In an attempt to keep my children's immune systems ready to battle, I have been making Elderberry Gummies. I first found this recipe on WellnessMama : http://wellnessmama.com/4599/flu-busting-gummy-bears/
My kids had already enjoyed the basic elderberry syrup recipe they had learned to make in our Green Wisdom Herbal Studies Homeschool classes, and didn't like the addition of spices (cinnamon, clove and ginger) in the wellness mama version so I used her gummy recipe with the plain elderberry tea sweetened with this fabulous honey suggested by a fellow homeschool mama - http://www.honeypacifica.com/cold-packed-brazilian-peppertree-honey/. After this first batch they were hooked on the gummy form and I wanted to add more helpful properties with other helpful herbs.
My kids have all been healing a cough brought on by the pertussis bacteria. Julie had concocted a herbal syrup they all liked using thyme, mullein, coltsfoot, licorice root and honey. My husband loved it, but the kids spilled as much as they sipped, so I decided to try and combine these herbs with the elderberry gummies I had been wanting to make.
After reading a blog post (http://www.sabbaticalsoapbox.com/2013/02/diy-thyme-tincture.html) breaking down the different ways of extracting the medicinal quality from herbs, I made my first glycerite, with thyme and mullein. Have been adding it to the kids favorite, Sugar Cookie Sleighride Tea.
Since they had gobbled down all the aforementioned gummies (and used some in lego building projects), I was ready to make a new batch. My Thyme Mullein Glycerite was ready and another fellow in home educator had suggested maple syrup instead of the honey. So for my second batch, I used this recipe: https://food52.com/recipes/32928-chewable-elderberry-cough-drops and added 2 teaspoons sodium ascorbate after reading this article on the importance of Vitamin C in healing pertussis: http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/09/07/vitamin-c-for-whooping-cough-updated-edition-suzanne-humphries-md/
These are popular with the girls but the boys like to use them to explore the bounce capacity. Next I am going to try making extracts of all four of the herbs in the cough syrup to maximize the effectiveness of the herbs.
Trying to decide if these gummies are worth ordering these cute silicon molds... seems like an easy way to provide herbal healing on the go and I could make different formulas for different needs.
So very excited to be starting the Herbal Apprenticeship this Saturday, so I will end this post with a couple of quotes from a book I have acquired for this undertaking:
The Practice of Traditional Western Herbalism: Basic Doctrine, Energetics, and Classification
"Holistic medicine is founded on the concept and experience that the organism is a functional unit or whole under the directing hand of an intelligent, self-regulating, and self-correcting guiding life force or energy."
"A culture that has lost its folk medicine, or its ability to heal and cure everyday problems with everyday materials, has lost a part of its soul."Thanks for reading. Be well.
