STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

You know it’s time to start thinking about the upcoming cold and flu season when the “Flu Shots” signs begin lining Main Street.

Tonight Sylvie Dore is teaching a class that will show people a natural way she says can prevent or lessen the effects of colds and flu. The tonic? Elderberry syrup using berries from the blue elder shrubs found throughout the valley.

The class will be held from 6 to 7:30 p.m. tonight—Tuesday, Sept. 26—at NourishMe, 151 N. Main St., Ketchum. Cost is $15.

“I have a lot of new information I’m presenting. I’ll be looking at why the traditional elderberry syrup is not effective and how to turn our blue elder berries into medicine. And I’ll address such questions as: How do you kill something that’s not alive, like viruses, which are not actually living organism,” said Dore.

Dore has found enough shrubs to wildcraft and supply a limited quantity of fresh elderberry syrup to treat “the Ketchum crud.” She says her extract syrup or elixir recipe is potent enough that it takes just  teaspoon to one tablespoon per day to stave off problems.

In addition to teaching others how to make it, she will offer Sylvie’s Elderberry Elixir at Nourish Me and the Wood River Sustainability Center this winter.

Elderberries have been used by humans anecdotally for medicine for more than 15,000 years. But only recently have people begun to research it for its antiviral, anti-inflammatory and immune modulating properties to treat and prevent flu virus, sinusitis, bronchitis, HIV and herpes.

Researchers say it appears the berries contain a compound called Sambucus Nigra Agglutinins that inhibits viruses from being able to infect healthy cells. That gives the body’s immune system a chance to neutralize the invading viral particles, reducing the severity and length of a cold or flu.