Lime for betel nuts or other mastication available now!

[Torsten]

I don't usually post about new products unless they are very special. Well, I finally have a source of traditional red and white lime paste ready for use with betel nuts or other herbs that require freebasing for better effects in mastication.

Lime paste is much safer than lime powder as there can't be any calcium oxide present which can be quite painful. It also prevents inhaling powder by accident (or intentionally - if your stupid flatmate is trying to steal your drugs).

This will be a regular product as SAB now that we can source it easily.

[VINS]

i don't want to break the shaman secret but what are the ingredients ?

in the traditionnal use by indigene, is there a universal recipe or differents regarding the location ?

[Prophet]

Sounds good, now all i need is some betel nuts to go with the lime

[Torsten]

we stock betel nuts too.

there are no other ingredients. just the red or white lime and water.

[hebrew]

torsten was that source i mentioned helpful?

[teonanacatl]

yum yum betel nuts and piper betel flower spikes :D torsten do you know if dried betel or sarmentosum inflorescens hold their flavour???

[Prophet]

How much are the betel nuts torsten? I wouldn't mind getting my hands on some.

[Torsten]

hebrew - haven't been able to get in touch yet. They don't answer the phone and they don't return calls or faxes. I will keep trying though as I want the powder too. Thanks!!!

After looking at the pics I am pretty sure if it P.betel flower the ladies use up there. They would retain much of the flavour, but I noticed that the chewey consistency of semi dried flowers was rather off putting. Not sure if fully dried ones might be OK.

prophet - it's all listed in the webstore (under "herbs & extracts". I think they are about $10/100g or thereabouts.

[psycho0]

just wondering, how much of the paste would u need?

about 1/3 of the other material u r using?

is there a difference between the red and white paste?

thanx

aaron

[VINS]

ok ...this is maybe not the best place to ask but since we are talking about i need clarifications :

(i don't know nothing in chemistry )

in what i understand alcalin mean the opposite of acidic and lime mean acidic(or lemon in a translator). so what is calcium hydroxyde ? basic or acidic ?(i presume basic ) i am in complete confusion

anyway, i cant' think that there is a single source for calcium hydroxyde in the world Torsten. what i meant when i asked about different recipe was : do the south american coca chewer use the same paste than the indian with betel for exemple ? is there something in to change the flavour or modify the effects etc...?

[Torsten]

psycho - one whole nut requires about 1 or 2 pinches of lime. The pieces we sell are probably something like 15 pieces to a nut. There is probably enough lime in 100g for well over 100 while nuts.

Vin's - Lime in this case is not a citrus fruit, but calcium hydroxide. In french I think it is "chaux".

Lime = Calcium oxide

Hydrated lime = calcium hydroxide

Limestone = calcium carbonate

I should technically be calling the lime paste 'hydrated lime' paste, but this is usually not done.

Lime is produced in almost every country. It is a major ingredient of cement. But obtaining it in food grade form is more difficult. Most lime is made by heating limestone, but edible lime needs to be made by heating clean ocean shells.

Lime is unstable because it absorbs water from the air to make hydrated lime (very quickly). Hydrated lime is unstable as it absorbs carbon dioxide from the air and makes limestone (quite slowly).

Lime is the most alkaline form (will eat your flesh and turn it into soap), while limestone is the least alkaline. Limestone is often not strong enough to freebase alkaloids.

Wood ash also consists of metal bases such as calcium hydroxide, magnesium hydroxide, and alkaline potassium half salts. Hence woodash is often a suitable mastication additive (we are working on that too).

[ 13. March 2005, 13:19: Message edited by: Torsten ]

[teonanacatl]

the lime powder i use u only need about about a thumbnails worth. and watch out for lime burns, like ulcers and are caused because you got the lime caught in a cheek or a pocket somwhere else, also chew up the nut well before adding lime .

i will try dry some piper betel and powder it see if its still good, improoves taste 100%.

[VINS]

thanks a lot Torsten, things are more clear now

i found infos now and yes it is "chaux" also known as E 526 food additif

(what difference with the bicarbonate ? also an alcalin food additif, isn't it ?)

[spiders]

'Vin's - Lime in this case is not a citrus fruit, but calcium hydroxide. In french I think it is "chaux". '

Is this similar to the lime some people used to add to casings fro mushrooms to fiddle with the pH?

I dont know if anyone here has been to Taiwan, but there they have these 'betel nut girls' who sit on the side of the road in bikinis selling betel nut to all the taxi drivers. People assume all the red shit on the side of the road is blood until they realise.

[Torsten]

bm - the word lime is very confusing and I use it as little as possible. I would think that for shrooms you would use something gentle like calcium carbonate, ie limestone... often simply called lime. In general I thought shrooms use gypsum though, which is calcium sulphate, but that is neutral to slightly acidic.

vins - sodium bicarbonate is a weaker base than calcium hydroxide and hence may not be strong enough to freebase the alkaloids efficiently. I know some people use it for chewing coca and it works for that. Also, it means ingesting alot of sodium, which is bad.

[teonanacatl]

for betel nut u dont need to chew with lime, you will still get effects just not as strong, the effects i get from chewing without lime are enough for me, its harder to haveto much when chewing without lime. if your a real hard head then lime is an advantage. also dont give up just because u dont feel anything the first time, takes a few chews to get used to it. spit or swallow??? when i use lime i spit when i dont i will swallow.

[Torsten]

I use lime because it makes the tannin palatable. It takes me about 2 hours to eat a fresh betel nut without lime and about 5 minutes with lime. The tannin makes me gag.

[teonanacatl]

yeah a friend had the same thing happen i couldnt believe it, ive never gagged from somthing tasting bad lol. have you tried grinding the nuts up and mixing with spices and lime??

[apothecary]

My gnome would like to know if this lime stuff can be used for making yopo snuff also?

[teonanacatl]

yep sure can thats wat i used.

[VINS]

again with no chemistry knowledge :

in the habitual process described by FDA, the poppy farmer are using the lime of the fertilizer to extract crude M from a cooked opium solution.

they said that only M & codein will react with calcium hydroxide.

so what about the 28 others alkaloids ? is this stuff only usual with known molecules ?

just wonder if lime is universal when i read the question about the yopo snuf

[smogs]

i only tryed betel nuts once to little effect and am willing to try again when i get the energy to remove some more from the husk!

i found it difficult because it just makes ya spit so runny its hard not to swallow or spit instantly

and i didnt think the taste was all that bad

also im storing them in freezer... think they will last a while there?

[teonanacatl]

dont see y not smogs, the ripe ones last find how they are.

[sobriquet]

I've decided to add my first experience with betel nut chewing here rather than create a new thread.

Went to the Indian grocer and they had a few forms available. I bought 2 pouches of a brand called "Milan Supari" in a gold packet. This packet has sugar and menthol and other "permitted additives" whatever that might be. The other was called "Tulsi Pan Masala" which had saccharine, fennel, and aniseed mainly in addition to the betel nut.

I started by having 6-8 small cracked pieces (6-8mm pebble like fragments) of the Milan supari and found the flavour quite pleasant even from the start. Burning my tongue slightly and cheek. The pieces were rock hard and I noticed nothing immediately. After ten minutes I thought I was feeling some "tightness" and strong caffeine type feeling but just the beginnings.

After 30 minutes the pieces had not softened appreciably and the flavour was well and truly disappearing. I noticed the spit welling in my mouth quite frequently and when I bothered to check it, it wasn't a bright red or anything, but rather a faint pink/brown tinge. After 45 minutes the spit response was getting quite strong. The pieces were only slighter softer and the edges were kind of fragmenting into small bits which I was spitting out together with the spit.

I'd begun chewing at about 4:15 pm and eventually decided there wasn't much real effects apart from very mild stimulation which hadn't increased much.

I gave it about 20 minutes break and then opened a whole sachet of the pan masala. The flavour again was nice to start with and crunching up the fennel and aniseed was very nice. The effects were similar to the first and after 30 minutes the finer ground material together with what I'd chewed up ended up being spit out because of the copious spit.

Well I thought it had been a waste of time. But it's now 4 hours after and my temples, and masseter areas still have a tightish feeling and I still feel very stimulated like off a very strong cup of coffee. The inside of my mouth still has some tingliness and a faint aniseed type of feeling. This is despite having had dinner and then a cup of chamomile tea. I have a residual astringency in the tongue also.

It certainly gave me something, but I guess it's not the steam train like stimulation I imagined it might have been.

Both chews/sucks gave me a tight feeling in the mid throat/glottis area after 30-45 minutes of chewing. I still feel 'tight' and on edge, almost like coming off amphetamines but without the high or deep abdominal pleasure that gives.

Was I supposed to have chewed these further? When I spat out the 'supari' form the pieces were still quite firm but I couldn't be bothered finishing them.

Obviously lime would have extracted more alkaloid, but I don't know if I want any more effect than what I have gotten from this naive chew.

Anyhow, just my experience. I don't like the residual feeling all that much, and the astringency of my mouth/tongue isn't great either. I guess my definitive betel experience might have to wait till I can source some fresh stuff with some lime paste.

[Torsten]

get yourself a fresh nut and chew this with some lime. or maybe just start on a half nut.