Posted by Bonnie Rogers on 11/26/2018 to
Healthy Recipes
Slippery elm is amazing for helping soothe the entire digestive tract. Whether you have a sore throat, cough, GI issues and all the way through to colon issues.
Slippery elm is the inside bark of the slippery elm tree, you can get it cut and sifted for tea or you can get it as a powder. Slippery elm is good for any type of mucus membrane inflammation or irritation. It soothes irritated mucus membranes, tends to pick up things that don't belong (such as excess mucus) and pull them out of the body.
Slippery elm is probably most known for cough and sore throats, but I use it in my practice all the time for GI issues. For GI issues, the slippery elm honey balls are great, but I tend to use it more as a powder there.
Sore throat, some slippery elm tea, or some slippery elm powder in some oatmeal, yogurt, or applesauce works, but my favorite are my slippery elm lozenges. They are simple to make, last a long time, and really soothe your entire digestive system. If you have a lot of stuck mucus in your throat this is the first thing I would go to.
Slippery Elm Balls:
Ingredients:
- Organic Slippery Elm powder
- Raw honey (local if possible)
- Organic dried rose petals
- Organic licorice root
This recipe is sooo simple ....
- Start with approx 1/2 cup slippery elm powder in a bowl.
- Add about 1/4 cup honey
- Make a cup of tea using 1 teaspoon rose petals and 1/2 teaspoon licorice root - let steep 5 minutes
- Pour approx 1/4 cup of the tea into the bowl
- Stir until the consistency is thick enough to roll into little balls. I find I usually need to add more slippery elm as it will be too sticky. Imagine if you were making bread and it was too sticky to roll out, you'd add flour, in this case you keep addding a small amount of slippery elm until they can be rolled into balls as seen above.
- I then make the slippery elm balls and put them on a dehydrator tray and put the temperature at 110, which will still keep the honey raw. I left them last night for about 15 hours so they became totally hard and didn't have any excess liquid left in them. If you don't have a dehydrator, place them on a plate and let them sit out and dry out. It may take about a week. Then store in a jar.
You can use them as often as you like. I find that these simple herbal preparations last a long time.
If you are local and need the ingredients I stock them. To order them online, I recommend www.jeansgreens.com as you can order a small quantity and do not need to order a lb of each.
Why rose? Rose is cooling and astringent. She likes to reduce inflammation and relieve pain and always adds a nice taste to your medicine.
You can add marshmallow powder to the slippery elm powder if you like as it can help relieve a dry cough and soothe your irritated throat.
Instead of adding the tea you can always add all of these herbs as powder and slightly warm your honey to make the balls. If you do not have a dehydrator I'd recommend this. When I use the dehydrator all of the fluid from the tea is evaporated.
Optional: you can add a little cinnamon powder for taste