He felt that the L-dopa would break down sufficiently with cooking, particularly if cooked in water. It breaks down readily in the presence of moisture and forms the harmless pigment melanin. In fact the drug must be stored in dry, brown bottles which must not be allowed to exceed room temperature. The articles I reviewed mentioned no biological effect of this compound. This brings us to an aspect of ECHO's ministry that is not normally visible to our network.
Many undergraduate programs require research as part of the science major.
ECHO encourages such students and their professors to undertake projects that would benefit small farmers in the third world. Senior premedical major Sarah Kramer and her advisor Dr. Bob Kistler at Bethel College in Minnesota did just that, and came up with some very interesting information. First, a computerized literature search turned up two journal article reports of people eating velvet beans. One study mentioned that they found a village in Ghana where some people ate velvet bean daily. Another study found that rural people in southern Nigeria use it as a soup thickener by first boiling to remove the hard seed coat, then grinding it.