I've searched around the site and internet and haven't found anything definitive. Is it dangerous to combine dark chocolate / cacao with ayahuasca? I seem to remember hearing a couple people saying they've done it without harm, but I also know that the vast majority of medicine-people say to avoid combining the two. I'm not sure if it's for safety's sake or for clarity of message sake. Or both.

Anyone care to shed some light on the subject?

I think it's mainly out of concern for the dieta in order to enrich the experience.

The concern with MAOI and certain foods are foods with high tyramine content building up in the body potentially leading to hypertensive crisis. However the MAOI found in Aya brews is typically of a class called RIMA which are weaker and reversible.

I drink rue tea every night (3-4 grams), have not changed my diet, and my blood pressure is just fine.

One love

And the info and links of this thread may be of some use to you.

One love

And does your diet include dark chocolate?

No chocolate is safe from me

One love

Dark chocolate is good stuff ..it been proven in labs to lower blood pressure by expanding up your blood vessels...

It works better if you eat a peice [of dark chocolate]..every day over longer periods of time..

I eat a peice of chocolate just before doing spice to help keep my pressure from going sky high when tripping..

Dart chocolate has a long list of good things going for it...just google this info up!

Missing the point... I know dark choco is good for you. I was wondering if it had any possible negative interactions with harmalas. thanks

I think it depends on how much ayahuasca you're using, and how much chocolate you're eating.

Anecdotally, a friend of mine got messed up intestines and glitchy liver function from using too much 'ceremonial' cacao for too long but that was with 75grams or more several times a week for a few months. He gave me his bag of caapi after that, so make of that what you will. I have no idea how much caapi, or even if, he was using at the time.

Normal amounts are less likely to cause such complications but if you're worried about it can't you just not eat chocolate?

My guess is that with such excessive amounts of cacao, liverdamage either comes from the theobromine and caffeine, or from the polyphenols, or combination of these compounds.

Caapi has, as far as i know, no effect on the theobromine and caffeine.

I don't know what enzymes are involved in the metabolism of these polyphenols. I've heard they have slight MAO inhibiting properties themselves though.

Anyway, i've always heard that chocolate is toxic for dogs and causes their liver to shut down because they don't metabolise theobromine very well, so i suppose that when the amounts of theobromine (and caffeine) taken exceed the human body's capacity for metabolising it properly, you could get simmilar problems.

In wich case the caapi was no major factor in your friends liverproblems. It doesn't realy sound like he had serotonergic syndrome because then he would probably have mentioned some other, more prominent symptoms as well.