Seeing Red: Rose Hips

Seeing Red

Seeing Red, photo by Kiley_Evanne.

One of my favorite books as a kid was My Side of the Mountain. In it, the teenaged hero Sam Gribley learns how to feed himself and survive in the woods. Inspired by Sam’s example, I got as far as being able to identify rose hips, the red-orange fruit of the rose plant.

When snowshoeing or skiing in the winter, I like to snack on these when I find them. This article about gathering rose hips begins:

Known mostly for beauty in the garden and as a floral declaration of love, roses don’t usually come to mind when we think of either food or nutrition. Yet, all parts of the rose, and especially the hips, are storehouses of Vitamin C and other important nutrients.

Compare the nutritional content of oranges to rose hips and you will find that rose hips contain 25 percent more iron, 20 to 40 percent more Vitamin C (depending upon variety), 25 times the Vitamin A, and 28 percent more calcium.

They’re also a great source of bioflavanoids, pectin, Vitamin E, selenium, manganese, and the B-complex vitamins. Read on for suggestions about gathering and drying them. The BBC has an article about Rose-hips as a possible remedy for arthritis that you might enjoy as well. One tip: you have to leave the blossoms on the rose bush for hips to fully develop.

Check it out bigger or in Kiley’s slideshow.

16 thoughts on “Seeing Red: Rose Hips

  1. I loved My Side of the Mountain when I was little! I also wanted to be an outdoor survivor after reading it, but I never made it past just reading the book.

    We just moved from Toledo and I really miss that part of the country. We spent lots of our free time in Michigan when we lived there (Traverse City, Detroit, Ann Arbor…regrettably, I never got up to the UP). Anyway, I’m so glad your blog was featured because now I can get my daily dose of Michigan!

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  2. My Side of the Mountain was the best! So was The Other Side of the Mountain. I’ve never actually harvested rose hips, but the Scandinavians make rosehip soup and I personally LOVE rosehip and hibiscus tea.

    Are you going to pick any and eat them?

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  3. Rose hip syrup was a must for babies because of its
    vitamin contents – I don’t see it much in the shops now. I am a Flower Designer and always have pair of secateurs in my pocket – rose hips being high on my list when out walking

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