Cat's whiskers tea ( Orthosiphon stamineus ) active against colon cancer is not genotoxic.

Studies of Cat's whiskers tea ( Orthosiphon stamineus ) pharmacological profile have revealed antioxidant properties and other potentially useful biological activities. A study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22136553 demonstrated that leaf extract inhibits growth of colon tumor and proliferation of blood vessels in mice.

But what about the genotoxic potential of the plant ?  it poses no genotoxic risk says an other study http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378874110007658
in which Orthosiphon stamineus extract was administered by gavage up to 4000 mg/kg body weight/day for 3 days : salmonella/microsome mutation assay and the mouse bone marrow micronucleus test did not indicate induced chromosome damage.

Medicinal, Hoya and other plant collections are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Find all Aleyagarden posts on http://aleyagarden-blog.blogspot.com/

Seeds for Salads : Parsley, Flax, Pepper Grass, Black Caraway et Bon Appetit !

There is no excuse for plain old green salads now : add seeds of Lepidium sativum  http://www.aleyagarden.com/hbalepidisat.html,

Petroselinum crispum http://www.aleyagarden.com/hbapetrosel.html , Nigella sativa http://www.aleyagarden.com/hbanige.html
Flax seeds : these four are among the most beneficial seeds and they are great-tasting in salads packed with flavor and crunch.

Not to mention that they are very cost-effective.

Sprinkle over salads, roasted vegetables or dips

Herbs and Spices, Hoya, Hoya seeds, Orchid seeds, Ferns, Fern spores are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Compensate for the missing nutrients, antioxidants and other benefits : use plant powders

      Children who weigh around 25 kg should eat 300 gr of  fresh vegetables daily to support their immune system in  fighting diseases, including the most serious ones later in their life. But rarely modern nutrition meets the standards, not mentioning the toxicity issues, including pesticides etc.        

Plant powders are an excellent source to compensate for the missing nutrients, antioxidants and other benefits. Most don't need pesticide for their cultivation. Sold as powders there is no need keeping the leaves away from insects activities. 

Some are bitter ( often due to antibiotic properties ) and need some strategic step by step introductions in various hides, but some are not and would only add a salty flavor to the dishes and liquids : for instance dried Acanthus ebracteatus and Orthosiphon aristatus ( Java tea, Cats Whisker )  are tropical plants that taste slightly salty, and have huge benefits; - tropical plants evolve in very adverse conditions and many develop efficient anti-disease properties -

They are also extremely cost - effective against the most common vegetables . ( but not always when they are sold in fancy products supported by an expensive marketing )

Acanthus ebracteatus is  anti-inflammatory, antioxidant ; the roots are used as a cough remedy, whole plants as astringent, expectorant, and stimulant. Used against chronic fever, asthma; later in life the plant is active against  inflammation in arthritis and uric acid deposits, hepatitis.
In wound healing Acanthus ebracteatus promotes the formation of new bloods vessels, like Aloe vera the plant helps prevent scar formation. Scientific papers have reported an antitumor activity in mice without chronic toxicity.
 

Orthosiphon aristatus ( Java tea, Cats Whisker ) : grown throughout Southeast Asia and Australia, traditionally leaves of Java tea have been used as diuretic, and to treat rheumatism, abdominal pain, kidney and bladder inflammation, edema and gout.
The plant is bestowed with high amount of flavones, polyphenols, bioactive proteins, glycosides and vast quantities of potassium.
More than twenty phenolic compounds were isolated. Used to treat renal inflammation, kidney stones and urinary tract infection; renal cleansing.

it has strong anti-oxidant and anti-inflammation action.

Reported ( Sahib et al. 2009 ) to enhance the efficacy of tamoxifen an antagonist of the estrogen receptor in the treatment of hormone-sensitive breast cancer. In other studies the activity against colon cancer and non genotoxicity were demonstrated http://aleyagarden-medicinal-plants.blogspot.com/2013/09/cats-whiskers-tea-orthosiphon-stamineus.html


Herbs and Spices, Hoya, Hoya seeds, Orchid seeds, Ferns, Fern spores are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Are the expensive Moringa capsules cost effective against other vegetables in our diets ?

    Moringa is praised everywhere on the internet for its nutritional / medicinal value. Indeed  its trace elements , anti-inflammatory and other beneficial phytochemicals are hardly found in other foods unless we combine very high quantities.

But are Moringa capsules still cost effective against common vegetables if we target basic nutritional requirements ?
To find a solution to this sort of " what if " problems Excel provides an optimizer ( the Solver utility ) in the Tools  :  we let the program find the best combination of food quantities for the smallest total cost.

This is how the chart was done :

From a publication by the FDA we took the nutrients ( in gr. mg and %DV ) of daily rations of vegetables. We entered these quantities for these selected basic nutrients : Potassium, Carbohydrates, Fibers, Proteins, Vitamins, Calcium and Iron in 1 gr. of each vegetable as well as 1 gr. of dry Moringa powder.

We also entered the cost per 1 gr. ( in the last column on the right ). Here we take in account that such cost must include the energy of cooking. ( noteworthy Moringa capsules, as other dried edible plants and spices don't involve these cooking costs )

Then the program asks us to enter the constraints : we say that we don't want a solution that offers more than 150 gr of each vegetable ( which is a very large quantity ); no more than 20 gr of dry Moringa ( that is about 40 capsules ! ); also knowing that Moringa is full of Vitamin A we don't want an excessive amount of Vitamin A ( is there a liver toxicity caused by very high amounts of Vitamin A  ? ) so set a maximum %. etc.

Finally the targets :  they are the daily requirements of a woman. They are entered in the last range at the bottom : 4700 mg of Potassium, 325 g of carbohydrates etc. up to the 4 figures of 100 to the right that stand for 100% of the intakes.

.. And what solution does the Solver find after many iterations ? ( the numbers of the solution - weights of the plant species and the total cost - are given in range # 12 )

The solution found by the program fully supports the cost effectiveness of Moringa oleifera powder : " despite its much higher cost per gr. use as much as you can to minimize your total cost " , the Solver says, Moringa oleifera is even more cost effective than tomatoes in this chart !   ... and we are just talking about basic nutrients. There is no doubt that if we selected harder to find phytochemicals Moringa would always be on top of the combinations with the smallest possible cost !

We note that the solution found in the chart above for a total of 7.9 $ doesn't bring all of the Potassium needed, the Proteins, Carbohydrates, Fibers, Proteins, Calcium and Iron. Only the daily requirements of Vitamins A and C are covered. 
This confirms that we need to vary our food ! Curcuma and other tropical assets would love to be included in such optimization problems.

How many capsules can a 7 years child take every day ? read  ore on http://aleyagarden-medicinal-plants.blogspot.com/2013/09/how-many-capsules-of-moringa-oleifera.html

Herbs and Spices, Hoya, Hoya seeds, Orchid seeds, Ferns, Fern spores are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

Dry Moringa oleifera and dry Broccoli : the mineral intake compared

1 gram of dry Moringa oleifera ( 2 servings of 500 mg capsules ) vs. dry Broccoli : compare their mineral content.
Calcium (Ca) : Moringa  16-22 mg, Broccoli 4-5 mg ------------------
Potassium (K) : Moringa 8-18 mg,  Broccoli 3-4 mg -------------------
Magnesium (Mg) : Moringa 3.5-5 mg,  Broccoli  0.2 mg -------------------
Phosphorus (P) : Moringa 2-6 mg, Broccoli 6 mg -------------------
Iron (Fe) :   Moringa 0.18-0.28 mg, Broccoli 0.07 mg.  --------------------
Manganese (Mn) : Moringa 0.05-0.09 mg, Broccoli 0.02 mg --------------------
Zinc (Zn) :   Moringa 0.015-0.03 mg, Broccoli 0.04 mg ---------------------
Copper (Cu) : Moringa 0.07-0.011 mg, Broccoli : - Read  more about the toxicity threshold : how many capsules of moringa oleifera can we give to a 7 years child ? Are the expensive Moringa capsules cost effective against other vegetables in our diets ? " Use as much as you can to minimize your total cost " , the Solver says, Moringa oleifera is even more cost effective than tomatoes ! ... and we are just talking about basic nutrients. There is no doubt that if we selected more subtle phytochemicals Moringa would always be on top of the combinations with the smallest possible cost ! http://aleyagarden-medicinal-plants.blogspot.com/2013/09/are-expensive-moringa-capsules-cost.html Herbs and Spices, Hoya, Hoya seeds, Orchid seeds, Ferns, Fern spores are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com

How many capsules of Moringa oleifera should I give to my 7 years old daughter ? Any idea for hides ?

Pediatrics recommend 300 gr of fresh vegetable for a 4 - 7 years old child. 
 

A capsule of Moringa oleifera weighs about 0.5 gr,  10 times less than its corresponding fresh matter. So the intake of 1 capsule is more or less equivalent to 5 gr of the fresh plant : a few capsules daily for a 7 years old child is still far under the required 300 gr of fresh matter ( noteworthy Moringa is grown without pesticide , which is not the case for many vegetables ).

About toxicity is dose dependent in all foods : a study has found intake of dry extract of Moringa oleifera to be safe up to 1000 mg ( about 2 capsules ) per kg of body weight : http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22101359

If your daughter weighs for instance 25 kg then 50 capsules daily would still be far under the toxicity threshold according to the paper. This is a very high quantity. But 1 or 2 capsules daily could be enough, mainly because of the need to vary our food so that Moringa can be associated with other food sources.

Moringa is not very bitter and can be sprinkled everywhere. It will go unnoticed in fungi and fish sauce, or in ketchup, except that it will darken the bright red color. ( a trick is to cover the mix with a layer of non mixed, bright red ketchup ) If you use Curcuma with chocolate powder, for instance in pancakes ( a regular intake of Curcuma is highly recommended ) Moringa and even the bitter antibiotics like Andrographis paniculata can also be introduced in small quantities without altering the taste. The taste of the chocolate changes when Curcuma is associated, it is richer but your 7 years old daughter may appreciate this richer taste and take Moringa with it !

Mean nutritional values of 1 gram ( 2 servings of 500 mg capsules ) of Moringa oleifera leaf powder.

Proteins 0.20-0.26 grams ( a recommended intake for children between 4 and 9 years is above 10 gr )
Total ash (= total minerals) 0.08-0.11 grams
Calcium (Ca) 16-22 mg. This is about 2.5% of the recommended intake for children between 4 and 9 years
Potassium (K) 8-18 mg
Magnesium (Mg) 3.5-5 mg
Phosphorus (P) 2-6 mg
Iron (Fe) 0.18-0.28 mg. This is about 3 % of the recommended intake for children up to 12 years
Manganese (Mn) 0.05-0.09 mg
Zinc (Zn) 0.015-0.03 mg
Copper (Cu) 0.07-0.011 mg
Vitamins
Vitamin C 0.15-1 mg
Vitamin A (as s-carotene) 40-80 ug retinol eq.
Vitamin E (as a-tocopherol) 0.80-0.15 mg  

According to a study :
http://www.moringanews.org/doc/GB/Posters/Broin_poster.pdf  30 gr of dry leaves ( that would equal about 60 capsules ) for children under 3 can cover  " one third of the daily
allowance for proteins, 75% of the calcium needs, more than half of the iron necessary, the
totality of the recommended dietary allowance for vitamin A, and almost one third of the needs in
vitamin C. "

Compare the mineral intake in dry moringa oleifera and dry broccoli

Are the expensive Moringa capsules cost effective against other vegetables in our diets ? " Use as much as you can to minimize your total cost " , the Solver says, Moringa oleifera is even more cost effective than tomatoes ! ... and we are just talking about basic nutrients.
There is no doubt that if we selected more subtle phytochemicals Moringa would always be on top of the combinations with the smallest possible cost !
http://aleyagarden-medicinal-plants.blogspot.com/2013/09/are-expensive-moringa-capsules-cost.html

  
Herbs and Spices, Hoya, Hoya seeds, Orchid seeds, Ferns, Fern spores are for sale on aleyagarden.com Plant care is available in various posts of this blog. Contact : aleyagarden@hotmail.com