The Many Benefits of Rosehips and Ways to Use them

It’s just after the first frost in Alberta, which is the time of year to harvest rose hips.

This time of year it’s easy to walk through the fields and woods in Alberta, and spot them everywhere as you go, like early bright red Christmas lights on the bushes.

 The wild rose is the provincial wild flower and it grows prolifically in the ditches and on the sides of country roads. 

The delicate pink, deeply scented flowers in June turn into hard, bright red fruit, called rose hips, in the late summer and Autumn. 

What can you do with all those rosy rosehips? A lot, it turns out.

 Rosehips are the ‘Northern Orange’ in terms of vitamin C nutrition.

These unusual and festive coloured fruits are packed with flavour and vitamin C, B, E and minerals, with a whopping five times the vitamin C of oranges. 

Deer and animals eat them all winter long.

The native indigenous people use rosehips in tea to soothe sore throats and coughs. 

Rose hips can be dehydrated for tea, boiled, purreed and topped with cinnamon for rosehip soup, made into flavourful syrups, and jams.  

Rosehips have many health benefits. 

It’s perhaps not surprising that a highly nutritious fruit had many healing and ethnic-medical uses as well. 

Rosehips contain 129 chemical compounds, and many major active components including flavonoids, tannins, antocyanin, phenolic compounds, fatty oil, organic acids, and inorganic compounds. 

These compounds are useful for  anti-oxidants, anti-inflammatory, anti-obeisity,anti cancer, anti-ageing and neuroprotection activities.

Powder made from rosehips has proven to have a positive effect on arthritis, due to its anti- inflammatory properties.

Rosehips are as useful for beauty treatments as they are beautiful to look at. 

The oil from rose hips has been used as a beauty treatment through the ages. 

The rose hip oil contains a small amount of retinoids, which can add a healthy colour to your skin. 

The oil also contains an amount of linoleic acid component which helps prevent acne, shrink pimples, and reduce inflammation. 

Rosehip oil has been used to reduce the itchiness and redness caused by eczema. 

All in all, rosehips are not just pretty,they’re pretty useful too. 

Sources

Anja. “How to make Homemade Wild Rosehip Jam“.24 Oct. 2019 Our Gabled Home.https://ourgabledhome.com/rosehip-jam/

Ayati Z, Amiri MS, Ramezani M, Delshad E, Sahebkar A, Emami SA. Phytochemistry, Traditional Uses and Pharmacological Profile of Rose Hip: A Review. Curr Pharm Des. 2018;24(35):4101-4124. doi: 10.2174/1381612824666181010151849. 

“How Much Vitamin C is there actually in Rosehips?” Rosehip Farm. 2 May 2018 https://rosehipfarm.co.za/how-much-vitamin-c-in-rosehips/

Nest, M. “Homemade Rose Hip Syrup Recipe- High in Vitamin C” https://youtu.be/Y1fC_4T_nCI?si=8O0qv6xN_7m7lhXt

Norris, M. “What you Need to know about the Backyard Plant: Rosehips the a Secret to your Medicine Cabinet” https://youtu.be/6yi-yl5EP4A?si=YB1-XRmT3qu_Qv2_

 

WebMD Contributor. “The Benefits of Rosehip Oil”. WebMD.com 23 Nov. 2022. https://www.webmd.com/diet/health-benefits-rosehip-oil

“Rose Hip Soup”.Woodland Witch. 19 Sept 2017 https://youtu.be/Z9B9Z87HBk0?si=HH-2bi2OFoCV8cig