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Elderberry Curious?

One elderberry plant. One hunch.

The hunch was that this plant… American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis, also classified by some authorities as Sambucus nigra subsp. canadensis)… was going to matter. Not just to my humble farm. Not just to my health. To my region. To the way we feed people. To the soil we leave behind.

I am a small elderberry grower in Spring Hill, Kansas. I am especially fascinated by the value-added side of agriculture and what happens when farmers can keep more of the value chain close to home.

For me, elderberry came in through the side door. I was using it on myself first.

I have brain tumors and something called mass effect. That is what happens when a tumor starts acting like a bully and pushing on nearby structures. In my case, it was creating inflammation around my hippocampus.

The elderberry helped. Not in a miraculous way. Not quickly. Over six or seven months I started noticing changes. I heard it before I understood it. My speech began clearing up. Words came easier. The fog seemed lighter.

Later, I had imaging through both KU and Mayo Clinic that showed a reduction in inflammation around my hippocampus.

Elderberry is rich in anthocyanins. One of the metabolites associated with those compounds is protocatechuic acid, which is capable of crossing the blood-brain barrier. A plant doing what plants have always done was my best explanation for what I was experiencing.

That changed what I was willing to do with my life.

That got my attention.

I wanted to know more. Not just how to grow it. How to grow it really well. How to process it without destroying what makes it worth growing. How to put it in front of more people without losing the thread that runs from soil to bottle to brain.

Ground to bottle to brain.

That became the question.

So I started driving. Not figuratively. Actually driving. Driving. Driving. Driving some more.

I started talking with Mickey Gallagher. Mickey is the Johnny Elderberry Seed of Kansas City. He has an ag degree, runs Farmyard KC, grows in high tunnels, and serves as caretaker of the American elderberry plantings at Casa Somerset for Michael Hursey. Mickey is that rare person who can pivot between irrigation, cultivars, grant paperwork, rocking his baby to sleep, and lunch plans all in the same conversation and never lose his place.

Lori Trojan was already there too. Wild Ivy Herb Farm. Master gardener. Master herbalist. Educator. Storyteller. And owner of one of the best laughs in the group. Lori learned this work the long way… through her mother, her grandmother, and the long quiet line of women who knew which plant did what before there was an internet to ask. The kind of knowledge you cannot get from Google because the people who held it never bothered to write it down.

And then there is Michael Hursey. Regional networker. Host. Champion of the small farmer. Michael has spent years pushing for vertical integration and finding ways for farmers to keep some of the value they create instead of handing it off three steps up the chain. Our earliest meetings happened at Casa Somerset.

That was the core.

Then I drove some more.

I took Michael Hursey to Elder Farms for a day of learning. I drove out to Lori’s farm, Wild Ivy Herb Farm, countless times. Lori and I visited Mark Allison and toured his elderberry winery. I toured wineries throughout Miami County and learned about agritourism through the network Mark helped build. I drove out to Cassandra at Wild Oaks in Missouri. I went down to Dave Buehler’s place in Mount Vernon as often as I could. I visited Jeremy Fyler at Fyler Farms in Missouri.

I go to as many conferences, seminars, farm groups, markets, workshops, and places where farmers can be found as I possibly can. I listen. I ask questions. I pay attention.

One of the things Mickey and I love most now is farm visits. That’s where we really get down in the dirt with people. With the farmers. With the growers. That’s where the real conversations happen.

At the same time, through my own elderberry business, I spend a lot of time in front of the public every week selling elderberry products, answering questions, and listening to what consumers actually care about.

I talked to farmers at farmers markets and dreamers at holiday boutiques and planners at home shows and people who had planted and people who wanted to plant and people who had never heard of elderberry and somehow ended up in a twenty-minute conversation with me anyway. Sorry to those people. Also you’re welcome.

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METABOLIC RECOVERY – The Next Phase of the GLP-1 Conversation: Metabolic Recovery

Lionberry 's Weekly Delusion and Re-illusion Update.

For the last two years, we’ve been talking about GLP-1 drugs.

Ozempic. Wegovy. Zepbound.

They work.

They reduce appetite, improve blood sugar regulation, and are reshaping metabolic health at scale. This is one of the most significant shifts we’ve seen in decades (Wilding et al., 2021).

But a quieter question is starting to emerge:

What happens after?

Because many people eventually discontinue these medications. They’re expensive, often require ongoing use, and studies have shown substantial weight regain can occur after discontinuation of GLP-1 therapies (Wilding et al., 2022).

Not because people failed.

Because the system that was being supported… is no longer being supported.

I believe we’re entering a new phase of this conversation.

Not just weight loss.

Not just appetite suppression.

But metabolic recovery.

What does the body need to help maintain stability after intervention?

The Washington State University elderberry study led by Professor Patrick Solverson and colleagues, published in 2024, caught my attention immediately (Solverson et al., 2024). Last summer, I also had the opportunity to hear the research presented during the International Elderberry Symposium.

As both an elderberry farmer and a value-added product maker, I was excited to see rigorous science emerging around American elderberry — but also genuinely curious why it wasn’t making larger headlines.

Because the findings were interesting.

In the randomized controlled trial, participants consuming 100% American elderberry juice for one week demonstrated:

  • Reduced blood glucose
  • Lower insulin levels
  • Increased fat oxidation
  • Measurable shifts in gut microbiome activity (Solverson et al., 2024)

Not a miracle.

Not hype.

But a signal.

Because the mechanism matters.

One detail that makes American elderberry especially interesting is that its anthocyanin profile appears to differ from many other dark berries.

American elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) contains significant amounts of acylated anthocyanins — particularly acylated cyanidin-based compounds connected to hydroxycinnamic acid groups (Lee & Finn, 2007; Özgen et al., 2010). These acyl groups alter the chemistry and stability of the anthocyanin molecule.

Why does that matter?

Research suggests acylated anthocyanins demonstrate greater resistance to heat, oxidation, light degradation, and digestive breakdown compared to many non-acylated anthocyanins commonly found in fruits such as blackberries and in many European elderberry varieties (Sadilova et al., 2006; Fuleki & Francis, 1968).

That stability may matter biologically because it potentially allows more intact anthocyanin compounds to survive processing, storage, digestion, and interaction with the gut microbiome.

European elderberry (Sambucus nigra) contains a different anthocyanin composition, dominated more heavily by non-acylated cyanidin 3-glucoside and cyanidin 3-sambubioside compounds (Lee & Finn, 2007). Other berries absolutely contain beneficial anthocyanins too — but American elderberry appears to possess a somewhat distinct anthocyanin architecture that researchers are still working to fully understand.

Researchers believe these anthocyanins interact with the gut microbiome, helping generate short-chain fatty acids and downstream metabolites associated with insulin sensitivity, inflammation regulation, and endogenous GLP-1 signaling pathways (Chambers et al., 2018; Solverson et al., 2024).

Not synthetically.

Endogenously.

Through food and the gut microbiome.

To me, this is where the conversation may be heading next.

Not:

“What replaces GLP-1 drugs?”

But:

“What helps support the body alongside them — and after them?”

Or even:

“What supports metabolic health for people who never start them at all?”

For too long, metabolism has been framed as something we “fix.”

I think we’re moving toward something different:

Metabolism as something we support daily — through food, hydration, gut health, and the biological systems we nourish over time.

For the past year, I’ve been quietly studying this space and building around one core idea:

There may be a meaningful role for real functional food in the GLP-1 era — not as a replacement for medicine, but as nutritional support alongside metabolic health journeys.

Not a shortcut.

A system.

We’re still early in this conversation.

But if the last few years were about intervention…

the next few may be about recovery.

Curious what others in food, agriculture, metabolic health, and functional wellness are seeing emerge in this space.

— Bevin Brooks

References

Solverson, P., Teets, C., Rust, B., Johnson, S.A., et al. (2024). A One-Week Elderberry Juice Intervention Augments the Fecal Microbiota and Suggests Improvement in Glucose Tolerance and Fat Oxidation in a Randomized Controlled Trial. Nutrients, 16(20), 3555.

Wilding, J.P.H., Batterham, R.L., Calanna, S., et al. (2021). Once-Weekly Semaglutide in Adults with Overweight or Obesity. New England Journal of Medicine, 384(11), 989–1002.

Wilding, J.P.H., Jacobsen, L.V., le Roux, C.W., et al. (2022). Weight regain and cardiometabolic effects after withdrawal of semaglutide: The STEP 1 trial extension. Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism, 24(8), 1553–1564.

Lee, J., & Finn, C.E. (2007). Anthocyanins and Other Polyphenolics in American Elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) and European Elderberry (Sambucus nigra) Cultivars. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, 87(14), 2665–2675.

Özgen, M., Scheerens, J.C., Reese, R.N., & Miller, R.A. (2010). Total Phenolic, Anthocyanin Contents and Antioxidant Capacity of Selected Elderberry Accessions. Pharmacognosy Magazine, 6(23), 198–203.

Sadilova, E., Stintzing, F.C., & Carle, R. (2006). Thermal degradation of acylated and nonacylated anthocyanins. Journal of Food Science, 71(8), C504–C512.

Fuleki, T., & Francis, F.J. (1968). Quantitative Methods for Anthocyanins: Stability of Elderberry Pigments. Journal of Food Science, 33(1), 72–79.

Chambers, E.S., Preston, T., Frost, G., & Morrison, D.J. (2018). Role of Gut Microbiota-Generated Short-Chain Fatty Acids in Metabolic and Cardiovascular Health. Current Nutrition Reports, 7, 198–206.