Is this safe for my children? What is the dosage? How much do I ‘take’ every day? Can I ‘take’ this year-round? These are some common questions that our customers have about our Elderberry products.

We can’t answer these, exactly. Here’s why:

1. Our elder products are food, not drugs, according to the Food & Drug Administration. This includes our dried elderflowers, Elderberry Apple Shots, and Elderberry Gummy Kits.
2. Our products aren’t supplements, either. To create, label, and sell supplements, many scientific and regulatory hurdles need to be met. Many supplement companies do not follow the rules set out by the FDA, and therefore our customers are accustomed to reading things such as dosages, benefits, and claims about what impact the supplement will have -- even though this information can be misleading and not always truthful.

1. We are conservative in our approach. We do not want the FDA knocking at our door. Perhaps other food/supplement/drug companies can manage a threatening letter, or a cease-and-desist order, but we prefer to stay on the farm and not in jail.

Here are some guidelines to make decisions about our Elderberry products:

1. Treat them as you would any food, such as broccoli or rhubarb or cheese or hummus. There may be interactions with prescription drugs you take, or with diseases or health conditions you have. We aren’t doctors and so we can’t give you advice about this. We are the farmers who grow and make it.
2. Elderberries and elderflowers are used in many kinds of FDA- and USDA-regulated foods and have been consumed for thousands of years. We use approved processes to make our delicious products, have all the necessary licenses and permits, and are inspected for safety.
3. Give your children our products the same way you do all other foods, specifically dark berries. Practical tips we can offer are to introduce elderberry gradually to toddlers, modify the serving size, ask your pediatrician or health care provider if you have concerns, consider any other health conditions your children may have. The Percent of Daily Values we indicate on our packaging is based on adults and children ages 4 and over, per the FDA guidelines for most other foods.

Here are some suggestions for making decisions about elderberry in general:

1. Read ANY and ALL claims about what elderberries and elderflowers do for you with a skeptical eye and an open mind. Just because the information is on the internet, or on a label, or on a store shelf, doesn’t mean that it has passed scientific rigor. Follow the footnotes, the references, the sources of the information. If you can’t find it, call the company who claims it and ask. You deserve the best information!
2. And if you don’t care about scientific rigor, that’s okay, too! Just remember that the law limits what we can say about elderberry and as a farm business of ethical people, we want to respect those limits.

Thanks for being our customer, for trying our incredible Elderberry products, and don’t hesitate to ask us most anything else.