By Crystal Stevens, Author, Teacher, Artist, Farmer
Cold and flu season is right around the corner. Give your body an immune boost with elderberry syrup. Not only do elderberries offer amazing immune support, but they are also rich in vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. Hippocrates called elderberry “the peoples medicine chest” because elderberry was used to treat many ailments. Elderberry has been used historically around the world to fight off infection. The purple color in elderberries is due to anthocyanins which are antioxidants that fight free radicals in the body. Studies have shown anthocyanins have anti-inflammatory, anti-viral and anti-cancer benefits.
Elderberry syrup is easy to make at home.
Elderberry + Herb Syrup
1 cup elderberries (dried)
5 tbsp cinnamon chips
6 tbsp echinacea root
6 tbsp ginger root
10 cloves
4 tbsp astragalus
1 cup rose hips
1 cups local honey
4 to 6 cups water
In a saucepan, combine elderberries, cinnamon, echinacea, ginger, cloves, astragalus, and water. Cover and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low-medium and simmer for 45 minutes to one hour. Add rosehips and simmer 25-30 minutes. Strain into a mason jar using a mesh strainer lined with cheesecloth. Place jar in an ice bath to cool. Add honey to 1 to 1 1/2 cups of honey to each fresh jar. Pour syrup in the jar. Stir well. Label. Store in refrigerator or freeze in ice cube trays or dilute with water or juice and freeze in popsicle molds. Stores up to a month and a half in the refrigerator. Repeat process with the excess to make a kids version.
Crystal Stevens lives along the bluffs of the Mighty Mississippi River in Godfrey, Ilinois with her husband and 2 children. Stevens is an Author, an Artist/Art Teacher, a Folk Herbalist, a Regenerative Farmer, and a Permaculturist. Stevens has written 3 books: Grow Create Inspire, Worms at Work, and Your Edible Yard (will be released in spring of 2020) Stevens speaks at conferences and Mother Earth News Fairs across the United States. She has been teaching a Resilient Living workshop series for over a decade. She and her husband, Eric Stevens, co-founded FLOURISH which encompasses a farm, a plant nursery, an apothecary, design services and educational programming including a Permaculture Design Course, and dozens of workshops throughout each season. Stevens Co-founded Tend & Flourish School of Botanicals with Alex Queathem.
Crystal will be leading an Elderberry Syrup Workshop at Greenscape Gardens on Saturday, November 2nd in the afternoon. Call 314-821-2440 for more information.