For the last week, I have been on the edge of a cold. I just remembered that I had some elderberry concentrate in the cabinet leftover from last year. I took a tsp. last night and again this morning. I never have felt that it really did much for me the way echinacea did. I don't take herbs for the most part anymore. I try to use food as my medicine but I paid $15 for this little bottle so I am gonna finish it! (As an aside: I was at Whole Food's recently and a rep from this herbal company of the elderberry alcohol-free extract was sampling it by pouring it on little cups of organic vanilla ice cream! I thought that was a bit odd, given that it's supposed to be a medicine but it does taste yummy!)

Oh, well, lots of things that you can eat also have medicinal qualitites. Nothing wrong with using herbs etc for health benefits IMHO, it's medicinal food as far as I can see. Elderberry, echinacea, mint, calendula, etc. As the saying goes (and please sub whatever variant you wish for the G word) For every illness that we know, G_d allows an herb to grow!

I don't use bee products in general but I do have a small jar of manuka honey (cost $50 but has lasted more than 2 years and is still nearly full!) and take a tsp to stave off colds and illness. It tastes not so fabulous this stuff but it does work.

I've never used elderberry, but have heard good things about its' preventative qualities, as well as with the use of goldenseal. This reminds me of the alternative remedy thread that we posted in a bit last year.

Remember the practice of placing an unpeeled onion in the room to somehow adsorb the cold viruses? We should work on a thread like that, where we could share tried & true remedies...

It's weird, but the onion thing worked for me! I have recommended elderberry to other people and they've had success with it. The active ingredient neutralizes the viral nucleus's ability to replicate its genetic structure, so there's actual science behind elderberry's efficacy.

Andrographis in my opinion is the best anti-viral herb.

My mom makes her own elderberry syrup every year. I give it to the kids as a cough syrup; it seems to help them and they like it. Better than giving them the over the counter stuff, for cough, colds etc, esp now that they are in school. And it tastes good...

I wonder how to make a raw unsugared concoction from elderberry... Something dehydrated that can be steeped in water maybe?

Update: So I got my cold! I was in bed for two days and I took the elderberry several times a day. While it didn't stop me from getting the cold, I do feel that it lessened the length. Not the severity, though. It was brutal but I feel like I am basically back in business. Today was the first time I went out since Wed. and I came to the computer lab to get caught up on emails, blogging, etc. Raw onions are supposed to be good to consume before/during a cold, but I had never heard of simply leaving them out. What I am thinking about elderberry is that perhaps it's good to take as a preventative. They say the same thing about echinacea; that it's not effective once you actually get the cold. But goldenseal is supposed to be a great thing to take. I was just afraid of getting a respiratory thing. Lately it seems like my colds have been accompanied by a cough that lasts weeks. I am wondering if I have had the flu instead of a cold. I did notice that they had signs in front of my closest pharmacy advertising flu shots. They had about five signs out front--way creepy...

goldenseal and other berberine containing herbs arent that good mainly because they kill the good flora.

andrographis is the best anti-viral herb.