Guarana powder

Guarana powder

 

Guarana – Paullinia Cupana. The indigenous Brazilian Amazon tribe called Satere-Mawe is a tribe mainly known for its cultivation of Guarana, the Satere-Mawean word for the plant warana, is believed to be the base from where the current name for the plant originated.

 

According to a myth, the tribe believed that to domesticate the Guarana plant, an evil god had to kill a beloved child of the Satere-Mawe, to make the tribe feel better, a nicer god instead took the left eye of the child and planted it in the woods, resulting in a wide variety of Guarana and then the god took the right eye of the child and planted it in the village, and so domesticated Guarana was born.

 

There is a reason to why the Satere-Mawe tribe believed the Guarana fruit had something to do with eyes, and that is because when you split open a Guarana fruit, the color contrast of the opened fruit looks resembles that of eyeballs. Guarana is the main source of caffeine in South America, since the fruit has about twice the amount of caffeine compared to the coffee bean (2-4.5% in Guaranine compared to only 1-2% in Coffee).

 

The different uses for Guarana are restricted to being used as a mood enhancer in different beverages, such as tea, soft and energy drinks, but it can also be obtained in small capsules. Studies show that Guarana does not only have the same effects as caffeine, such as increasing mood, alertness and memory but it also affects how the body percieves how full it is after eating a meal, and one particular study shows an average of 11.2 pound weight loss in a group of people over a 45 day period of time. It is also believed that if chronically consumed, this plant has antioxidant and antibacterial effects, however, excessive consumation of Guarana can lead to seizures.