My Kids beg for this IMMUNE BOOSTING, VIRUS FIGHTING MEDICINE! (Homemade Elderberry Gummies!)

This time of year we need all the help we can get with our

immune

system, but sometimes getting young children to take herbal preparations like tinctures can be really challenging. So today we are going to prepare an herbal remedy that your children will beg for. The ones you take are so delicious and so good for your

immune

system but first we have to go look for food here we are standing in front of a wild elder plant there are actually quite a few around here

this

is a sambus and it is what you are looking for when you are harvesting elderberries for medicinal purposes, they actually grow all over the United States, you don't have to worry too much about the species, as long as you have one that has blue or black berries when they are ripe, they are ready and great for

medicine

, you can growing them in your own garden, it would be very easy to find them, but like I said, in many places in the United States you can just go out and harvest.

Now when we use Elderberry the parts of the plant we want to use for

kids

are the berries, they make great Elderberry

gummies

and taste great for babies or the elderly. You can also use the flowers of the plant and for healthy adults, you can actually use the leaves. These leaves don't look very healthy on

this

plant, so we're not going to do that, but today we'll use the berries. We need approximately one cup for the remedy we are preparing. So I think there is always room for more studies to be done here. In fact, many studies have been conducted on the active compounds of the sambuka plant in vitro.

Studies have shown that the

elderberry

plant is really good as a cytoregulator, meaning that it helps regulate your immune system's messaging system by surprisingly inhibiting and stimulating interaction and 10, which is part of your internal messaging system. which helps your immune system work really well, this really supports the long history of

elderberry

being It is used medicinally as an immune modulator, meaning it helps regulate your immune system, without letting it become too crazy and without letting it get too low, it just keeps you active and ready, and in very good human studies it has been shown as well. that elderberry has this amazing ability if taken at the beginning of an influenza to dramatically reduce the duration and severity of a

virus

, specifically the influenza

virus

, but it works on other things.

Elderberry is known as a really safe herb, but make sure you always do your own research and make sure it is right for you. If you are taking any medication or have any other health problems, it is really good to check that an herb is suitable to take and of course there are always some people who might experience some problems. allergies to any given herb, so make sure it is suitable for you and your family before taking it. We have a bunch of elderberries here, we're ready to get back in the kitchen and make our elderberries.

Making elderberry

gummies

is actually very easy, but the first step is that you need to make a very concentrated tea. We can make it with fresh elderberries like the ones we just harvested or we can make it with dried elderberries today. In fact, I'm going to use farmhouse teas. herbal elderberry syrup blend because not only does it contain elderberries, but it also has other really great herbs that will really help boost the immune system. It has stagis ignatia. He has some ginger teeth. Cinnamon. They are really good for cold and flu season and will taste great in our gummies so I will use this.

If you wanted to use fresh elderberries you would simply take about a cup of berries from their little stems it only takes a minute you can do it pretty quickly but since I'm using dried herbs I'm actually only going to use half a cup of dried herbs now you can use just pure dried elderberry, you can see it has all kinds of really cool stuff either way, you're going to start with a cup of water in your pot and add a half cup of dried herbs or a cup of fresh herbs. Turn the heat on and bring it to a simmer as soon as it simmers, we're going to want to put the lid on and let it simmer for about 10 minutes before turning off the heat on our pot and letting it sit there with the lid on for About another 20 minutes after that happens, you're ready to strain it into a jar because something that's really important about this recipe is that your concentrated tea has to be completely cold, so you're going to want to get that. in a jar and put it in the refrigerator to sit at least overnight.

Luckily for me, I already have a cold concentrated elderberry tea in the refrigerator that I made yesterday just to be ready for today, so let's look at the other ingredients and supplies you need. For this recipe, you will first need six teaspoons of very good quality gelatin, then you will need 3/4 cups of very good quality honey, 3/4 cups of white granulated sugar. Don't buy anything fancy, evaporated cane juice crystals don't seem to work as well, so go for white refined sugar. You will need 2 tablespoons of citric acid. Make sure you get citric acid that doesn't come from a genetically modified product.

Corn source, yes, that's where a lot of this comes from, believe it or not, we're going to need our half cup of our cold elderberry tea plus a tablespoon of cold elderberry tea on the side if you don't have this extra tablespoon if I concentrated yours in just half a cup and then you could use just water. You could use a different tea, a different herbal tea. You could even add a little lemon juice if you wanted a little flavor brightness, but you need about a tablespoon of liquid. For that, the supplies you need are pretty simple.

First of all, you need your mold. Make sure you get the size and shape you want. You don't have to use gummy bears. You can just use old circles. You can use all types. Of things, there are many ways, so you have many options. One of the most important things you should have for this recipe is a good thermometer. It doesn't have to be digital, it can be an analog thermometer, but it has to be candy. thermometer or be able to accurately climb into the well at the 200° 250° fahit position of your thermometer to measure food. Well, guys, you will be surprised how simple it is, really, step number one is to prepare our molds.

Now, this is really important. You want to make sure your gummies don't stick to the molds. The easiest way I found is to just get a good aerosol style cooking spray. Now you know me, you have been following me. for a while, you know, I don't cook with this stuff, it's not my favorite, but it really is the easiest to use when it comes to preparing the molds well, just spray it directly into each cavity, but right now, while I'm sure that every small At this point, the bit has received a thorough spray. I really don't want that much oil getting in there, so now I'm going to turn this around.

I'm going to let it sit upside down to drain while I continue. with the rest of the recipe now we are going to start by putting our honey, our sugar and our 1 tablespoon of extra liquid, all in a pot and stirring it very well, turn that pot on medium high heat now we want to take this mixture to everyone. up to 260° F, make sure you have your thermometer ready and on so you can maintain that measurement because this happens pretty quickly now as you get closer to that stage it will boil a little bit so be prepared to lower the heat so it doesn't overflow, the mixture has now reached about 255° 257 it's a little hard to be perfectly exact, so I'm aiming for right in the middle if you've made candy before.

I know this is the soft ball stage we're looking for, so I'm going to go ahead and turn off the heat and let this start to cool. Now we're going to want to let it cool to 190°F first. We take the next step while we wait for this to cool to those 190°. We are ready to take the next step and that is to mix our gelatin with our cold and concentrated tea. We need to do this a few minutes before. We're ready to use it because it needs to do something called blooming and that's where it's going to allow it to really thicken and develop, to make sure it's not lumpy and we're going to let it sit in one of the The best thing about this recipe is that you can use it with all kinds of different herbs, it doesn't just have to be elderberries or an elderberry blend, if you want to, say, make a sleep gummy, you can make it with valyria root, you can make a valyria root tea, of course, That would taste like stinky feet.

Now you could make it with Valyrian root and add lavender and hops, and that would be really effective when it comes to

medicine

, but you'd taste like soapy beer. Stinky feet flavored gummies aren't exactly what we're looking for. Well, let's rewind that one of the best things about this recipe is that you can use it with all kinds of really good herbal remedies. You can make all different flavors with it, just make sure they are flavors that you actually want to eat and they taste good, so if you want to make a sleep gummy that will help you sleep well, make it with lemon balm tea and make it exactly the same way we've done it here, well, we're waiting.

In order for our gelatin to bloom and our candy mixture to cool we are going to go ahead and finish preparing our little molds. I'm going to go ahead and try to get the rest of that oil out of there. I'm just We'll wet them with the towel a few times, scoop out anything that wants to puddle, and then place them on a cookie sheet. They will need to go in the refrigerator, so it would be good to have a ready spot in the refrigerator. Now that the mixture has cooled completely, it's time to go ahead and add our gelatin mixture and our citric acid.

I like to put that citric acid in there first because it's still in powder form and really just shaking it well is citric acid. Here it gives a nice, bright flavor. A lot of berry things need that kind of sour flavor to make it taste really good when you add that much sweetener, but it will also help lower the pH of our G. gummies so they become more stable, they'll last a lot longer with the citric acid in there and add this gelatin. You can see it's completely hardened there, that's great. If you stir it, you will have to break it.

Separately stir it a little bit until it's no more lumpy and it's completely well Incorporated, okay, this is completely incorporated and ready to go with this beautiful deep red color and it smells very good, not as good as it will smell once. is completely ready, the gelatin definitely gives it a bit of a salty smell so don't get carried away with that because they are going to taste great, now we are ready to fill our mold, the molds usually come with a dropper that looks like this and this is really useful for filling these things out.

I've tried just pouring them in and scraping it off the top, but it messes up the gummies, they stick together and do nothing. Good job, now what you want to do is try not to get any bubbles in your gummies as you fill them because they will stay there if you see them, you might want to take them out right away and just fill each of the gummies. This is the longest part of this whole process and you have to work pretty quickly before it starts to set up, so if you can grab a friend and let them help you, thanks, these are ready to slide into your fridge overnight to let them configure here.

These are some gummies that I made yesterday and they've been in the refrigerator overnight, so let's take a look and see how they are. You see they come out like this. I'm going to take them out and I'm going to put them back on a cookie sheet lined with this parchment paper because we want to take it a step further here. If you want them to be stable, they are ready, you can eat them at this point. Your children will love them. They are totally medicinal. they are ready to use, the problem with them right now is that they are still a little bit juicy so they are not shelf stable, they are not ready to sit on the shelf so we need to dry them a little bit, you can't dry them. a dehydrator or in an oven or anything else that has heat, so what you want to do is air dry them in the refrigerator.

As far as them being shelf stable, your main microbiological threats to this food are actually mold, so we're going to do a few things to reduce that: We're going to reduce the amount of moisture by letting them air dry in the refrigerator like we just did. talk, but the second thing we want to do is keep the pH nice and low. I already added a little bit of citric acid so you know that's going to help a little bit but if you really want them to last a long time and I mean a year especially in your refrigerator then you're going to want to take an extra step and that is you're going to want to mix your gummies in a mixture of sugar and citric acid.

This is one part citric acid to six parts simply refined sugar, I'm just going to give you a little powder. This makes them look like the little sour gummies you get in the supermarket, this will just add a little more acid directly to the surface where they would tend to get some mold, so this is really I'm goingto help them, we are going to do this for all of them, we are going to put them back in the refrigerator, outdoors, like this, uncovered, and I am going to leave them. They stay there for up to 3 weeks, at which time they will get nice and dried and they will be totally dry, ready to stick in a jar and store in the refrigerator to preserve for a longer period of time or you can keep them on the counter for a short period of time, just keep an eye out for any mold formation M, That will be your sign that they are no longer good and you should make a new batch.

Now let's talk about dosage. These elderberries are a very, very safe food; In fact, you can make elderberry syrup and pour it over your pancakes for breakfast so your

kids

don't accidentally overdose if they get into this and eat the whole package when you don't. Look, don't worry, it's not a big deal, but for immune health, what you really want to do is give your kids at least two of these gummies every day if they're actually

fighting

any specific threat, like the one you know , maybe someone. If the family has an illness or they've been exposed to it at school, you'll want to increase that to two bears three times a day and if someone is really sick and you're directly

fighting

a virus, I would do two bears each time. a couple of hours that will really give your body a fighting chance to get through it guys this is an amazing way to make some great herbal medicine that your kids will love enjoy I know your kids will love it Hello guys, come and try.

These come out, take your medications, each one can take two. Hey, if you want to know more herbal remedies you can make in your own home, check out this video right here. Ooh, what do you think they're good? Mhm, yes, yes.