The Family Problem

Lepidium meyenii belongs to the Brassicaceae — the crucifers. Relatives include broccoli, cabbage, kale, mustard, radish, horseradish and rocket.

Glucosinolates are the defining chemical feature of that entire family. They are what makes mustard pungent and horseradish sharp. They are not a maca feature; they are a crucifer feature.

So when maca is standardised on "glucosinolates NLT 0.6%", the specification is measuring something maca shares with a supermarket vegetable aisle.

QuestionCan glucosinolates answer it?
How concentrated is this material?Partially — yes
Is this material maca?No
Which phenotype is it?No
Is it raw or gelatinised?No

Three "no"s and a qualified "partially". That is a weak specification basis to stand on alone.

Glucotropaeolin: Better, Still Not Enough

Glucotropaeolin is the principal glucosinolate of maca — a benzyl glucosinolate — and it is more characteristic than a total glucosinolate figure.

It narrows the field usefully: not every crucifer is glucotropaeolin-dominant. But it is still not unique to maca, and it occurs in other Lepidium species among others. Better than a total, insufficient alone.

Macamides: The Actual Identity Marker

Macamides are benzylated fatty acid amides — amides formed between fatty acids and benzylamine — and they are essentially unique to Lepidium meyenii.

Alongside them sit macaenes, characteristic unsaturated fatty acids of the hypocotyl.

Two properties make macamides the right anchor:

  1. They are species-specific. Their presence at expected levels is positive evidence of genuine maca, which no glucosinolate figure provides.
  2. They are defined compounds, quantifiable by HPLC against reference standards — so the number is portable between laboratories.

The specification line that does the work: "Macamides to be reported by HPLC on every batch Certificate of Analysis." Keep glucosinolates as the conventional headline if the market expects it — but understand that it is a concentration measure, and that macamides are what confirm you bought maca. Same pattern as adding 4-hydroxyisoleucine to a fenugreek specification: a soft marker with a hard one beside it.

What Gelatinisation Does to the Numbers

An under-discussed technical point with real specification consequences.

Gelatinisation applies heat and pressure to remove much of maca's starch. Since starch is a substantial fraction of raw maca, removing it concentrates everything else — including the markers.

Practical consequences:

This is why processing status belongs on the certificate — not as a product description, but because it changes how the numbers should be read.

Phenotype and Composition

Yellow, red and black maca differ in pigment and are reported in the literature to differ somewhat in secondary metabolite profile.

For specification purposes the honest position is: phenotype should be declared and verified visually and documentarily, and buyers should not assume that a marker specification alone distinguishes them. If your formulation depends on phenotype, the declaration and the supply-chain control are what protect you — not the assay.

The Starch Figure

Worth requiring on gelatinised grades specifically. If gelatinisation is defined by starch removal, then a starch figure is the direct evidence that it happened.

A "gelatinised" material with a raw-maca starch content has not been gelatinised, whatever the label says — and unlike most quality questions, this one has a clean quantitative answer.

Writing a Maca Specification That Holds

  1. Name the species by binomial — Lepidium meyenii Walp.
  2. Require macamides by HPLC, reported per batch. The identity anchor.
  3. Declare colour phenotype per batch.
  4. Declare processing status — raw or gelatinised — per batch.
  5. Declare country of origin per batch.
  6. State glucosinolates with the method, understood as a concentration measure.
  7. Require a starch figure on gelatinised grades as evidence of processing.
  8. Set acid-insoluble ash at NMT 2% and require carriers declared — critical on a starchy powder where bulking is easy.

When Two Laboratories Disagree

Work through in order:

  1. Same processing status? Raw and gelatinised give different marker figures from the same crop. The most common cause of confusion here.
  2. Same glucosinolate method? Protocol-dependent.
  3. Same moisture basis?
  4. Do macamides agree? If macamides match while glucosinolates diverge, the difference is methodological. If macamides are absent or low, the question is no longer about method.

SV Botanica reports macamides by HPLC on every maca batch, declares origin, phenotype and processing status, and states the glucosinolate assay method. See the maca extract product specification, or the buyer's guide.