Most helpful customer reviews
32 of 32 people found the following review helpful.
Tastes awfully good for a health powder!
By Gone2lunch
I ordered this with absolutely no idea what to expect. I am the same girl whose 1/2 lb of hemp powder has been festering in the bottom of the fridge for 2 years since it was too expensive to throw out but, frankly, tastes like dirt. The cats, who love it, are slowly working their way through the 5 pounds of nutritional yeast that were going to be the next mirace powder. So this order was a triumph of hope over experience for me. But this is actually going to get used! It's slightly sweet and inoffensive in both smell and taste. It blends into hot and cold liquids pretty well and is extremely nice mixed with low fat powdered cocoa peanut butter before reconstitution. And it does seem to fill me up much better than those obnoxious diet protein powders, without containing any animal products.
29 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
Maca is one of the few vegetables that should not be eaten raw
By T. Lane
Maca powder = maca flour. I have cooked with maca flour ten years, as a baking and cooking ingredient/flavoring. In Peru, maca flour, or "harina de maca" is a relatively cheap regional culinary flour. Raw Reform is a great specimen of this culinary flour; ideal for cooking, an excellent nutty flavor, it's bitterness subsiding with heat. A decade ago I could buy 'harina de maca' for $8/kg (and in Peru, it's $2/kg) - now I see this same inexpensive Peruvian cooking flour sold as a "raw superfood" at an inflated price. It's very odd to have witnessed this metamorphosis.
The reason I gave this ONE star is simple - this company (among several others) suggests that you to eat it raw. Like other cruciferous roots, maca is particularly difficult to digest when raw. Not only is it fiber-dense, it also contains lots of goitrogens - that's why the raw root and it's flour is so bitter - so it's no wonder people have digestive and occasional hormonal (thyroid) complaints. Maca is dense in fiber and thyroid inhibiting/goitrogenic compounds (glucosinolates and isothyocyanates), both of which are lessened greatly or deactivated by heat. Other members of the genus lepidium have these chemicals, too - such as peppergrass (lepidium virginicum) a presence which is marked by the pungent, aromatic quality of the leaves and roots. Among the people who grow it, maca is not considered healthy unless cooked. It is a paradox that the "raw food" crowd has gotten a hold of this vegetable that has always been, and by all accounts always should be cooked.
I have used the raw maca flour in cooking since 2002, and I still do. I use 'black gelatinized' maca, wherever therapeutic use is desired. Black root is the strongest type energetically and for sexual effects, in my opinion. 'Gelatinized' means that it's fiber has been removed, and goitrogens denatured. Gelatinized maca is about 6x concentrated over the powder / flour. The gelatinized product was developed specifically to address the digestion/goitrogen issue inherent with the root. That's the process' entire purpose - that's why it even exists. Back into antiquity, maca has had to be cooked in order to be gentle on digestion, on metabolism, and it has always been cooked traditionally for this purpose. If you want to use maca for therapeutic purposes, use a gelatinized product, or cook with the flour if you can find it inexpensively. I prefer the black root gelatinized maca, but the other colors have their charm, too. White macas are sweeter and more mellow, and red maca has a slightly different flavor, too.
If you do buy this product, do so with the intent of cooking with it as is done in Peru. There are many people these days telling you to eat it raw, to glean the mood, stamina, and sexual benefits which Andean people have known for thousands of years. Yet these merchants never mention how the plant has always been prepared - cooked - one of one most crucial aspects of it's identity. Why argue from antiquity about the health benefits, while ignoring the food's ethnobotany? It's a mix of mistaken understanding, and also because there's a lot of profit in this highly marked-up culinary flour.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent Product
By Raquel
I normally buy bulk maca at another supplier but they ran out. I saw this one here and figure try it out and it is great! I will continue to purchase from here as long as they don't run out :) Excellent product, I use it everyday!
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