Raw Maca

What Is Maca?

Maca is a root vegetable from the high Peruvian Andes, in the same family as radish, turnip and broccoli. It grows where frost and wind flatten most crops. The root here has been dried and concentrated six to one.

How It Works in the Body

Maca is food before it is anything else. Most of its dry weight is starch, with protein, fiber and minerals alongside, and Andean households eat it boiled, roasted, or dried and ground into flour.

Its distinctive compounds are macamides, fatty acid amides found in maca and almost nowhere else, and glucosinolates, the sulfur compounds that give the cabbage family its bite. Here, gelatinized refers to the starch, worked so it digests more easily. No gelatin is involved, despite what the word suggests.

What It Supports

• A traditional Andean food: Maca has been grown and eaten at altitude in Peru for generations.
• Macamides: These fatty acid amides are what chemists look for to confirm a powder really is maca.
• Glucosinolates: The same sulfur-compound family found in broccoli and radish runs through maca too.
• A concentrate: The root is concentrated six to one, so a small capsule carries more root than its weight suggests.

Who It May Suit

People who would rather take a whole-root botanical than an isolated compound. The root is certified organic and the capsule is cellulose, so it suits vegan and vegetarian eating.

Good To Know

Raw and gelatinized describe different things here: the sourcing, and the starch. Talk with your healthcare provider before use, especially if you are pregnant or nursing, or if you have a thyroid condition. The cabbage family carries goitrogens, which matter most when iodine intake is low.