I saw one estimate that a serving of prepared coffee contains about 5mg, but likely that varies by brewing method.
I drink lots of arabica coffee, I’ll have to estimate its trigonelline content. Lightly roasted specialty coffee should be the best (almost invariably arabica, hi altitude, less caffeine, more chlorogenic acid and trigonelline). According the data below one espresso may easily reach 70 mg of it, Arabica high-altitude has about 30 mg/cup of caffeine on average, so there is no problem in reaching 350 mg of trigonelline.BUT, there is always decaff, if the procedure conservers trigonelline, then we may ingest a virtually unlimited amount. without jeopardizing sleep.
When a young man I liked to experiment and I tried fenugreek, it’s undeniably one of the most disgusting things I did and congratulations on the stoicism of those who are able to keep such a drink in their stomach, it will do its best not to keep the fenugreek inside…
Medaura, it might have been worse I believe. It is not clear if green decaff has 25% or 75% (25% lower) the trigonelline of regular coffee. During roasting trigonelline is lost anyway and we don’t know if lower concentrations have equal or minor loss.
All in all, even in the worst scenario, I would behappy with 1/4 the amount in decaff, since we can drink of it ad libitum. Sometimes I drink 10 decaffs, done with my home automatic espresso machine. That would be equal to 2.5 regular cups.
Analysis of the decaffeination-induced changes in nonvolatile compounds revealed that decaffeinated green coffee beans had significantly lower concentrations of trigonelline (25%)
That was just one source I cited. Others say that certain common procedures of decaffeination entirely remove the trigonelline (e.g., chemical solvents) so ad libitum consumption by times zero trigonelline concentration equals zero trigonelline. I think dry roasting fenugreek seeds then grinding them into powder to add to soups is the way to go. Fenugreek seeds can also be sprouted.
It would be useful to know all the details of chemical trigonelline removal since AFAIK there are several industrial decaffeination processes. At least two, the so-called swisswater, and supercritical CO2 use no solvent. Usually, the producer declares the specific process used, commonly ethyl acetate or Swisswater, so choosing the latter we may hypothetically enjoy the trigonelline.
Re. fenugreek seeds, that’s of course the direct nonsense way, I used to sprout them and remember the taste was spicy and good. I don’t know about soups, it may require some stoicism.
An alternative would be to fill large dimension capsules with the powder.
Technically what requires stoicism would be accepting our inevitable demise with magnanimous indifference instead of going to fenugreek-seed-grinding lengths in the dubious hope of staving it off, but I digress.
It was likely a dose insufficiency issue on his end, underscoring how these mouse-to-human dose translation charts are very rough rules of thumb. But it’s nice to see it on Amazon — albeit from a Chinese manufacturer but then again, that’s who’s probably sourcing the ingredients behind most trusted supplement brands.
Oh and as a snack today I soaked a cup or two of fenugreek seeds in water and drained it a few hours later, drinking the “tea.” It tasted like nothing except the last gulp, which has a bitterness to the aftertaste consistent with the alkaloid contents of the seed (including its trigonelline). The seeds themselves I roasted slowly on low heat with olive oil and some spices. Garnished with fresh onion and tomato they were pretty appetizing — no stoicism required if you don’t mind a tiny bit of bitterness.
It really took almost no time at all. I asked ChatGPT for ways to prepare fenugreek seeds so as to maximize trigonelline retention. Oh and it seems that whatever trigonelline in coffee, whether it made it past the decaffeinating process or not, gets converted into niacin from roasting. So the minimally processed fenugreek seeds look like the way to go, short of Chinese vendors on Amazon. That’s an interesting development by the way, these raw powders on Amazon from Chinese suppliers. They’ll soon be competing with the supplement brands who are the usual middlemen capturing the greatest margins, unless they’re booted off the platform somehow.
Edit: I just saw the price—$60 for 20 mg? Pfff. Sticking to fenugreek seeds.
I checked my local Amazon store, and either the powder or the whole seeds vary widely in price and can cost as little as 17 Euros /kg, which is pretty inexpensive.
It takes about a cup or two of fenugreek seeds properly cooked to yield 200-1200mg of trigonelline as per gpt, depending on local variability, so I think the powder is useless as can’t be consumed at sufficient scale. I take it still as it allegedly supports milk production, but for trigonelline? Fuhgeddaboudit — seeds all the way.
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