Birch sap: interesting facts and rules for collecting a healing drink

Birch sap - an elixir of health and youth

At first glance, clear water, which sometimes even has no taste, but in its chemical composition contains a real vitamin "bomb" - birch sap. It is rich in minerals, carbohydrates, vitamins. Contains acids, essential oils, tannins, saponins. Its composition includes calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, glucose. This healing elixir has been used for medicinal purposes from past centuries to the present.

Why is birch sap called a unique drink and what are its health benefits?

Since the juice contains magnesium, potassium, calcium, it is used in the treatment of heart diseases and blood vessels. Thanks to the tannic components, this natural elixir is an antiseptic. Fructose and glucose, which are also contained in it, stimulate the brain.
Birch sap is a diuretic, so it helps reduce swelling. For this purpose, it is recommended to drink it to pregnant and lactating mothers.

The healing drink is used to cleanse the kidneys and blood in case of intoxication, chronic and acute infections, inflammatory, colds and viral diseases. It breaks down stones in the urinary system and kidneys, but in this case it is recommended to drink the drink no more than half a liter per day. Since a significant amount of juice may set the stones in motion and provoke an attack.

During menopause, a birch drink helps women cope with depression, irritability, and normalize blood pressure. To do this, it is enough to drink it one glass a day. Men natural drink can get rid of impotence.
Birch sap removes inflammation in the oral cavity and helps prevent caries.
Stimulates the secretion of enzymes and gastric juice for proper digestion. Improves metabolism and metabolic processes. The healing drink is recommended for arthritis, rheumatism, diseases of the respiratory system. It has antitumor properties, as its regular use helps to slow down the development of the process.

In cosmetology, medicinal juice is used for acne, eczema, boils, neurodermatitis, age spots. To do this, use pure juice, they wipe the damaged areas in the morning and evening.
The natural drink has a rejuvenating effect and is recommended for making compresses and masks.

Birch sap helps get rid of dandruff and stop hair loss. It is very useful for them to wash their hair, the juice stimulates hair growth, makes them shiny and soft, strengthens the roots, makes hair fluffy and thick.

When to extract medicinal juice

They begin to collect a natural drink from the end of March, after the day of the spring equinox. Active sap flow begins when the buds swell on the tree.

To determine whether the time has come to collect the juice, you need to go into the forest in an ecologically clean area, find a birch in a sunny clearing and make a puncture on the tree with a thin awl. If a little juice comes out, then the juice has already gone. Time to start collecting.
As it gets warmer, you need to go deeper into the forest, where the thicket comes to life later.

The season for extracting birch sap ends with the appearance of the first leaves on the trees, as then the sap becomes cloudy. Approximately healing drink is collected from the twentieth of March to mid-April.

It is better to go for a natural elixir in sunny, warm weather from 12:00 to 18:00. Then the juice will be sweet and flow well. The taste and color of the drink from each birch is different. It may be completely colorless, or it may have a pale pink or light yellow tint. In trees that grow on hillocks in dry places, the drink is richer in color and taste. And the juice from birch trees growing in a swamp or in a lowland has no color and taste.

How to collect a healing elixir?

A tasty and healing drink is extracted from old trees, with a developed crown. The diameter of the birch trunk should be more than 20 cm. During the collection of sap, it is very important to minimize the damage to the tree itself. Therefore, the use of an ax must be abandoned, it is better to make a small hole in the trunk with a drill, with a diameter of 5-10 mm. Then the birch will recover faster, and the drilled hole will grow almost without a trace. It is impossible to collect all the healing juice from a single tree, otherwise it will dry out. It is better to drill holes in several birches and extract one liter of drink per day from each than to collect 5-6 liters from one, dooming it to death.

It is desirable to make a hole at an angle of 2 cm in depth. A plastic or aluminum tube is inserted into the incision. You can use last year's meadow grass after washing and preparing it. We install a bottle under the groove and collect a healing elixir.

If the debit ceased to suit, there is no need to make a hole deeper, it is necessary to change the birch. The tree begins to heal the wound immediately after it has been inflicted, and the debit will be constantly filed. And strengthening the hole or drilling a fresh one will destroy the birch.

After collecting birch sap, the hole made must be closed with moss or treated with garden pitch. It is fashionable to insert a dry branch or stick, but not a rotten one. Then the tree will quickly fill the hole with fresh wood.
It is necessary to store a natural drink in a cool place, as it can ferment quite quickly.

In the spring, when the buds on the trees swell, the juice that moves along the conductive paths of the trees - xylems and phloems, becomes life-giving. Powerful streams of mineral substances rush from the roots to the tops. The xylem juice contains almost all the elements of the periodic table, a lot of silver, there is even gold, magnesium compounds that increase the strength of heart contractions in humans, potassium compounds that improve the resource of the heart muscle. Flows of biologically active substances, various types of carbohydrates move along the phloem pathways. First of all, fructose is important for a person, which improves the nutrition of deep parts of the brain that are not used in everyday life. When collecting birch sap, the contents of xylem and phloem bundles are combined into one rejuvenating cocktail.

Birch sap has energy-informational activity, general strengthening and rejuvenating effect, - believes professor, doctor of medical sciences, head of the Moscow Institute of Phytotherapy Vladimir Korsun, who visited the scientific and practical conference of phytotherapists in Ufa. - At a certain point in the life of plants, biologically active compounds containing trace elements, enzymes, amino acids, organic acids, substances with antibiotic properties, multivitamin compounds are formed in them. It is a living, natural remedy. During the Great Patriotic War, birch sap, heated to 50-60 degrees, was administered intravenously. He replaced the lymph. Birch is a storehouse of useful substances.

Birch sap is especially indicated for all metabolic disorders that lead to urolithiasis and cholelithiasis, osteochondrosis, polyarthritis; with liver damage; with all endocrine diseases - diabetes mellitus, dysfunction of the thyroid gland, diseases of the adrenal glands; in diseases of the reproductive sphere of men and women. There are no diseases in which birch sap is contraindicated.

In a short period - from swelling of the buds to the appearance of the first leaves - meristem cells of trees, which are akin to human stem cells, start the growth of leaves, buds, new shoots. And in the human body, plant stem cells awaken the processes of regeneration and rejuvenation,” says Mikhail Gordeev, Vice President of the Association of Phytotherapists of the Republic of Bashkortostan, member of the Presidium of the Russian Society of Phytotherapists, Chairman of the NGO Health of the Nation. - There is a restoration of cells, which, as is commonly believed, undergo reverse development with age. Stem cells prevent the development of atherosclerosis, contribute to the utilization of cholesterol, the restoration of connective tissue: cartilage, muscles, tendons, skin and homeostasis in general.

This natural phenomenon - the movement of life-giving juice - lasts about two weeks in one area. During this period, birch sap is drunk by animals, insects, and birds. It is by this time that migratory birds from hot countries try to return to our region.

When collecting birch sap, a hole 5-6 centimeters deep is made in the tree trunk, a flexible tube is inserted there to drain the sap, the edges are smeared with garden pitch or putty.

At the end of the collection of juice, a dry stick should be hammered into the hole and covered with var or putty. The tree will recover in a year. It is imperative to cover the holes, otherwise the birch may die.

Freshly harvested juice should be consumed immediately. Pasteurization or fixation with any acid destroys or greatly changes its properties. Biologically active substances are destroyed when the juice is heated above 60-70 degrees. But when used, it is desirable to heat the juice up to 40 degrees. At the same time, biologically active substances are preserved, their activity is enhanced, which means that the absorption of juice in the human intestine is accelerated.

Fresh juice can be stored in the refrigerator for three to four days. If he began to ferment, you can make kvass from it by adding rye malt, raisins and honey. Kvass is stored in the refrigerator for more than a month without loss of biologically active properties.

In the forests of the Odintsovo district, it is time to collect birch sap. The correspondent of "Odintsovo-INFO" has already gone to "intelligence" and shares with readers tips on preparing a valuable natural drink.

I realized that the birch sap season had begun a couple of days ago, when I broke a twig on the edge of the city and saw moisture seeping through it. This means that the tree has "awakened", spring sap flow has begun in it. But it is not recommended to harvest the gifts of nature near roads, industrial zones and other sources of pollution, and therefore it was decided to fence a birch tree near Kubinka, during a visit to the dacha.

There is still a lot of snow in the dense forest, but you can walk almost without falling through - the crust helps. Among the age-old fir trees, we are looking for rare white-trunked trees. It is desirable that the donor birch has a trunk with a diameter of 20 cm or more. If the forest beauty praised by Yesenin has a trunk 27-34 cm thick, then two holes can be made, with a diameter of 35-40 cm - three. If there is a tree in front of you more than 40 cm thick, four holes are allowed. The distance between the juicer holes should be at least 20 cm. The holes can be made with a drill - always at an angle so that the juice flows freely. In this case, the optimal diameter is 1 cm and a depth of 2-3 cm. A path for juice can also be cut with a hatchet (you should get a triangle about 2 cm deep). A tube or groove is inserted into the resulting hole, under which the dishes are installed. The simplest way to take juice is to thread a broken branch with a thickness of 3 mm or more into the bottle and fix the resulting “design”.

The speed with which birch liquid enters your container mainly depends on the weather (warm - faster), the location of the tree, its condition and the time of the fence. From ancient times, people noticed that the sap flows fastest from the north side of the tree. According to my own experience, in the second or third week of April in the Odintsovo district, birch trees growing on relatively flat and not thickened areas usually give off the sap the fastest. Fluid from old trees in wetlands is often cloudy.

From one hole per day, you can usually get 2-3 liters of juice, and during the season the average birch gives up to 70 liters of a sweetish refreshing drink. The period of sap flow, or "tipping", in our latitudes usually begins at the end of March - early April and lasts 20-25 days, until the buds swell. In 2009, the Odintsovo spring was a little delayed, so the dates are being shifted.

In order for the “blood loss” for the birch to be painless, after collecting the sap, the holes made by the drill must be hammered with sticks (the so-called “chops”) to the desired diameter. It is advisable to cover the windows cut with an ax with clay, garden pitch or plug with moss.

The first birch trip this year did not bring an impressive result - in five hours, your correspondent managed to collect no more than 0.5 liters of drink from two birches. But this is only the beginning of the season. And do not forget that a walk through the forest is in itself a great value for a city dweller.

REFERENCE "ODINTSOVO-INFO": NATURAL MEDICINE

Birch sap is rich in vitamins C and B, contains fructose, various trace elements - calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium, copper. In folk medicine, it is valued as a means of healing the blood, stimulating metabolism. Birch is useful for oncological diseases, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract associated with low acidity. Useful in the treatment of gastric ulcer and duodenal ulcer, is indicated for people with chronic gastritis. Birch sap is also drunk for gout, arthritis, rheumatism, colds, and tuberculosis. It is also used in many skin diseases, in diseased kidneys, if there is no indication of stones. You can wash your hair with birch sap - it perfectly strengthens hair.

Birch sap tends to ferment and is usually stored fresh for no more than 2-3 days. There are ways to preserve this drink, however, with them many of its useful properties are lost. Refreshing kvass can also be made from juice. For example, my grandmother used to cook it according to this recipe: about 0.5 kg of pure roasted barley is poured into a 20-liter bottle of juice, the bottle is placed in the cellar. After a week and a half, excellent kvass is ready, which can be stored in a dark and cool place for up to six months.

Birch sap is a native Russian product. The fact is that before peasant pagan Russia, birch was a sacred tree and therefore it was not used. Because it was not so easy to take and make holes, so to speak, to spoil the tree.

The medicine

If we talk about medicine, then one thing can be said that leaves, buds, and bark are actively used for medicinal properties, but more on that later. Another thing is the juice, it is actually the living moisture of this tree. It contains the basis of microelements and sugar. Moreover, there is a really huge amount of sugars, this is what the tree eats, especially when it is spring and you need to dissolve the leaves and buds. From a health point of view, it contains micro elements, namely potassium and magnesium. Potassium is a real sodium antagonist, there are many useful things for us: lowering blood pressure, reducing edema. But more importantly, the combination, especially with magnesium, does not allow increased bone destruction.

Let's take three types of juice: of course, birch, apple and orange. In first place in terms of the amount of magnesium in the juice, it is birch that contains approximately 245 milligrams per liter. The remaining juices lag behind but do not differ much from each other. And so in second place is orange juice and it contains 150 milligrams, and apple juice gets third place with its 120 milligrams.

Benefits to the body

Natural birch sap can help us fight cholesterol, since it contains a phytoelement called "sapanin" and it makes it possible for cholesterol not to be absorbed, as a result we get good bones, normal blood pressure, and less cholesterol.

Sodium or salt retains salt in the body, sodium accumulates in the walls of blood vessels, making them edematous and hard. Salt, which is contained in the body, attracts water with great force, so that the water at the first consumption by the body instantly goes to the salt, as a result, the volume of circulating blood increases, the vessels drain, the pressure literally goes up. All people know that if in the evening they ate salty, then in the morning they woke up in edema, all the liquid was delayed. So the potassium contained in birch sap displaces sodium. As a result, sodium is excreted taking water with it. A person has a diuretic effect, the pressure decreases. Therefore, this quality of birch sap is the main one!

How to choose the right juice

One hundred percent better than all this juice straight from the tree into the glass. But if there is no such possibility, it is better to rely only on such basic factors, which I will tell you about now. We choose only a glass bottle, it gives us the best look, the best quality and the best preservation. It must be written on the bottle that the juice is sterilized or pasteurized, this lets you know that all harmful bacteria have been killed, and you can drink the juice without fear. Don't forget the expiration date, it's important.

If the bottle you bought is still sealed, then the juice can be stored at room temperature, right up to the expiration date. If the juice is open, then its storage should not exceed two days, otherwise it will begin to ferment, store after opening only in the refrigerator.

Drink when you want and how much you want. Big or small sips, this is also as you see fit. I do not recommend drinking juice directly from the refrigerator. It is better to pour into a glass and put it on the table, let it stand for 10 - 20 minutes.

Usefulness in addition to medicinal properties in it is exactly as much as in glucose.

This must be done carefully, because the tree suffers from this. If you overdo it, the tree can simply die. It is better to contact a specialist and a class expert in this matter.

Birch is also a symbol of freshness and youth.

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