Bananadine

[TheDudeAbides]

Bananadine Anyone got any facts to share? Like is it possible to extract a substance from bananas and smoke it. or is it a myth ?

Edited May 9, 2009 by mike_w598

[Ace]

myth. USTE for more info or hit wiki/google/etc.

[FancyPants]

"One shouldn't smoke the banananas, but eat them. However, you need an MAO-inhibitor to make the banandine orally active. When you combine the two, it's called Bananahuasca"

ROFL.

[momomoto]

Bananas got plenty of tryptophan in it, good sleeps right there. Sliced nana, bit of custard, sprinkle of Nutmeg, awesome.

just thought I'd share

[Alice]

Bananadine is overrated. Gotta smoke sooooo much for any effect.

Mandarinedine, now that is some potent shit.

Edited May 9, 2009 by Alice

[PhoenixSon]

you obviously havent shafted it.

Edited May 9, 2009 by spacemonk

[~shameless~]

you obviously havent shafted it.

Strippers have been shafting them for years now!!, may be thats the reason the bannana is the 'show fruit' of choice

in that industry.

[momomoto]

Speaking of mandarinedine - i got a heap of bitter orange extract - any ideas on a synephrine extract from the orange/brown 'tar'?

[SayN]

wow - google certainly indexes pages fast. just google mandarinedine.

[Gunter]

I read in a book that bananas are known to contain alkaloids.

Not one person I know had done an extraction on banana plant material.

I suspect that there is more to this myth than fiction, having read a long time ago that bufotenin was in the peels but known to be inactive and thus the smoking peels was a hoax, however I cannot find any corroboration of this claim now.

Still the peels glow under a black light, banana species are sacred to some cultures, like one Polynesian group at least, I forget which.

I'd say that this is one of the myths that people think has been debunked but that nobody has really experimented with conclusively. Some of the claims that bananas were active were printed alongside claims such as that parsley had potentially active essential oils, many claimed this to be untrue but the relevance of the so called psychedelic amphetamines shows that there is more to this idea than fiction.

In terms of bananadine, that is a made up name.

However show me the GCMS of different forms of banana extracts that shulgin ran or the negative TLC plates of banana extracts by appleseed that failed to test for tryptamines. Show me one shred of evidence of falsification other than the banter of those who have never tried or tested it in any way.

I found a PDF saying that dopamine is known from the banana and is found in even higher levels in the peel, the same paper says that bananas contain "indole alkaloids".

cut and paste it:

www.ogtr.gov.au/internet/ogtr/publishing.nsf/Content/banana-3/$FILE/biologybanana.pdf

So in the banana you have a sacred species revered by some cultures, known to have indole alkaloids and dopamine in the plant and in decent amount in the peel. You have a claim by some people who experimented with it that they got a mild buzz from the peel, not unlike peoples claims of smoking acacia bark without extracting it and yet a million people dismiss the idea that there could be something there and none of them have tried it, they were just told it was a myth and they bought it.

There is far more evidence to assert the idea that banana peels can contain psychoactive alkaloids than there is that they don't. The application of doubt does not refute anything no matter how widespread the consensus. I find the whole thing to be ridiculous, far too many people claim to know what they do not.

I should mention that the test of the banana mentioned in the PDF, the one that found indole alkaloids, was published around 2000. Here we are nine years later and nobody seems to have given it much thought or attention, here is food for thought, why would a study in 2000 just mention indole alkaloids and not be more specific?

[planthelper]

but what about the blue/purpleish sheats which protect the flowers?

i once heard a rumor that, it is this "bell" is where the actives are more concentrated.

the bell certainly looks like it's saying stay away, i might be poisonous.

if i could, i would do an A/B with the bell material...

[MORG]

Australian Native Plants forum?

I think bananadine might actually occur in higher concentrations in Dragibus curiosa.

[FancyPants]

I should mention that the test of the banana mentioned in the PDF, the one that found indole alkaloids, was published around 2000. Here we are nine years later and nobody seems to have given it much thought or attention, here is food for thought, why would a study in 2000 just mention indole alkaloids and not be more specific?

Probably because if it is true and there are active amounts from extracted banana plant material, then the government or CSIRO probably isn't going to want to make this information public.

I might feel inclined to move back to Coffs Harbour... If I had the knowledge and equipment I'd probably go up the mountains to get the fresh bananas from the driveway honesty boxes and do some further studies on those.

[Alchemica]

"Indole alkaloid" could just be used as a term for serotonin in this case. Would be nice if there was something more active in bananas but I doubt it.

The psychedelic properties of banana peel: an appraisal

http://www.springerlink.com/content/02060r...58/fulltext.pdf

6-hydroxy-1-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydro-β-carboline found in bananas:

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf030324h

I tried smoking banana peel as a kid - tasted good... don't think I got any effect from it.

[Gunter]

If this thread is in a bad place I can't help it, I didn't start it but it interests me none the less. It can be moved by a mod.

I think that article by Krikorian is pretty poor.

For example:

Studies have revealed that the baked skins

do not contain significant amounts of any

known hallucinogen.

He gives no reference for this and note that it doesn't say what they found, it says no hallucinogen, but does not say no scheduled chemicals. Overall the article is weak and vauge and inconclusive.

The following is a news

release from the Food and Drug Administration,

United States Department of Health,

Education and Welfare (Friday, May 26,

1967).

The US FDA is not known for credibility or accountability. apprantly the refutation of the psychoactivity of banana alkaloids was a press release describing some poor tests on processed banana, not even on normal banana, and they tested the smoke not for alkaloids by reagent.

"Was it all a hippie hoax?

"A laboratory apparatus "smoked" dried

banana peels for more than three weeks and

never did get high, the Food and Drug

Administration reported today.

What a strange way to test a plant for alkaloids.

"The Bureau of Science has made an analysis

of the smoke obtained from several recipes for

dried banana peel and concentrated banana

juice, the FDA said. There were no detectable

quantities of known hallucinogens in these

materials.

Who is the Bureau of Science?

They tested smoke from processed banana for alkaloids.

Does that sound like a credible test to you?

How I wonder, did they test smoke for alkaloids?

"The FDA began the laboratory test after

its Bureau of Drug Abuse Control received

reports that dried scrapings from banana

peels were being smoked for their hallucinogenic

effect.

"The FDA's "smoking machine" consisted

of a series of tubes and retorts which trapped

the smoke. The chemical components of the

smoke were examined by ultraviolet and

infrared spectrophotometric procedures.

Ok so now I know eh? They tested the banana smoke residue by looking at it under a black light and passing light through it and and measuring the light that passed through. Would this test have been accurate enough to use in a court case to prove the absense or presense of alkaloids?

"Smallamountsof known hallucinogenswere

introduced during some tests to determine

whether the substances could be detected in

the smoke. The added hallucinogens were

recovered and identified.

So to test the smoke they checked it using light, but to test the controls they added known drugs (what ones?) and then recovered them, via extraction and then identified them via a means that was not mentioned. How many good studies do you know use different methods to test the controls than are used to test the suspect material?

I'd like to see more information about the more modern studies about it, that holds more credibility to me than old tests from over 50 years ago.

[Insomnolence]

My friend tried this... Bought a banana, brought it home, scraped the inside of the skin, dried it and smoked it. The whole time he was doing it I said 'It's a myth man, you're wasting your time, this is so stupid... etc etc.' He still doesn't believe me. And he just left the banana sitting there, he wasn't gonna eat it! Wasteful bastard! He was gonna throw it out!

I ate it on some cereal anyway. But as if you wouldn't eat it?

Waste !

Edit: I feel I should eat my hat... Archaea you have a good point. Thanks for telling fools like me what fore.

Edited May 19, 2009 by Insomnolence

[the germinator]

Speaking of mandarinedine - i got a heap of bitter orange extract - any ideas on a synephrine extract from the orange/brown 'tar'?

Defat wt xylene.

Bassify wt NaOH.

Extract wt Xylene.

Neutralize wt HCl etc... Heat & cool.

[Gunter]

When I looked into this topic more I found that banana peel contains dopamine, which gets converted to salsolinol.

The dopamine content of green banana peel was between 10 and 20 grams per kilogram by fresh weight.

Here is a quote of a version of this thread I started at the nook after reading this thread here:

one study I read, it was old too, found 700 PPM or 0.07 % dopamine in the peels and 122 PPM of norepinephrine, the study did not say fresh or dried weights.

but then I read a neat study that tested the bananas (fresh weight) at different stages of ripening

in ripe bananas the peel had 800-560 mg/kg dopamine so 0.08 % or so, that is consistent with the 700 ppm measurement from before, however unripe bananas (green to half green stages) had 8,650-19,400 mg/kg of dopamine, that is 0.8-1.9 % by fresh weight!

Where does the dopamine go? It gets turning into a very interesting molecule called Salsolinol by non-enzymatic Pictet-Spengler reaction and then gets transformed into salsolinol-o-quinone by banana polyphenol oxidase which is a pH dependent reaction. This whole process results in the banana peel becoming brown.

The highest content of norepinephrine in bananas was also in the green ones, in this case 0.05-0.1% by fresh weight.

Banana sap is very sticky and may hinder extractions, my initial experiments have shown the brown pigment containing salsolinol-o-quinone is water soluble but even in basic solution no tint is picked up by NP and the emulsion that whole bananas form is downright evil, so the peel seems to be interesting.

Green banana peel also contain narangin in amounts of 0.12-0.26% fresh.

This is all for one type of banana, the 4011, er I mean the Cavendish. Other types will vary and may have other alkaloids in them.

Salsolinol is interesting, very much like betacarbolines in action it has some sedative effects and impacts benzo receptors somehow just like betacarbolines, it is an endogenous molecule and has been shown to have both neurotoxic and neuroprotective effects. Increased levels of it in CNS fluid and blood have been demonstrated for Parkinson patients with hallucinations and or delirium as a symptom, but was not abnormal in other Parkinson stricken patients.

Despite the banana having two isomers of salsolinol, only one appears to reach the brain

I can't find anything on narangin other than that it is a flavonoid also found in grapefruit.

I think it is neat that a kg of fresh green banana skins can contain nearly 20 grams of dopamine while a kg of old ripe skins has only about half a gram.

I believe that some banana preparations may be psychoactive. I would expect a mellow benzodiazepene like effect. I think that extractions are potentially dangerous, norepinephrine can be absorbed through the skin, an overdose of this could prove fatal, thus concentrated banana alkaloids aren't something to treat casually. So sure there is no such thing as bananadine, but bananas peel can contain over 1% alkaloids by wet fresh weight, so a casual dismissal of the idea of banana peels as potentially psychoactive seems premature, despite the fact that this has been the tone regarding bananas for over 40 years. How many people repeat what they read and call it knowledge? Skepticism strikes me as foolish, why must we cling to doubt? Uncertainty is not doubt, not knowing is not the same as doubting.

Edited May 24, 2009 by Archaea

[mutant]

nice comment

when I was 18 or so we did that banana peel preperation. When we smoked the cigarette, I was the only of the three that had an effect, it was a 5 min delightful insight, pretty intense and short lived. The effectes were never repeated even though I never tried too much. Lookin back, this feels like a placebo .... or .... ?

[Gunter]

It might be placebo, can't rule that out, but there may have been something to it.

[t st tantra]

thanx for sorting that one out.......good piece of work!

t s t .

[Smiling Cloud]

Would it be possible to extract the dopamine from the unripe peels? The reason i ask is because some plants use dopamine to make alkaloids. It would be cool to use the extracted dopamine in experiments to 'dope' different plants. I have read experiment regarding doping plants with l-tyrosine to try increase alkaloid levels. I don't know how you would apply the extracted dopamine to the plants though, maybe dmso?

[Alchemica]

Dopamine seems to be pretty complicated to extract... a few people have played around using l-dopa and tyramine/tyrosine (considered to be metabolic precursors for a certain alkaloid) which are easy enough to buy online if you look around in 1-25gr amounts. L-dopa might be considered S4 - prescription only, so keep that in mind (I'm not sure if the S4 classification is for L-dopa alone or when combined with benzerazide/carbidopa).

DMSO is a good carrier (injection or possibly application to the skin) but water works. It's pretty easy to "rot" away significant portions of cactus if you use too much, or don't use sterile equipment.

Look into "Pumping your Pedro" if you are in a country where research is legal.

Edited May 30, 2009 by The Alchemist

[the germinator]

Why not just buy Dopamine from the supermarket?

[Gunter]

Dopamine seems to be pretty complicated to extract...

It is water soluble isn't it?

DMSO is a good carrier (injection or possibly application to the skin) but water works.

I've never heard of DMSO or injections working, but I have heard of it killing plants.

It's pretty easy to "rot" away significant portions of cactus if you use too much, or don't use sterile equipment.

Cacti aren't sterile, or rather axenic, using axenic conditions with cacti strikes me as a mistake, disinfecting invites more infection than it solves in many cases. I have yet to learn of someone rotting their cactus from letting it soak in water overnight.

Look into "Pumping your Pedro" if you are in a country where research is legal.

I find the pumping pedro article to be outdated and pathetic.