How and Why to Make a Multi Vitamin and Mineral Extract

 

Years ago I used to take a handful of store bought supplements every day.  Boy was that expensive!

Then I started to learn that such supplements were not only a waste of money but often times could be quite counter productive.  Many vitamins and minerals need to be consumed together to get the full benefits.  Examples would be D should be taken with K and Calcium with Magnesium.  Then you have the fact that many of the store bought supplements are made with synthetic ingredients that are toxic to the body. So what is the point spending all that money on that garbage when it is more harm than help?

The best way to get your vitamins and minerals are in their whole food form but sometimes that is not always feasible year round.  Today the conventional store bought produce is severely lacking in nutrients and homegrown organic produce is not available to us year round. 

Enter the multi vitamin and mineral extract!

Making extracts and tinctures is incredibly easy. I make medicinal ones for pain, cold and flus, and more from the herbs in my garden but those are taken rarely.  

The one that we try to take daily is the multi vitamin and mineral extract.  This is made from a wide variety of nutrient dense greens collected from my garden.

These greens include dandelion leaves, plantain, amaranth leaves, borage leaves,  radicchio, beet greens, grape leaves, kale, strawberry leaves, and stinging nettle.  Plus I like to add in some elderberries and orange peels.  I dehydrate all these things first as this will make a stronger extract than using fresh. 

Using a quart sized mason jar, I fill it about half way or so with the dried ingredients and then fill the jar with one of my homemade vinegars and stir with a chopstick.  If not making your own vinegar yet, I recommend Bragg's Apple Cider Vinegar.

I allow the herbs to soak up the vinegar for a bit then add more vinegar.  Once I have the jar filled, I shake well and put the jar in a dark cabinet to brew for a couple of months.  It is a good idea to shake it once a day for at least a week, but I rarely remember to keep up on that myself.

After two months, I strain the herbs out and pour some of the extract into my apothecary jar by Infinity Jars that I keep on top of my fridge.  

It is best to store any extract or tincture that is going to be exposed to light at all in dark bottles and jars so though the Infinity Jars are an investment, they are worth it knowing the extracts are not being degraded by light. 

 

Other options for your extract storage are the dark brown swing top beer bottles or even recycled dark green sparkling cider bottles.  Though not as good as the Infinity Jars for keeping the light out, they are much better than using clear glass. 

 You could make this a tincture rather than just an extract and get even more out of your herbs and such  by using a high proof alcohol such as vodka, but since we like to take this in the morning and I try to avoid alcohol as much as possible, I like to use my vinegar instead.  Besides, we get the good benefits of the homemade vinegar too and then there is the fact that vinegar is far cheaper than alcohol and if you are using homemade, it is free.

 Now I do make true tinctures as well and I will be doing posts on those down the road as I will be making more of those soon.

Below is a video I made several months ago on my herbal vitamin-mineral extract.  At the time I was still not fully clear on the difference between an extract and a tincture so let me clear that up before you watch it:  All tinctures are extracts but not all extracts are tinctures.  Tinctures are only those extracts that are made with a high proof alcohol while extracts can be made with any solvent such as vinegar, non-gmo food grade glycerin, or even water. 

I truly hope this piece was helpful to you and

thanks for stopping by!