Pick up the YeYo bottle on our paraphernalia shelf and the label will tell you it's sceletium extract. What it won't tell you is that this is one of the oldest documented mood-altering plants on the continent — used in what's now the Western and Northern Cape long before the word "supplement" existed.
So what is this plant, actually?
Sceletium tortuosum is a small succulent native to the Karoo and Namaqualand, in the same family as South Africa's ice plants. It goes by a few names depending on who you ask — kanna, kougoed ("chewable goods"), or channa. The Khoikhoi and San peoples have chewed it for centuries, and the San use the same word for kanna that they use for the eland antelope — an animal they regard as central to trance states, which gives some sense of how seriously the plant was taken, not as a casual chew but as something tied into ritual and belief.
Why does it need to be fermented?
Traditional preparation isn't as simple as picking the plant and chewing it. Kanna (like many plants in its family) contains oxalic acid — commonly cited at roughly 3.6–5.1% in related species — which is irritating if the plant isn't processed properly first. The traditional method: harvest around October, crush the plant between rocks, seal it in a container for a few days, expose it to the sun, reopen and mix it, reseal for roughly a week, then dry and powder it. A faster traditional alternative toasts fresh material over coals before powdering. Either way, the point of fermenting or heat-treating it is the same — it's what makes the plant usable, not an optional extra step.
What's actually in it, and how is it believed to work?
Total alkaloid content in the plant runs about 1–1.5%, with mesembrine as the dominant one — around 0.86% in the leaves, stems, and flowers, versus about 0.3% in the roots. Mesembrenone shows up at a smaller, roughly 0.2% isolated yield. A handful of these alkaloids (mesembrine, mesembrenol, tortuosamine) are thought to be the ones actually doing something; the rest occur only in trace amounts.
On mechanism: mesembrine behaves like a serotonin reuptake inhibitor with some weaker PDE4-inhibiting activity, which is the same general category SSRIs sit in. Mesembrenone does something similar but in a more balanced way, with stronger PDE4 inhibition of its own. Some animal studies also point to activity on acetylcholinesterase and at cannabinoid, GABA, and opioid receptors — though researchers are upfront that the full pharmacology isn't completely mapped out yet. The honest summary: this looks and behaves a lot like a plant-derived SSRI, but it's not a one-to-one substitute, and research is still ongoing.
What does it actually feel like?
Reported effects scale with dose, and vary person to person — this isn't a precise, repeatable formula. At lower doses, people commonly report an easing of anxiety and stress, a lift in mood and confidence, and a calmer, more meditative state. At higher doses, some report euphoria, and — particularly when combined with other substances — mild visual effects. A commercial extract called Zembrin (the best-studied, clinically-tested kanna product on the market) is typically dosed at 25–50mg per day for its cognitive effects, which gives some sense of how differently "extract" products are dosed compared to raw chewed material. Reported downsides include headaches, appetite loss, and — somewhat counterintuitively for a mood-lift product — depression in some users.
Where does YeYo fit into all this?
YeYo is a Cape Town brand (MoodFood) making a full-spectrum, solvent-free kanna extract they describe as engineered up to 16x stronger per mg than standard sceletium, capturing the whole alkaloid profile — mesembrine, mesembrenone, and delta-7 mesembrenone together — rather than isolating a single compound the way something like Zembrin does. We want to be straight about this: that 16x figure and the full-spectrum framing are the brand's own stated claims, not something we've been able to independently verify against third-party lab data — there's no public research specific to YeYo as a product. What we can verify is the plant itself, its traditional use, and its general mechanism, all covered above. If you want the full-spectrum angle explained, it mirrors the same logic we covered in our Terpenes 101 and Live Resin vs. Rosin vs. Distillate posts: capturing more of a plant's natural compound profile instead of isolating one piece of it.
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General product-education content only — not usage, dosage, or health advice. Kanna can interact with SSRIs, MAOIs, and other serotonergic medication — speak to a doctor before combining it with any prescription medicine. Effects vary by product and by person; always start low and go slow, and ask a member of staff if you're unsure what you're buying.