I mean this is fascinating and fantastic and Chris sounds incredible but its so difficult to read because eating fresh candensis berries (or previously frozen) can totally make you barf. ive seen it, met people who have done it and in my life as a herbalist paid heed to it. the seeds absolutely have the cyanides in them. And its different for everyone. some people no worries, some people only if they crunch the seeds and some people it's a no go. But making an elder berry smoothie is one hell of a way to find out. So i'm like how can he know so much and not know this?
this is why herbalists prepare the berries by heating into syrups or heating for dehydration or in alchohol that render the cyanides non reactive. He also doesn't mention how although the european berries taste worse, which i question, the flowers are far superior as well as medicinal and that is why it is a huge crop in europe. Plus you dont get the risky Ive just puked my guts out lawsuits.
most of all i am saddened by the driving force to go big so farmers can be less diverse and more focussed on mono cropping. At some point we have to understand that growing food and capitalism destroys good farming practices. and always ends up sacrificing the integrity of the land and the farmers.
meanwhile I am excited about my 5 gallons of eastern Washington elderberry wine, picked by my own hand from bushes that grow in abundance where the land calls them to be. adding to the wild and unexplainable landscape of my home. where i will put some away for the leaner years and share more for the years of plenty. where i wont have to think about the integrity of the berry beyond my hearth. where I wont have to think about the cost of my labour for simply being in relationship with this wise shrub of the forest has paid me 1000 fold.
the irony of need to organise elderberry for a cash crop when it volunteers so readily and can be found so easily needs to be organised for profit. Sometimes the reason why there is only so much is because we need only so much.
so thank you for having hope and for trying to empower people and communities but can we look at the why more closely?
I appreciate the anecdotal experience, but repeated studies (I've included links in our piece on canadensis) show that there aren't any cyanides in the seeds, unlike their european counterpart. This is also anecdotally supported by indigenous use of the native elderberry, which includes frequent consumption of raw elderberry. I AM hesitant to recommend wholeheartedly eating them raw and in massive amounts, because for some people, they don't seem to sit right (and I made this point in that piece I am referring to), but the evidence doesn't support the idea that cyanides are in our native elderberries.
this is also an eye witness statement ! as well as anecdotal, which is based on experience rather than controlled studies. and indeed if its not the cyanides, which can be absent, its the resin sambunigrin which can induce vomiting. if you ask the herbalists who have been using this plant medicinally for many years in amongst the population and all over the usa you will get the same answer, 10-20% of folks find that raw elderberries make them vomit.
but my response was less about the vomiting, it was more about yet more commercialization of wild foods in the name of empowering people.
as a medicine maker i know that half the wholeness that comes from our herbs and foraged foods, be it foraged in the garden, wild forest or abandoned lot, is the experience and connection in the finding, growing, tending, watching and harvesting. this gets destroyed when you start to mono crop the plant. forcing wild foods into a capitalistic model doesn't feel like its going to empower anybody, as exampled by this incredibly intelligent and insightful man who doesn't really seem to know much of anything about the experience of elderberry.
I mean this is fascinating and fantastic and Chris sounds incredible but its so difficult to read because eating fresh candensis berries (or previously frozen) can totally make you barf. ive seen it, met people who have done it and in my life as a herbalist paid heed to it. the seeds absolutely have the cyanides in them. And its different for everyone. some people no worries, some people only if they crunch the seeds and some people it's a no go. But making an elder berry smoothie is one hell of a way to find out. So i'm like how can he know so much and not know this?
this is why herbalists prepare the berries by heating into syrups or heating for dehydration or in alchohol that render the cyanides non reactive. He also doesn't mention how although the european berries taste worse, which i question, the flowers are far superior as well as medicinal and that is why it is a huge crop in europe. Plus you dont get the risky Ive just puked my guts out lawsuits.
most of all i am saddened by the driving force to go big so farmers can be less diverse and more focussed on mono cropping. At some point we have to understand that growing food and capitalism destroys good farming practices. and always ends up sacrificing the integrity of the land and the farmers.
meanwhile I am excited about my 5 gallons of eastern Washington elderberry wine, picked by my own hand from bushes that grow in abundance where the land calls them to be. adding to the wild and unexplainable landscape of my home. where i will put some away for the leaner years and share more for the years of plenty. where i wont have to think about the integrity of the berry beyond my hearth. where I wont have to think about the cost of my labour for simply being in relationship with this wise shrub of the forest has paid me 1000 fold.
the irony of need to organise elderberry for a cash crop when it volunteers so readily and can be found so easily needs to be organised for profit. Sometimes the reason why there is only so much is because we need only so much.
so thank you for having hope and for trying to empower people and communities but can we look at the why more closely?
I appreciate the anecdotal experience, but repeated studies (I've included links in our piece on canadensis) show that there aren't any cyanides in the seeds, unlike their european counterpart. This is also anecdotally supported by indigenous use of the native elderberry, which includes frequent consumption of raw elderberry. I AM hesitant to recommend wholeheartedly eating them raw and in massive amounts, because for some people, they don't seem to sit right (and I made this point in that piece I am referring to), but the evidence doesn't support the idea that cyanides are in our native elderberries.
this is also an eye witness statement ! as well as anecdotal, which is based on experience rather than controlled studies. and indeed if its not the cyanides, which can be absent, its the resin sambunigrin which can induce vomiting. if you ask the herbalists who have been using this plant medicinally for many years in amongst the population and all over the usa you will get the same answer, 10-20% of folks find that raw elderberries make them vomit.
but my response was less about the vomiting, it was more about yet more commercialization of wild foods in the name of empowering people.
as a medicine maker i know that half the wholeness that comes from our herbs and foraged foods, be it foraged in the garden, wild forest or abandoned lot, is the experience and connection in the finding, growing, tending, watching and harvesting. this gets destroyed when you start to mono crop the plant. forcing wild foods into a capitalistic model doesn't feel like its going to empower anybody, as exampled by this incredibly intelligent and insightful man who doesn't really seem to know much of anything about the experience of elderberry.