Birch

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Articles general

• Birch - Wikipedia
• Birch, Common - A modern herbal by Mrs. M. Grieve
  
• Birch sap - "Birch sap is the sap extracted from a birch tree, such as a North American Sweet Birch or a Silver Birch. The sap is often a slightly sweet, thin syrupy-watery liquid. The tree sap contains sugars (namely xylitol), proteins, amino acids, and enzymes." - Wikipedia
  

Diary

• March 22, 2011
  

Yesterday i had cut a few branches off from a birch tree. The branches were in the way. Today we noticed drops of fluid coming out from the cut end of the branches. The birch tree was giving birch sap.

Birch sap dripping from a cut branch

It's a precious juice, in traditional herbal medicine used for antiseptic, anti-parasitic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-itching treatment. Birch sap contains fructose, glucose, fruit acids, amino acids, vitamin C, potassium, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, manganese, zinc, sodium and iron. All substances of the sap have their own important functions also in the human body. It isn't cheap to buy, for example, the price in Japan is said to go up to 70 US dollar per liter. I was to (re)discover this precious juice more or less by chance. I hung several empty bottles below the cut branches and after a few hours i already had collected over half a liter. We are drinking it fresh as this sap cannot be conserved well without losing some of its medicinal and nutritious content.













We drank half a glass each of this juice today. The taste isn't very sweet, but pure and it gives a kick of vitality that i felt all through my body.

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