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Elderberry Juice: Retro Remedy Back In The News

I recall my Dad’s Mom canvassing her neighbourhood for a certain medicinal plant back when I was very young. Granny claimed elderberries had all kinds of benefits. Especially for digestion. But there was always a shortage of elderberries!

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I also recall noting, when I was a little older and helping Dad with our vegetable garden, that he had been influenced strongly by his Mom’s traditions, imported from the UK…

Victorian passions

Grannie’s family, the Walkers, came to Canada just after the First World War. Her father was an avid gardener, and he was especially enamoured of fresh fruits. Grannie inherited her Dad’s passion.

Which was one reason my Dad grew up in a small house with a big back yard full fruit trees, vines and bushes. Among them were three varieties that Dad ‘migrated’ to his garden when he built the house where I grew up: Strawberries, Gooseberries and Elderberries.

One thing I particularly remember was… There were never enough elderberries!

Like their ‘feet wet’…

My Dad explained, elderberries like to have their feet wet’ and, so, do best in low, semi-swampy ground. Fortunately for us, our yard sloped from the street gradually down to a low spot through a small seasonal creek created just the right environment for them. He planted a small forest of el-derberries there. Not so much for us, but to help keep his Mom supplied.

She, in return, gave a bottle of her elderberry tonic to each of her sons and daughters at Christmas time, to help keep their families healthy through the year to come.

Fast forward to the 202os…

Now, the elderberry – sadly neglected in the latter third of the last century – may be headed back to promiance. Following the discovery that it does, indeed, offer some serious benefits for digestion, the gut microbiome and weight management!

Researchers at Washington State University decided to conduct a pilot project to test their theory that traditional claims of healthfulness for elderberry juice were more than just an ‘old Grannies’ tale’.

What they did

“The researchers tested the effects of elderberry on metabolic health in a randomized, placebo-controlled clinical trial with 18 overweight adults,” an abstract of their study report relates. “Partici-pants consumed either elderberry juice or a placebo with similar coloring and taste, specially de-signed by North Carolina State University’s Food Innovation Lab, while maintaining a standardized diet.”

What they found

Clinical testing following the intervention showed that participants who consumed elderberry juice had significantly increased amounts of beneficial gut bacteria, and decreased amounts of harmful bacteria. A healthy gut microbiome is essential for nutrient absorption and supports physical and mental health.

In addition to positive microbiota changes, the elderberry intervention resulted in improved meta-bolism. Results showed that the elderberry juice reduced participants’ blood glucose levels by an average of 24 percent, indicating a significantly improved ability to process sugars following carbo-hydrate consumption. Results also showed a 9 percent decrease in insulin levels.

Additionally, results suggested that elderberry juice can enhance the body’s ability to burn fat. Participants who received the elderberry juice showed significantly increased fat oxidation – the breakdown of fatty acids, after a high carbohydrate meal and during exercise.

The takeaway

The researchers attribute these positive effects to elderberry’s high concentration of anthocyanins, plant-based bioactive compounds that have a variety of health benefits, including anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic and antimicrobial effects.

The problem is, elderberries remain in chronically short supply. They’re not generally commercially grown. And many traditional natural habitats have been filled in or drained to facilitate real estate or other agricultural development.

The beneficial effects of elderberries were associated, in the pilot program, with the consumption of at least 12 oz. / 355 ml of pure, unsweetened, undiluted elderberry juice per day, per participant.

Massively underappreciated…

“Elderberry is an underappreciated [fruit], commercially and nutritionally,” says study corresponding author Patrick Solverson. “We’re now starting to recognize its value for human health, and the results are very exciting.”

The question is, where are we going to get enough berries so everyone who needs it can get the equi-valent pf 355 ml per day of pure juice?

My take

It will take years – even if intrepid growers start planting massive new elderberry ‘gardens’ now – before they start to produce at commercially viable levels. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the sooner we get started, the better.

I’ve heard of nothing else, before or since I started this daily food news service, that has the potential of the quaint old elderberry to make such a powerful improvement in our overall health!

~ Maggie J.

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