How Much Moringa Should I Take Each Day?

Nutrition facts are something we’ve basically gotten used to seeing in our day-to-day lives. Every time you buy a box of crackers or a tray of cinnamon rolls, all you need to do is check the back and you’ll find a list of vitamins, nutrients, calories, and fat.

You’ll also find recommended daily values. This packet of soup will give you 50% of your recommended sodium daily value. This fruit plate will give you 80% of your recommended Vitamin C daily value.

It’s readily-available information; if it’s not on the back of your food (and it probably is), it’s on the internet. The problem is that some foods, such as Moringa, haven’t yet been studied by the FDA enough for them to give us a standard daily value. The question, then, is this:

How much Moringa should I take each day?

While the FDA has not yet assigned Moringa a recommended daily value, researchers have been studying Moringa long enough to give us an idea of recommended amounts. We would recommend that any adult new to Moringa begin by taking 500 mg – 1 gram, which can then be incrementally increased to 5-15 grams over a period of a couple of months.

More information about Moringa and Moringa’s daily dosage is below.

How Much Moringa Do People Normally Use?

Humans have been consuming Moringa for thousands of years, which means we’ve had a lot of time to experiment with it. It also means that there’s not a perfect answer to this question, because it depends on the individual, the recipe, and whether they’re using leaves, powder, or drumsticks.

This 4-serving chutney recipe by Archana’s Kitchen, for example, uses two cups of Moringa leaves, or half a cup per person. This Dal recipe from Saffron’s Trail uses 1.5 cups for a 2-person dish or 3/4ths of a cup per person.

One cup of fresh Moringa leaves, according to the USDA, is about 21 grams. In other words, the Archana’s Kitchen recipe will give you about 10.5 grams of Moringa per serving, while the Saffron’s Trail recipe will give you a little over 16 grams.

Recipes calling for Moringa powder tend to use less. This delicious Moringa and mint chocolate squares recipe from Aduna calls for only 2 teaspoons (or about 9.5 grams) and makes 12 chocolate squares; less than a gram of Moringa per square. This gorgeous Moringa smoothie from Kind Earth only uses 1 teaspoon (4.75 grams).

Recipes that call for drumsticks tend to use more, on the other hand! This scrumptious 2-serving drumstick masala recipe from Sharmis Passions uses 5 drumsticks or about 27 grams per serving.

On the other hand, this potato and Moringa recipe from Indian Healthy Recipes uses 3 (about 33 grams), albeit only for 1 serving.

How much Moringa you use is going to depend a lot on whether you’re using fresh leaves, dried ones (though these are much less common in recipes; I tend to use them only in teas), powder, or drumsticks.

The powder is much more concentrated, so recipes tend to use a lot less. Drumsticks tend not to contain quite as much of the vitamins/minerals/nutrients as the leaves do (with a few exceptions; check the USDA database here for more information), so most recipes use more.

We have a general rule of thumb, therefore. But too much of any vitamin or nutrient (even the really important ones, like calcium or Vitamin A) can actually have negative side effects, and Moringa has lots of vitamins and nutrients! 

If you wanted a quick deep-dive into Moringa to get up to speed quickly, this article does a great job at that:

• Moringa 101

How Much Moringa is Too Much Moringa Per Day?

This question is a really fun one. It also requires a little bit of math, but I’ll do it for you; you can just follow along and check my work.

In 2009, researchers studying Moringa aqueous leaf extract found that doses were safe up to 2000 mg/kg (or, to simplify, up to 2 grams per kilogram) [x].

Three years later, another study went further; they concluded that it wasn’t until a person started taking 3000 mg/kg before the dose would be dangerous.

So: 3000 mg/kg (or 3 grams per kilogram) is too much, and 2000 mg/kg (2 grams per kilogram) shouldn’t have negative side effects. But what does that actually mean?

For the purposes of this experiment; we’ll use a small number. Let’s say we have an adult weight 50 kilograms. 50 kilograms is the equivalent of about 110 pounds; in other words, someone on the smaller side.

A safe dose of 2 grams per kilogram means that a 110-pound adult could consume 100 grams of Moringa without suffering any negative side effects. A 200-pound adult could eat 180 grams.

Now, the average 0-sized capsule holds about half a gram of powder. In other words, if you weigh 50 kilograms or 110 pounds, you could eat 200 capsules of Moringa powder in a single sitting and be fine.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: please do not eat 200 capsules of Moringa at a time. Don’t eat 200 capsules of anything at a time. Even if your capsules are teeny tiny, just don’t do it. I promise that you’re not going to enjoy yourself. But theoretically, you could.

You would need to eat a ridiculous amount of Moringa a day to eat too much. A small, 50-kilogram adult would need to eat more than 200 capsules.

You’d need to eat more than 5 cups of fresh leaves. More than 9 or 10 drumstick pods.

It’s absolutely possible to eat too much of any vitamin or mineral.

That’s the reason we have Tolerable Upper Intake Levels; to tell us how much Calcium, Vitamin A, and potassium is too much. But luckily for us, “too much Moringa” is a large amount; far more than we typically eat.

How Much Moringa Powder Per Day?

Remember, the powder from Moringa is very concentrated.

Because of this, Moringa Powder Dosage is recommended at 5 to 10 grams a day, with a build-up period to getting to these numbers.

If you want to start slow, I suggest under 500mg and gradually increase over a couple of months to get into this range.

So What Do Experts Recommend?

Because there’s not currently a standard recommended serving amount for Moringa, you’ll see recommended serving sizes vary a little. For the most part, though, they do remain pretty consistent.

Kuli Kuli, one of the largest distributors of Moringa within the United States, recommends a daily dose of 1tsp to 1 tbsp (2 grams to 14.3 grams) of Moringa powder.

Aduna, another huge distributor of superfoods like Moringa, recommends a daily serving of 10 grams (a little under 2 tbsp).

Carrie Waterman, a Ph.D., and researcher at UC Davis who’s been researching Moringa for 15 years, recommends a daily dose of 5-10 grams for a 150-pound adult.

And most human studies on Moringa have given participants daily doses ranging from 4.6 grams to 8.

All of these doses are well within the range of safety, and most are pretty analogous to what you see in recipes.

Conclusion, How much moringa per day

Ultimately, if you’ve never had Moringa, we’ll always recommend starting with a small dose. While the vast majority of people will greatly benefit from Moringa, everyone is different, and you should always introduce new foods into your diet slowly.

Begin with a single gram, added to your lunch or dinner daily, or taken with a smoothie. Use a gram daily for about a week, just to give your body time to get used to a new type of food.

You can then start gradually increasing the amount of Moringa you take over the course of a month or two.

Everyone at Morning Gardens uses about 1-2 teaspoons of Moringa a day; in other words, about 5-10 grams.

This amount works for us; we get the benefits of Moringa’s antioxidants, nutrients, and vitamins without having to make huge changes to our diets.

While we always suggest these amounts when asked how moringa dosage per day, you should take your time to find an amount that works best for you. Talk to your doctor, increase amounts slowly, and listen to your body.

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Shelby Kaplan

We’ve been eating Moringa daily for years: in capsules, in recipes, in teas. At first, we began using it mostly as an experiment. When I was young, My mother said it was called the tree of life. I said you couldn’t believe everything you read on the internet. 30 years later and I'm still taking this wonderful plant every morning.

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