Sea buckthorn berries grow in abundance at Gullane beach, where we often go swimming. I’d noticed the berries before, but hadn’t really paid them much mind. That was until our last visit, when I got chatting to a lovely lady who was snipping them into a basket. She told me that they contain many times the amount of vitamin C as your average orange and that she was going to make them into a tonic that could be taken daily.
I was intrigued and used Colin’s pen knife to cut a few sprigs for myself. When I got home, on the lady’s advice, I put them in the freezer for 24 hours to take away the astringency and then made them into a juice. You can also use the berries to make jams, powders, tonics and in baking.
Reading more about sea buckthorn, I learned that it has a number of health benefits. As well as being packed with vitamin C, it’s full of potassium, magnesium, calcium and iron. It’s also thought to be good for heart health, and for lowering blood pressure and cholesterol in some cases.
Here’s how I made the juice –
- Add equal quantities of blueberries and sea buckthorn, which has been frozen and de-thorned, to your juicer.
- Add the same amount of water as fruit to the juicer – so I used 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 cup sea buckthorn berries, and 1 cup water.
- Add a teaspoon of maple syrup and blend!
