Rose Hips

Medicinal and Culinary Uses

There are many culinary uses for rose hips. They can be used fresh, dried, or preserved. Rose hips can be used in apple sauce, soups and stews, syrups, puddings, marmalade, tarts, breads, and pie, or made into a jam or jelly. Each hip comprises an outer fleshy layer which may contain up to 150 seeds embedded in a matrix of fine hairs. The irritating hairs should be removed before using the rose hips in a recipe.

Healing Tea

At this time of the year, Mother Nature has provided for us rose hips. Rose hips are the seed pods of roses. They are a great source of Vitamin C and bioflavonoids. Now, in early winter, you can still harvest some of the buds from the nature trails around Bozeman. When you get home, make a healing tea by boiling 2 cups of purified water with 10 rose hip buds and let it soft boil on an open fire for 15 minutes. Drink while warm. Rose hip tea will help to prevent colds.

During World War II, the people of Britain were encouraged through letters to The Times newspaper, articles in the British Medical Journal, and pamphlets produced by Claire Loewenfeld, a dietitian working for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, to gather wild-grown rose hips and to make a vitamin C syrup for children. This was because German submarines were sinking many commercial ships: citrus fruits from the tropics were very difficult to import.

Montana Naturopathic Clinic, office of Dr. Paloma Defuentes, is a primary care practice that uses herbs as one of the most precious healing gifts of nature.