How To Grind Hawthorn Berries – I’m down with a cold today, I’ve just taken a ‘night time’ cold and flu pill, I don’t need much encouragement to sleep at the best time, so I’m fully expecting to be comatose in about 20 minutes, typing fast… So fall brings colds and flu, but also the best seasonal foods in my opinion…
In my kitchen at the moment I have a mixture of amazing squashes, bags of hawthorn berries, pickles in jars of every shade and color thrown around, it really feels like a bounty compared to any other time of the year. It’s a pleasure to have time at Cook House to paint, cut and preserve as the autumn sun streams through the windows. The nooks and crannies of the Ouseburn are also full of blackberries, rosehips and elderberries, spiders and huge thorns, but I still managed to fill punnets with several hedgerow bounties… add to this the start of the shooting season and I could Couldn’t you be happier to be back in the fall food stone…
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How To Grind Hawthorn Berries
I’m quite happy with this chutney, I always imagined hawthorn to be poisonous, but it turns out you can eat it all, leaves, flower and berries… The trees in the Lake District this weekend past they were heavy with hawthorn berries, I filled a bag full. The small berries of the Hawthorn are abundant at this time of year and make a delicious chutney, good with cold meats, game and cheese, a tasty sweet-spicy sauce…
Starwest Botanicals, Organic Hawthorn Berries, 1 Lb (453.6 G)
Cut the berries from their stems, about 1kg of them, wash them then simmer in 500ml cider vinegar and a teaspoon of salt. Simmer for an hour then press through a sieve into a clean saucepan, keeping the syrup you extract. Add to it, 125g of raisins and 300g of brown sugar, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg, ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves, ¼ teaspoon of ground allspice and a grind of black pepper. Then let it simmer uncovered for 15 minutes until it is thick and pour into clean jars and seal. It’s delicious with a portion of game terrine, richly spicy and quite unlike any chutney I’ve ever had…“Its spines are like nails; inches long and strong; tensile And yet, a gentler and more nutritious medicinal plant is unlikely to be found.” -jim mcdonald
For today’s article I am sharing excerpts from Alchemy of Herbs about the many healing gifts of hawthorn. I’m also including one of my all-time favorite recipes: Hawthorn Cordial.
Hawthorn from Alchemy of Herbs: Transforming Everyday Ingredients into Healing Foods and Remedies by Rosalee de la Forêt (Hay House, 2017)
With heart disease being the leading cause of death in the United States, it’s surprising to me that more people don’t know about hawthorn. Before I start sounding like a snake oil salesman, I should note that people get heart disease for many reasons, and hawthorn is not a silver bullet cure that you can take while ignoring the basics. key aspects of wellness such as a healthy diet and an active lifestyle.
Raw Berry Crisp
European culture has long been fascinated by the hawthorn, and many myths and pieces of folklore surround this thorny tree. As well as being used for medicine, the hardwood of the tree became a tool and the thick and thorny nature of the tree made it a popular choice as a natural hedge or fence. Several species of hawthorn are native to North America, where First Nations used it to treat a variety of ailments, including wounds and digestive problems. People in China also have a well-developed relationship with hawthorn, often using it for stagnant digestion.
In spring, hawthorn trees produce large numbers of beautiful white to pink flowers. After pollination, the tree begins to form many bunches of berries that ripen at the end of summer. These red berries are dry and sweet and can vary from bitter to sweet, depending on the species.
Hawthorn is a tree in the rose family that grows throughout the Northern Hemisphere. There are over 280 species, and herbalists use them all in the same way. The most studied species in science were
Western medicine’s current paradigm for treating chronic disease relies heavily on suppressing symptoms rather than addressing the factors that cause the problem. For example, if you have seasonal allergies, a practitioner may give you something to block your body’s attempt to create histamine, but practitioners often give nothing to modulate your immune system and prevent allergy symptoms in -first place This paradigm can be seen in the range of pharmaceuticals that Western medicine uses to address the symptoms of heart disease. While this attempted Band-Aid may save lives in the short term, it does not address why the person has heart disease in the first place.
Frontier Co Op, Organic Whole Hawthorn Berries, 16 Oz (453 G)
In fact, many commonly prescribed medications actually deplete the body of nutrients needed for heart health. Statins, commonly prescribed to lower cholesterol, reduce the body’s CQ10, an important enzyme for a healthy heart. Diuretics, commonly prescribed for high blood pressure, deplete the body of potassium. Potassium deficiency leads to an irregular heartbeat. Hawthorn, in nourishing and strengthening the heart, does something that no other pharmaceutical can claim.
How does hawthorn work? Like most herbs, hawthorn works in numerous and complex ways, many of which we still don’t understand. However, an important factor is the high content of hawthorn flavonoids. Heart disease is often related to inflammation, and regularly eating herbs and foods rich in flavonoids has been shown to reduce inflammation and oxidative stress.
From the 1950s until recently we mistakenly believed that eating cholesterol-rich foods caused high cholesterol levels. An updated perspective on high cholesterol levels is its relationship with systemic inflammation, which hawthorn, with its high content of flavonoids, helps to reduce.
Research scientists have been studying hawthorn for decades in relation to various symptoms of heart disease. In one study researchers gave people with diabetes and coronary heart disease 1, 200 mg of hawthorn leaves and flowers a day for six months. After that time, those who took hawthorn showed a greater tendency towards lower LDL cholesterol (“bad” cholesterol) and decreased neutrophil elastase (an enzyme that, when elevated, is related to heart disease heart) than those who took a placebo.
Sugar Boiled Hawthorn Images, Stock Photos & Vectors
The dose used in this study was relatively low compared to herbalist standards, and it will be interesting to see the effects of the larger doses more commonly used by herbalists.
For herbalists, one of the most common indications for hawthorn is high blood pressure. Some herbalists use hawthorn alone, others combine it with other herbs, and herbalists commonly suggest it along with a healthy diet and regular exercise. After centuries of use, it remains popular for lowering high blood pressure.
Clinical trials have supported this traditional use. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study conducted in Iran, 92 men and women with mild hypertension ingested an extract of a local Hawthorn species for four months. Blood pressure was measured monthly, and the results showed a significant reduction in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure after three months.
Another study gave hawthorn to patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and showed that the herb reduced diastolic blood pressure.
Moved — **the Red Smoke / La Fumée Rouge**
Herbalist Charles Kane says, “As a heart medicine there is no other herb with such a positive yet gentle influence than the Hawthorn.”
In addition to helping to reduce particular heart problems such as high blood pressure and hyperlipidemia, hawthorn has been shown to improve overall heart function in people with mild to moderate heart disease.
One study looked at 1,011 people diagnosed with stage 2 heart disease who were taking a high dose of a proprietary hawthorn product. After 24 weeks, the researchers observed a significant improvement in symptoms, including a reduction in ankle edema, improved cardiac performance, and a decrease in blood pressure.
Another trial used the same hawthorn product but studied patients for two years. After that time, those who took the hawthorn had significant improvements in the three main symptoms of heart disease—including fatigue, pain with increased exertion, and palpitations—compared to the control group. The researchers concluded that hawthorn had a clear benefit for patients with mild to moderate heart failure.
Hawthorn Berry Tea Recipe
Western herbalists tend to use berries more often; however, research studies have given the flower and leaves more attention in recent years.
You can eat the berries like food and enjoy them in a variety of ways, including infusing them in alcohol or vinegar or making them into honey, jam, or even ketchup. I recommend that you regularly enjoy hawthorn in large quantities; taken daily keeps hearts nourished and healthy!
Hawthorn berries are a food-like herb that people can consume in larger amounts, just like you would a food. For best results with berries, leaves, or flowers, use it daily and long term.
Tea: up to 30 grams of berries, and up to 30 grams of leaves and flowers, per day
Bgreen Food Freeze Dried Pitted Hawthorn Berry
This hearty hawthorn recipe combines the nutritional qualities of hawthorn with delicious herbs that aid digestion. Enjoy in small amounts after an evening meal. (I find it helps me get through the day.)
I recently brought this to a potluck and served 1 to 3 teaspoons of cordial in about 1 cup