Elderberry Syrup and The Flu

Last week my husband's co-worker plopped a box of tissues on his desk as she walked past. When he looked up with a puzzled look on his face, she shrugged and said, "It's flu season."

What do you do for flu season? We make sure we have a good supply of elderberries in the freezer. Elderberries grow wild around here, which is a good thing. My husband goes out and cuts off the umbles, heavily laden with berries, and brings them home in five-gallon buckets. Then he and the kids sit around the dining room table painstakingly removing those tiny berries from the stems to freeze.

To freeze the berries, we first rinse them in cold water and drain on a terry-cloth towel. Then, we spread them on a cookie sheet in a single layer and pop them in the freezer. After an hour or so, we scrape them off the cookie sheet into a zip-shut bag. Label and return to the freezer.

Then what do we do with them? We make elderberry syrup. Elderberry has gone through many tests and come up the champion against viruses. A study in Israel several years ago proved that it fights the influenza virus. You can by elderberry syrup for just such illnesses at your local pharmacy under the name of Sambucol. Sambucol is a top-notch product that works but it is quite costly. So...we make our own at home.

To make your own elderberry syrup you need to have the ingredients on hand.
1 cup of elderberries (we use frozen but you can also use fresh or dried)
3 cups of water
1/2 cup raw honey

In a stainless steel or glass pan, bring your water to a boil. Add the berries and reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 40 minutes covered. Strain out the berries and add the honey. Bottle and store in the refrigerator. This will last a couple weeks in the fridge. Some people call for more honey. My family can't stomach the sweetness of more honey and the purpose is solely for preservative purposes. Since we have a large family and a quart jar of syrup doesn't last that long in our house, I choose to cut the honey.

Other recipes I've stumbled across call for simmering a cinnamon stick and a tablespoon of grated ginger with the berries. We've used the above recipe for many years with great success so I'm not going to say that the cinnamon and ginger are necessary. However, cinnamon is known as a carrier herb. That means that it will help the medicinal properties of the elderberries get to where they need to go. Also, both the cinnamon and the ginger are warming to the system and since the flu is a cold condition in the body, they are both beneficial.

The elderberry syrup is quite good by itself so you need not hide it in any other juice. I have a little shot glass that I dose it with. It holds about two tablespoons. Whenever anyone says they feel like they are getting a sore throat, runny nose, or any other such symptom, I give them a dose every couple of hours on that day. Generally, that knocks it out. If not, I give it to them 3-4 times the next day.

If someone fails to mention their symptoms until they are full-blown sick, I add a dropper of echinacea tincture and about 10 drops of goldenseal tincture to each dose.

This is what works for us. Along with some other preventative measures that I will cover in another post. What does your family do to treat the colds and flu? I'd love to hear what works for you.

Blessings,