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Peruvian Maca:
World's Best Kept Food Secret
By Dr. BJ Adrezin
As a licensed naturopathic physician in the state of Oregon, I am in an enviable position. I can prescribe pharmaceutical medication, yet I hardly ever do. I am trained in a broad scope of natural and allopathic treatments, yet I have a special love of prescribing food for patients. Not just any food, but Potent Foods®. Food can make such a huge difference in a persons health and well-being. But you already know this, because youre connected with The Grain & Salt Society®, an organization that I greatly respect.
I have seen many "nutritional bars," "energy bars," and other "doctor formulated" foods in the marketplace. Many of these claimed to contain herbs, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients on the label. A careful analysis of the labels showed that in most cases, there was not enough of these substances inside to make a difference. Plus, many of these bars didn't taste very good.
I had an idea. What if I took one of the Potent Foods® I had been researching, and put enough of it in a bar to make a real impact in someone's well-being. The bar also had to taste great. This was the beginning of the Organic Maca Bar".
Maca is the highest cultivated food in the world. A mineral-rich root, maca grows at about 15,000 feet in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Where I live in Portland, Oregon, the majestic, snowcapped Mount Hood towers over the city at a little over 11,000 feet.
Nobody that I've asked can imagine living on top of Mount Hood, let alone growing food there. At 15,000 feet in Peru, the Incan people and their descendants have been consuming maca for thousands of years.
Dr. Weston A. Price would have been intrigued to find the native Peruvian people eating maca root as a major staple of their diet. Very little else will grow at that altitude. It has been a major observation in botanical medicine that the plants that grow in the harshest environments have the most potent medicinal qualities. The plants develop potent phytochemicals in order to protect themselves and adapt to the environment. By eating these plants many protective and medicinal benefits are transferred to humans.
Organic maca has had some interesting press in recent years. People call it anything from "Peruvian ginseng" to "herbal Viagra." Imagine someone eating a plate of Viagra® for dinner!
In truth, maca is an adaptogenic food with potent properties to regulate the body's hormonal system, and buffer the body from stress. It helps the native Peruvians thrive in a very harsh, low oxygen environment.
Although research into the physiological effects of maca is still in its infancy, the Incas and their descendents ascribe many health benefits to eating maca. These include: increased strength, endurance (today many athletes claim that taking maca will help them workout more easily years of research behind them, because the Russian government was actively researching and promoting adaptogens to physically and mentally strengthen its population. Scientific studies are definitely important. Equally important is the study of the empirical use of plants by a culture over thousands of years.
A unique thing about maca is that it has been a staple of the Peruvian diet, like we would eat rice, corn, or wheat. Although supplement companies put organic maca in tablets and capsules, the Peruvians would prepare maca in many delicious ways. Therefore, I formulated the Organic Maca Bar" with a very large amount of organic maca to be consistent with traditional use. In fact, the 5000mg of organic maca in every bar is equivalent to 10 large capsules worth of organic maca in each bar. It took me about a year to formulate the bar using so much organic maca and have it taste great.
My mission is to now formulate and present gourmet organic specialties, highlighting generous amounts of organic maca and other Potent Foods®.
The new Director of Medical Education for POTENT FOODS, Inc.. is Dr. Jonathan Kalman, from San Diego. He will be happy to answer questions about organic maca and its many benefits. He can be reached at DrJon@PotentFoods.com or (619) 549-1941.
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