven't had much luck sprouting pealed fava beans. It depends on their process of pealing. If you get the beans to sprout, you can plant them.

[Fava-1]

They are good to eat fresh, mixed with salad or mince into eggs and cook. Don't think they have much or any ldopa, but they are healthy for you anyway. I ate some yesterday too. Aunt Bean

[tarz in reply to Fava-1]

au contraire mademoiselle, Fava beans are a broad bean and have potential clinical relevance in patients with Parkinson disease because they contain high concentrations of the dopamine precursor dihydroxyphenylalanine (dopa) (1–3) and have the potential to increase the striatal dopamine content.

hindawi.com/journals/pd/201...

[pvw2 in reply to tarz]

True there are people in Southern Europe who have overdosed on L/C from eating fava beans; usually those growing their own, getting a big harvest, and eating too many of the beans raw while harvesting them. My neurologist has a patient who controls her PD solely with fava beans and no medication. But, I'm sure its not easy because the dosage varies in the beans. Because none of my PD medications are L/C, I can eat three leave a day and see an impact.

[Fava-1 in reply to tarz]

I was referring to the first post on eating leaves. Yes, the beans, pods and bean sprouts have the L-dopa that we need. I do not take pharmaceuticals and rely totally on fava l-dopa to support my lack of dopamine. But, I do not know that the leaves have enough to be measurable. But , the leaves are good to eat also. So enjoy them. I would like to know of any studies on the leaves and PD Aunt Bean

[pvw2 in reply to Fava-1]

Here's a reference about the leaves: "In fact, the entire fava plant, including leaves, stems, pods, and immature beans, contains levodopa."

stethnews.com/2807/fava-bea...

I was looking for the scientific paper that measured the levodopa and showed the leaves had a higher percentage than the beans.

[Fava-1 in reply to pvw2]

Please let me know if you find an amount of ldopa in leaves. Thanks. Aunt Bean

[pvw2 in reply to Fava-1]

See the sciencedirect.com article several replies below.

[pvw2 in reply to Fava-1]

I should mention that newly sprouted leaves had the highest percentage of L/C. So, sprouting you beans put them at this level.

[pvw2 in reply to Fava-1]

See Fig. 3. The influence of various processing methods on l-DOPA content of faba bean leaves and seeds. Values are means of two experiments and three replications. The bars are representing standard error of the means.

in sciencedirect.com/science/a...

[Fava-1 in reply to pvw2]

Made it to this site and copied the scientific studies. Thank you very much. I did not imagine that the leaves were important for l-dope also . This year will try processing them also. There are plenty in the greenhouse right now that could be gathered along with the flowers. Aunt Bean

[pvw2 in reply to Fava-1]

That's especially good during the off season for the beans. However, if you need a greenhouse to grow them, your summers may be cool enough to get the beans all year.

[AmyLindy in reply to pvw2]

Do y’all just wing it w your Fava bean consumption and are They essentially same as MP? If so, is MP powder a reasonable substitute for non farmers in the city - in your opinions? @fava-1 @pvw2 ?

[pvw2 in reply to AmyLindy]

MP is velvet beans, another source of L/C. Fava beans are a winter crop in areas with mild winters. They don't bloom in hot weather. Velvet beans are a summer crop. Other people on the list are more familiar with MP. Search Mucuna. At this time I try to keep the L/C dose low from fava and take other medications for PD.

[AmyLindy]

For city folk, Probably easiest to just buy the LDopa powder (mucuna Pruriens : Fava Bean )in bulk since buying and eating beans is hard to dose ( equivalents to LDopa)& powder may be more predictable /standardized (although putting faith in bulk powder can be a little uncomfortable due to potential for poor quality control)?

[pvw2 in reply to AmyLindy]

I haven had much luck trying to buy the beans. I couldn't get the dried and pealed beans to sprout, and didn't seem to get significant L/C out of them unless I changed my entire diet to fava beans. I found fresh green in a pod once and planted them. If you can find green frozen they are probably good. But beans you sprout have more L/C.

[bornsmiling]

Sinemet costs me under twenty dollars a month for a product of known quality and potency. As I understand it, higher dosages can, over time, cause an increased risk of side effects.

Why would I want to substitute fava beans for Sinemet?

[pvw2 in reply to bornsmiling]

For me I'm after the antioxidants as well and only a little L/C. At my early stage in PD the neurologist is giving me other medications instead of L/C, but told me about fava beans and antioxidants. I also like blueberry leaves with 31x the antioxidants of the berries. They taste like sour fruit. Also, goji berry leaves taste somewhere between leaf lettuce and kale. I don't like the taste of raw pomegranate leaves, but sometimes add the leaves when making green tea. It's true, Sinemet would cost me very little on my insurance, but I'm after more than L/C. Antioxidants are important to combat dopamine oxidation. L/C by itself adds more dopamine.