Birch sap: benefits and harms to the body, calories and recommendations. Birch sap - the benefits and healing properties of a natural drink

In spring, with the onset of heat, when buds form on the trees, it is time to collect birch sap. It is a colorless liquid with a sweetish aftertaste and characteristic woody notes. This unique drink has a number of healing properties and has been widely used in the treatment of various diseases since ancient times. Learn more about the benefits and harms of birch sap for the human body.

The composition and calorie content of birch sap

In birch sap, or birch, as it is popularly called, the content of useful substances is very high, namely:

• vitamins B and C;
• important trace elements and metals;
• fructose;
• organic acids;
• antioxidants;
• ethers;
• tannin compounds.

"Birch tears" do not contain fat, 0.1% are proteins, and the rest is carbohydrates. In 100 g of the product, they are present in a volume of 5.5 to 5.8 g. At the same time, the calorie content of natural juice is only 8–10 kcal, and for canned drinks with sugar, this figure rises to 22–30 kcal per 100 g.

Benefits for the human body

Useful properties of birch sap are as follows:

• increased immune defense;
• normalization of digestive processes;
• improvement of blood circulation;
• strengthening the heart muscle and vascular walls;
• metabolism stimulation;
• normalization of blood pressure indicators;
• fight against edema;
• beneficial effect on the condition of the kidneys, liver, biliary and genitourinary systems;
• destruction of cancer cells;
• removal of "bad" cholesterol;
• removal of edema;
• regenerating effect.

In addition, one can single out the beneficial effects that natural birch sap has on the body of women, men and children.

What is useful natural birch sap for women

"Birch tears" will help improve the condition of the skin, hair follicles and nails, and are indispensable for normalizing weight. In addition, the drink allows you to cope with the pain that accompanies menstruation, and makes you feel better during menopause.

For women during pregnancy, birch will help to cope with the following problems:

• severe toxicosis;
• blood pressure imbalance;
• edema.

And after the birth of the baby, during the period of feeding, taking birch will improve lactation.

Attention! Since juice can cause allergies, it is recommended to introduce it into the diet gradually, in small doses during breastfeeding, and observe the reaction of the baby.

Useful properties of the drink for men

For the body of a man, "birch tears" will bring considerable benefits.

Everyone's childhood is different. And the memories are also different. One of mine is collecting birch sap with my father and younger brother. Every spring, having loaded a hand drill, straws, three-liter jars into our red Zaporozhets (then it was still considered a machine), we went to the nearest landing and collected birch sap. I remember that it was a pity for the birch, but to come home with two three-liter cans of birch sap was an unforgettable pleasure ...

Well, now, already at a more meaningful age, it's time to figure out what it is - birch sap, the benefits and harms of this drink, its features. Well, to answer the question of whether it was worth drilling birch trunks or was it an ugly act of good people.

What is birch sap?

Birch sap is a liquid that is released from damaged birch trunks and branches. There is no particular point in delving into the physics of this phenomenon, it is enough to mention that the juice moves and flows out due to root pressure.

The movement of sap begins with the first thaws - so if you like birch sap, then follow the weather forecast (you can start doing this from mid-March). Considering that the process ends with bud break (usually it is mid-April), you should not delay the trip to the birch grove too much - you can skip the season and wait for the next one for a whole year.

Externally, the juice is similar to ordinary water. It tastes the same, only this water is a little sweet - the composition of the drink contains up to 2% sugar. This is not a cup of tea with 2 tablespoons of sugar, so birch sap can be considered a low-calorie (only 22 kcal per 100 g) diet drink.

And what else is in the composition of birch sap, besides sugar? Vitamins, phytoncides, about a dozen organic acids, tannins, betulol, saponins, sodium, potassium, magnesium, manganese and copper - the deeper we delve into the composition, the less this elixir looks like ordinary water and more and more like some kind of vitamin complex.

By the way, not only juice is useful in birch, but also buds, about which on our website.

How is birch sap extracted?

To begin with, you need to extract juice only in groves away from busy roads, otherwise you will get juice with heavy metals, useless and possibly even harmful. Do you need it?

There are many ways to get birch sap:

• Barbaric: several small birch branches are cut, a plastic bag is hung on each. It's not worth doing that.
• You can make a small incision on the trunk, insert a groove there, and install a collection container at the other end of the groove.
• The best option (it is also more productive, and leaves less marks on the tree): instead of making a cut, drill a hole in the trunk (no need to go deep - 3 cm is enough) with a slight slope, insert either an aluminum tube or a plastic tip of the dropper system into it , or a regular straw for drinks. Hang a plastic bottle on the other end.

In order not to kill poor trees that generously share useful properties with you, follow simple rules:

• Do not take young trees. Firstly, they are weaker than the old ones and may not survive the “draining” procedure, and secondly, the juice of young trees is not so rich and healing. How to distinguish a young tree from an old one? According to the thickness of the trunk - it should be more than 20 cm in diameter.
• Try to limit yourself to a liter of juice from one tree per day. It is better to take a liter from 10 trees than to try to squeeze 10 liters from one. Theoretically, from an ordinary birch you can get 2-3 liters per day, from a large one - 7 liters. But theoretically, you can take 5-6 liters of blood from a person, but usually they take no more than 400 ml.
• After you have finished, be sure to cover the incision or hole with wax, or at least with moss. By the way, if you used the third method of extracting juice, then you can simply stick a small dry branch of a suitable size into the hole - it will not allow the juice to flow out.

The benefits of birch sap

Here we go on plantings, shoveling snow, drilling birch trees ... Why? Is it worth it? What is useful birch sap? Let's try to list the main ones:

• Eat whatever? The body is poisoned and metabolic processes are clearly disturbed? Then drink birch sap - biostimulants and enzymes in this drink will help remove toxins, decay products and carcinogens, improve metabolism and intestinal microflora, and stimulate the secretion of gastric juice. By the way, therefore, it should be used not only for various diets, but also during infectious diseases.
• What do we need in spring? Wake up, relieve fatigue accumulated over a long winter,. And here the tonic and restorative properties of birch sap will be useful. It can also relieve headaches.
• It also helps with various diseases of the respiratory system.
• Due to tannins, birch sap is a natural antiseptic.
• This natural product is a wonderful prophylactic against caries. Of its “dental” applications, there is one more thing - it relieves inflammation in the mouth.
• Liver problems? Drink birch sap! Sciatica, arthritis and rheumatism? Drink birch sap! Problems with the heart and blood vessels? Drink birch sap - because it contains potassium, magnesium and calcium so necessary for our circulatory system! Gout? Well, you probably guessed it yourself! Boils, acne or eczema? But they didn’t guess - with these diseases, they don’t drink juice, but apply it externally. In cosmetology, birch sap is also used - for example, for the treatment of dandruff and hair loss.
• If you drink birch sap constantly, it can help with the breakdown of stones in the bladder and kidneys. In the list of medicinal properties of birch sap there is a diuretic and choleretic, remember this if you need to get rid of edema. By the way, it is to reduce swelling that pregnant and lactating women are advised to drink juice.
• It can also be used to heal ulcers and wounds.
• It is believed that birch sap helps slow down the development of tumors.
• And finally, birch sap will help you maintain masculine strength, and if you are a woman, it will ease menopause and eliminate unpleasant symptoms.

In any case, birch sap can be used as an additional remedy in the treatment of almost any disease - moreover, it is suitable for both children and adults.

Are there any contraindications?

Their minimum is individual intolerance and an allergic reaction to birch pollen. Agree, great?

How is it used?

The ideal option is to drink a birch drink fresh in its pure form. Just remember, even in the refrigerator, birch sap can be stored for a maximum of 2 days. An alternative is to freeze the juice, but this is not very convenient in terms of storage, so it is worth freezing the juice only in cubes for cosmetic use.

Birch sap is also extracted on an industrial scale - while they are sold in canned form, pouring into three-liter jars or one and a half liter bottles. Prices vary greatly depending on the manufacturer and packaging method.

Juice canning at home

You can preserve birch sap yourself. This will require:

• 7 liters of juice
• 3 sprigs of dried mint or half a lemon
• 1/2 tsp regular citric acid
• 10 tbsp Sahara

We put the birch sap on the fire, bring to a boil, in the process removing the foam that forms on the surface of the sap. After boiling, add all the above ingredients and keep on fire for another 10 minutes. Then we pour the resulting drink, having previously filtered it, into sterilized three-liter jars. Banks are rolling up.

By the way, you can mix it with other juices (except tomato) - birch tears will definitely not spoil the taste.

And what other recipes are there with birch sap? Let's talk about 2 classic ones.

birch kvass

You need to take some kind of container, preferably a large one - you like kvass and you can drink a lot of it, right? Pour birch sap there, add dried apples and overcooked barley. The ratio of components can be selected based on experience. You can start your experiments, for example, with 0.5 liters of drying, a glass of barley (it can be replaced with fried brown bread) and 19 liters of birch sap. We put the container in a cool place for a month. And then enjoy kvass.

birch syrup

It is obtained by evaporation - the liquid leaves, the sugar remains, while the concentration of sugar naturally increases. Take a clean basin, fill it with birch sap, put on fire and bring to a boil. After that, the juice should boil, and you should remove the resulting foam. When only two-thirds of the original volume of liquid remains, add fresh juice to the basin. And so 2-3 times. After evaporating, strain and bottle the syrup.

At a time when the bright spring sun begins to melt the cold snow, Russian birch trees begin to wake up from hibernation. Along their trunks, there, to the smallest twigs and swelling buds, a nutrient liquid with minerals, acids and vitamins, necessary for the growth and flowering of a tree, seeks. Birch produces so much of this liquid that a person can use the “extra” for his own purposes. Moreover, the benefits of birch sap for the body can not be overestimated.

The cheapest and healthiest way to quench your thirst with this juice is to get it directly from the tree itself. In no store you will find that healthy birch drink that our parents remember. How to draw juice correctly, without damaging the tree itself, we told in the article ““, and now let's talk about the rich chemical composition of this miraculous drink.

Real birch sap can give the human body the enzymes necessary to maintain immunity. This is especially important in the spring, when we are most prone to colds.

In addition, even if you did not manage to strengthen your immunity, but managed to catch a treacherous cold, tannins contained in large quantities in birch sap will help you easily overcome the inflammation that has begun and speed up the healing process.

Important for the heart, potassium, magnesium, calcium also take pride of place in the composition of birch sap.

This drink is not only healthy, but in some cases, it can help save someone's life. Special substances contained in birch sap are able to remove toxins from the body in a short time, which is very important in case of poisoning. This can also be attributed to alcohol intoxication. So instead of artificially created “hangover pills”, it is better to use a natural natural medicine - birch sap. Although it is even better not to bring your body to a hangover state.

Birch sap also has a beneficial effect on the work of the digestive tract. For example, for people suffering from low stomach acidity, birch sap is not just one of the few permitted products, but also a drink that stimulates the production of acid in the stomach.

In addition to affecting the internal vital systems of the body, birch sap is successfully used in the treatment of various skin diseases such as neurodermatitis, eczema, acne and furunculosis, and the like. It is enough to carry out evening and morning water procedures with him, and not with water. Cosmetologists have long adopted this drink, and thanks to it, they relieve their patients of dandruff and strengthen their hair. To achieve a good result, you can simply rinse your hair with this valuable liquid.

Contraindications

In addition to the benefits, birch sap can, in a small percentage of cases, harm the human body. For those whom doctors call allergic, if they are allergic to birch tree pollen, this juice is not recommended to drink. The reaction of the body can follow immediately. Also, a contraindication for the use of this drink will be considered urolithiasis. By causing active urination, birch sap can cause stones to move, which will manifest itself as severe pain.

The place where the drink was collected is also of great importance. Trees growing in close proximity to highways and busy highways will produce sap "infected" with heavy metals. Clogging your body with such elements is simply not safe for any person, therefore, before buying birch sap, it is advisable to ask in which areas it was collected.

Birch sap drinks

The syrup, which is obtained by evaporating the juice itself to a certain state, is extremely popular in the United States. To get one liter of syrup, you need to use about 100 liters of valuable birch tree moisture. But in this state, birch sap can be stored for more than one month.

In the USSR, in 1968, a recipe for making birch kvass was developed, and a little earlier, birch wine was invented from this juice, but today the Russian industry does not produce anything like this, and only homemade recipes for making drinks from the juice of the Russian tree itself remain.

Svetlana Frantseva

Birch sap is known for its beneficial properties. Many are not averse to collecting it in the spring. But before you start being treated for all diseases, you should learn more about its miraculous properties.

With its natural purity, this product has earned the love of traditional medicine. Harvest it in the spring, before the birch leaves bloom. However, when starting to collect, it is still necessary to find out what is so special about this colorless liquid.

One interesting sign is connected with birch sap - if you made a hole in a birch trunk, but the sap did not pour, then the summer will be dry and barren. There are a few more spring folk signs for the harvest, which we told you about.

When and how to collect birch sap

Usually the collection period begins at the end of March and ends at the end of May. This is due to the biological rhythms in the birch trunks and the characteristics of these trees. It is better to collect juice from mature and strong trees, as young ones will not give as much juice as needed, and old ones simply do not have it in large quantities. It is better to collect it from 12 to 18 hours.

Already from March 20, you can safely go to the forest. It is necessary to make a hole in the tree with an awl or other sharp object. Do this carefully so as not to damage a large area of ​​the trunk. Holes made after collection must be sealed with wax so that the tree does not die and does not lose fluid in vain.

The juice is stored for no more than a few days, although it is possible to preserve it to increase the shelf life.

The benefits and harms of birch sap

Traditional medicine claims that any pure natural products can work wonders with the human body, enriching it with useful substances and giving it a charge of vivacity. And these words fully apply to birch sap.

Birch sap is sweet, but its sugar structure is not the same as conventional non-natural products. Earlier we told you that sweet improves mood and increases energy. Birch sap works in a similar way, but without any side effects.

Birch sap contains less than 30 kcal per 100 ml, so you should not worry about your figure. It is also rich in nutrients and vitamins such as B6 and B12.

Birch sap increases immunity, improves the energy of the body, removes toxins, improves metabolism. If you suspect kidney or bladder stones, natural birch sap will help get rid of them. For those suffering from liver dysfunction, the juice can also help. Moreover, even people suffering from sciatica or rheumatism can improve their health by drinking birch sap.

Is birch sap harmful? Not at all. The only side effect that people may experience when using this product is an allergy to its components. Otherwise, there are no restrictions - you can drink juice in any quantity. Even children can drink it.

Finally, it should be noted that the use of birch sap helps with weight loss, because it drowns out the feeling of hunger, and its calorie content is extremely low. To improve the effect, use the lunar diet from Vasilisa Volodina. Her method helped many to find the desired figure. We wish you good luck, good health, and do not forget to press the buttons and

Birch sap is a liquid flowing inside the trunk of birch trees. In terms of nutritional value, this is a very useful product containing many substances necessary for the body.

Since ancient times, the Slavs honored, respected and loved birch as a source of valuable and healing components. The leaves, buds, twigs and sap of the birch have been used in folk medicine as a powerful medicine.

Birch remains a valuable medical product - activated carbon, tar, xylitol, a sugar substitute, are made from its wood. A mushroom grows on a birch -.

Birch sap is famous for its rich vitamin and mineral composition and powerful beneficial properties. The juice contains vitamins, saponins, organic acids, tannins, saccharides, enzymes and phytoncides.

Birch sap contains salts of magnesium, sodium, silicon, potassium, calcium, aluminum, copper, manganese, iron, titanium, barium, nickel, phosphorus, zirconium, strontium. The juice also contained traces of nitrogen.

Due to the variety of nutrients, birch sap has a complex effect on the body. It is used for beriberi, to improve health and rejuvenate, to increase tone and cleanse toxins.

Phytoncides contained in the juice increase the body's resistance to viral infections, kill bacteria and microbes, and strengthen the immune system. The anti-inflammatory beneficial properties of the juice are based on this.

Birch sap improves metabolism, speeds up metabolism, tones up the nervous system, helps to cope with seasonal blues and depression.

Birch sap is used for weight loss. No wonder they say “slender as a birch tree” - using birch sap, you can easily restore the harmony and flexibility of the figure, because the nutritional value of the drink is high, and the energy value is low - 24 calories per 100 ml of juice. Birch drink is used in the treatment of obesity of varying degrees.

With regular use of birch sap, blood is cleansed, hemoglobin rises, toxins, toxins, decay products and harmful substances are removed. Improves healing of wounds, skin lesions and scarring ulcers.

The drink has a positive effect on kidney function, which is important for pyelonephritis and urolithiasis.

How birch sap is extracted and stored

Sap is extracted from birch trunks in early spring, as soon as sap flow begins and buds begin to swell. In a strong tree with a spreading crown and a trunk diameter of at least 20 cm, a hole is made 2-3 cm deep, and a container is placed into which the juice begins to drip. From one tree you can collect 1-2 liters of juice. It is not recommended to collect more so that the tree does not die.

Store freshly harvested juice in the refrigerator for no more than 2 days, for further storage of juice it is frozen or canned.

Birch sap contraindications

Such a useful product has no contraindications for use, it can be drunk by everyone, except for people who are allergic to birch pollen.