Keto Elderberry Tincture: A low carb immune boosting blend.
Keeping keto? Here’s a sugar free elderberry remedy that’s easy on your blood sugar!
Traditional remedies using elderberry abound and for a good reason. Elderberries have a traditional reputation and some scientific backing as an immune booster useful for supporting the body’s dealings with viruses and other invaders.
Elderberry is popular in gummy form and as a syrup and you can find may recipes for these great tasting goodies on the web. But what about those of us who need to limit our intake of sugar carbs? Gummies and syrup using sugar or honey pack a carbohydrate punch that many folks just can’t withstand, leaving us without access to this wonderful berry and it’s healing properties.
For example Commercial elderberry syrup can contain 8g Carbs/10ml dosage according to MyFitnessPaland homemade syrup with honey can contain up to 17g carb depending on how it is made.
For those of us trying to keep our carb intake low that is just too much of a carb load for our pancreas to handle. So it seems like we will miss out on the herbal goodness this remedy could provide.
Nutrition value of elderberry fresh
Why use elderberry?
Black Elderberry (Sambucus Nigrans) is a traditional food found in Europe and North America that has been used to ease colds and flus for hundreds of years. These dark berries are rich in phytonutrients and vitamins which help our bodies fight off invaders.
Randomized double blind studies such as this one show that elderberries show promise in easing colds and flues.
However elderberry is often delivered in a highly sweetened form which is easy to take but which can be a problem for those of us who have trouble processing carbohydrate effectively.
Elderberry tincture to the rescue
Elderberry tincture is the way to get all the medicinal properties of the elderberry with only the natural sugars that exist in the berries themselves.
Elderberry is not considered a low carb food with one cup of fresh berries containing 27g Carb, but that one cup of berries will be tinctured in one Qt of vodka and dosed by the teaspoonful.
There are 192 t in a quart so each dose of elderberry tincture will have .14g C, much lower than the 3-17g C amount in the syrup.
For those keeping keto this makes this remedy much more accessible.
The small amount of alcohol in each dose has negligible effect on blood sugar as well.
Elderberry tincture is also a cost effective way to take elderberry. I bought a pound of elderberry from Mountain Rose Herbals for $34($2.12/oz) and a 1.75 liters(59 fl oz) of 100 Prf Vodka for $31($.52/fl oz). One recipe of elderberry tincture cost $17.15 to make and has about 192 teaspoon doses in it coming to $.09 / teaspoon compared to $16.16 for 4oz of commercial sugar free elderberry syrup or about 24 teaspoons at $.68/teaspoon.
Elderberry tincture recipe
4 oz (~1 C) dried elderberry
1Qt 100 proof vodka
Qt jar w lid
Label and marker
1. Pour dried elderberries into jar. It should be about 1/3 full.
2. Pour vodka over berries filling jar to the very top.
3. Cap jar well and sh