Slippery Elm Bark (Ulmus Fulva) the part of the tree is used is the inner bark. You can find it in the United States and Canada. Slippery Elm is a small tree, abundant in various parts of North America. It is so well known that it needs no description. The inner bark, as it appears in commerce for medicinal use is sold in flat pieces, 2 to 3 feet long and several inches wide. It is very tough and flexible, of a fine fibrous texture. It has an odor somewhat like fenugreek and a very mucilaginous, insipid taste. The strips can be bent double without breaking. A section moistened with water and examined shows large swollen mucilaginous cells.
The powdered bark is sold in two forms: a coarse powder for making poultices and a fine powder for making mucilaginous drinks. MMMMMM! The disintegrated bark forms, when moistened, a flexible and spongy tissue which is easily molded into pessaries, teats, and suppositories. It is recommended that ten-year-old bark be used. The powder should be greyish, or fawn colored. If dark or reddish, good results will not be obtained. It is often adulterated with damaged flour and other starchy substances. So, watch out and pay close attention to suppliers selling bad elm.
The principal constituent of the bark is the mucilage which is remarkably like that found in flaxseed, starch, and calcium oxalate and acid sodium phosphate. Slippery Elm is a demulcent, emollient, expectorant, diuretic, nutritive. This is one of the most valuable barks in Herbal practice! The abundant mucilage it contains has wonderfully strengthening and healing qualities. It not only is most soothing and healing to all parts it encounters, but in addition, possesses as much nutrition as is contained in oatmeal and when made into a gruel, forms a wholesome and sustaining food for young children and invalids (sick person).
Here are two excellent recipes I found doing my research that you can do at home!
Slippery Elm Recipe #1:
1) Mix one heaping teaspoonful into a thin and perfectly smooth paste with cold water.
2) When thoroughly mixed, pour on one pint of boiling water (distilled), steadily stirring meanwhile. It can, if desired, be flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon rind, etc. This makes a genuinely nice drink in cases of irritation of the mucus membrane of the stomach and intestines; and if taken at night upon retiring, will induce sleep.
Slippery Elm Recipe #2:
1) Beat an egg with a teaspoonful of the powdered bark, pouring boiling milk over it and sweetening it.
Notice: Taken three times a day, in either form, according to condition, it will be found to give great relief in gastritis, gastric catarrh, mucus colitis and enteritis. It is tolerated by the stomach when all other foods fail. It is also of great value in bronchitis, bleeding from the lungs and consumption; being healing to the lungs, soothing, and checking cough, building up the tissues and preventing or checking the wasting of tissue.
Consult a doctor before you take these recipes. I would prefer a holistic doctor such as Naturopathic Practitioner, Ayurvedic Practitioner, or a Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner. The doctors that some of you go to do not study GOD's medicine, so just go to both if it makes you feel comfortable.
Safe Healing!
