Oddly I wasn't trying to see if roasted papaya seeds might work as a coffee substitute, and I certainly wasn't focusing on any specific health claim benefits. It came up that the seeds might be healthy, so I prepared them in an arbitrary way, and it was amazing how similar they are to coffee. You can skip ahead to that part in a "review" section, or hear about the background, and another tisane I prepaired them with, monk-fruit seeds. It's more or less some sort of super-food input too, it turns out; strange.
This all started with seeing a gag video of a woman eating a papaya, consuming the seeds instead of the fruit. Several comments said that you really should eat them, that they're healthy, especially related to clearing out internal parasites. So I dried them the next time I bought a papaya, a couple days later. That cost me less than $2 for a huge, almost ripe one; Thailand is an absolute paradise for tropical fruit.
I warmed them in a toaster oven for 20 minutes and they didn't fully dry, so I gave them another 20 minutes at 160 C. That seemed to roast them a little, going beyond drying them, which didn't seem like a concern, or maybe even a positive input.
I then crushed them in a mortar and pestle device and brewed them along with a sweet Chinese herb my favorite shop owners gave me last week (seeds of a monk fruit, it turns out). It's a little too sweet and a bit one-dimensional on its own, so it seemed perfect for combining with this, since surely dried papaya seeds aren't very sweet (probably; I guess I still don't know that for sure).
Let's check on monk fruit background and health benefits and then set that aside:
Monk fruit is known for its delicious, sweet taste that comes from natural antioxidants such as flavonoids and mogrosides. It is currently gaining popularity as a natural, low-calorie sweetener.
Monk fruit extract has been used in traditional medicine for centuries due to the following potential health benefits:
Prevents oxidative damage
Studies in rats and mice have shown that monk fruit antioxidants have protective effects...
Research suggests that flavonoids and mogrosides in monk fruit can reduce blood sugar levels. According to a study, monk fruit extract can reduce inflammation, repair damaged cells in the pancreas, and relieve symptoms in mice with diabetes...
Research shows that eating mogrosides helps suppress fat and cholesterol levels and reduce body weight in mice with obesity...
Monk fruit polysaccharides can increase the activity and function of immune system organs like the thymus and spleen in mice...
Monk fruit can protect the liver and even repair liver damage....
That shop owner (Kittichai of Jip Eu) said that it helps with a fever, that you can take it to help your immune system when you are sick. I got the impression that he also meant that it reduces internal heat in the Traditional Chinese Medicine sense, the heat / cold / wind / qi kind of theme, which I know nothing about.
It's definitely really sweet, and it has a more pleasant flavor than stevia, which has more of an aftertaste.
Review:
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it's oily |
This is really good. I really didn't expect this to be good; that wasn't in the range of what I expected as a possible outcome. It tastes like coffee; this could be coffee. Then there's an herbal edge to it's that's not coffee, so I suppose it could be coffee flavored in some way, like with one of those flavored creamers. Of course I can't separate the input of the monk fruit, but from having that alone earlier it adds a relatively neutral and intense sweetness.
The flavor list: coffee, mild bitterness, oily / creamy feel (ok, that's not a flavor), sweetness (a little like stevia, but not as aggressive, but with a similar but lighter aftertaste). There's also an odd flavor resembling root spice, like root beer, so sassafras root. A rich, warm dried fruit tone resembles tamarind; that might be partly from the monk fruit, and I just don't remember it tasting like that, since maybe the sweetness overpowered the flavor trying it alone.
The oily feel is odd; that's pleasant, in this context, but paired with other flavors it could be really off-putting. It's just like how gas station coffee feels when you add artificial creamer to it; it's thicker and creamier than cream causes. There is literally an oil coating on the top of this so that's no wonder. They're seeds; they can contain as much oil as they happen to.
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for once I Western-style brewed something, and used a strainer |
Second infusion: like the first round, but much thinner. The sweetness of that herb is even more pronounced, because those just keep brewing, but the papaya seed is surely done now. It's even closer to gas station coffee now.
I don't mean that as a criticism. For older people who were there in the 20th century gas station coffee was a respectable thing. I would add for younger people that it's like grocery store tin coffee but I bet that's not going to help. Like McDonald's coffee, or Tim Horton's? Just kidding; I only eat the doughnuts there, and I don't know what it's like. Their maple cream-filled doughnuts are so good though.
I bet if you bumped this roast level just a little it could seem like French roast. This is still medium roast level, and since there is no "light" that means light (outside the coffee world; they probably have it). Then with actual cream and sugar it might seem even more like coffee, almost exactly like it.
Background on papaya seeds as coffee replacement, health benefits
I Google searched use of papaya seeds as a coffee replacement, and it doesn't seem like a common theme, but it did turn up. This wasn't what I expected: The Potency of Carica papaya L. Seeds Powderas Anti- Obesity ‘Coffee’ Drinks
Other formal and informal sources aren't making and reviewing this health claim, or even mentioning this subject. Here is their conclusion:
Based on the above explanation, it can be concluded that 25.1 grams of papaya seed powder can be obtained from 250.0 grams of wet papaya seeds. Most respondents like the texture, color, aroma, and taste of papaya seeds ‘coffee’. The pancreatic lipase inhibition power of 1.42 gram of papaya seed powder is equivalent to 1 tablet (120.0 mg) of Orlistat. Therefore, using papaya seed powder as antiobesity ‘coffee’ drink is reasonable.
Reasonable? The obvious question is "what is a lipase inhibitor?" Then next one might wonder if these results are reliable, and if these papaya seeds really function as that as claimed (supported by their actual research study, so maybe). But let's start with what they are claiming.
Wikipedia article on Orlistat:
Orlistat, sold under the brand name Xenical among others, is a medication used to treat obesity. Its primary function is preventing the absorption of fats from the human diet by acting as a lipase inhibitor, thereby reducing caloric intake. It is intended for use in conjunction with a healthcare provider-supervised reduced-calorie diet.[4]...
Sure, but again what even is a lipase inhibitor?
Pancreatic lipase, also known as pancreatic triacylglycerol lipase or steapsin, is an enzyme secreted from the pancreas. As the primary lipase enzyme that hydrolyzes (breaks down) dietary fat molecules in the human digestive system, it is one of the main digestive enzymes, converting triglyceride substrates like 1 found in ingested oils to monoglycerides 3 and free fatty acids 2a and 2b.[5]
So it stops you from digesting some of the fat that you eat. And this is why the Wikipedia article on Orlistat mentions that a lipase inhibitor can cause your stool (your poop) to seem oily and have a loose texture. A little of that would go a long way.
It's impossible to estimate my dosage from that. This might've been about 5 grams (could be 7), and they said that 10 grams makes 1 gram of powder, and you should take 1.4. So I'm at one third to half of a normal dose, from the seeds from one large papaya? I'll add how that went in terms of digestion impact tomorrow. [later edit: noticeable, and like Wikipedia described, but not problematic].
Reading around these sources they say that it works (lipase inhibitors, not papaya seeds). I don't want anything adjusting my digestive system, even though I did gain one kg the last time I was weighed (up to 75; I might fast for a week instead of 5 days next time, to get that kg back off).
The standard health-page input is that it's good for supplementation and treating all sorts of things, including bacterial infections, fungal infections, and parasites. Who knows; maybe.
It's good though, pleasant to drink. I'll make this again the next time I buy a papaya, since the trees in our yard don't seem to be on that page of offering one just now.
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that's 4 of them, but the middle one has died since |
Thinking back this may be the closest I've come to drinking coffee this year. That's crazy! In the past I would sometimes drink it at work, but I barely go to work in the office now, one day a week, unless I'm out of the country working remotely. I'm in the habit of drinking tea-bag tea there now, since I never took tea and an infuser to that new office site. Then I would drink coffee at hotel breakfasts when we travel in Thailand, but we last traveled in Thailand in Dec-Jan, the holiday break.
I guess I'm not much of a conventional American now. At least I've been in a cycle of eating hamburgers recently, but still made out of ground pork, still following the norm that Thais don't eat beef, even though I'm living alone. At least I grill sometimes?
I'm shocked that this tisane was this good, that it's far and away the best "herb tea" replacement for coffee that I've ever tried, so close to the flavor and feel of coffee. Who knows about the health claims; those don't seem to matter, unless you could arrange to drink it regularly.
It's a little odd that I experimented with using papaya leaf as a tisane almost 8 years ago and this theme never came up.
Anyone who eats papaya once in awhile should give this a try. Not even for the health claims, or to replace coffee, just because it's actually good.
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