Red Currant Plant: Your Guide to Health and Vitality

The red currant plant is a beautiful shrub that resembles a grapevine at first sight because of its palm-shaped leaves and its hanging berries, which are red in color and sweet and sour in flavor. It is highly valued due to its delicate taste and its stimulant properties.

Red Currant Plant Scientific Facts

1. Other names: Ribes spicatum Robs, Ribes silvester Syme, Northern red currant, raisin tree.
2. French: Groseillier.
3. Spanish: Grosellero.
4. Environment: Native to Central Europe and northern Asia, at present, it is cultivated even in America.
5. Description: Non-thorny shrub of the Saxifragaceae family, growing from 1 to 1.5 m high. Its red fruits, hanging in clusters, contain several tiny seeds.
6. Parts of the plant used medicinally: The berries.

Healing Properties and Indications

The fruit contains organic acids, sugars, mucilage, and vitamin C. They have an appetizer, digestive, depurative, diuretic, and laxative properties. The organic acids they contain (malic, citric, and tartaric) stimulate the stomach and intestinal secretions, easing and invigorating the entire digestive process. Currant fruit is recommended for:

1. Lack of appetite.
2. Rehabilitation from fever and infectious diseases.
3. Rheumatism and gout.
4. Kidney stones.

European Black Currant

The European black currant, also called cassis, has ripe black fruit, unlike the red currant. This black fruit has the same properties as the red currant, with even a higher percentage of vitamins and minerals.

The leaves of the black currant contain flavonoids, with diuretic, anti-inflammatory, and anti-rheumatic properties, thus being used for rheumatism, gout, excess uric acid, and kidney stones as an infusion (with 30g per liter of water); drink three cups daily.

How to use Red Currant

1. Currant fruit can be eaten fresh, in jam, syrup, or juice with no other limit than appetite.

DISCLAIMER: All content on this website is presented solely for educational and informational objectives. It would be best to not rely on the information provided as a replacement for advice, diagnosis, or treatment from a qualified medical expert. If you are pregnant, nursing, or have any preexisting medical concerns, you should talk to your doctor before using any herbal or natural medicines.

REFERENCES

1. George D. Pamplona-Roger, M.D. “Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants.” George D. Pamplona-Roger, M.D. Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants. Ed. Francesc X. Gelabert. vols. 2 San Fernando de Henares: Editorial Safeliz, 2000. 468. Print. [red currant plant]
2. Red Currants: Nutrition, Benefits, and How to Eat Them.” Healthline.
3. Rasmussen, Heather M., et al. “Fruit Intake and Risk of Age-Related Macular Degeneration.” British Journal of Ophthalmology, vol. 94, no. 8, 2010, pp. 977–979.
4. Wedick, Nicole M., et al. “Dietary Flavonoid Intakes and Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in US Men and Women.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 95, no. 4, 2012, pp. 925–933.
5. Ding, Ming, et al. “Antioxidant and Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Quercetin in Functional and Anatomical Aspects.” Food Chemistry, vol. 239, 2018, pp. 1065–1073.
6. Pullar, Juliet M., et al. “The Roles of Vitamin C in Skin Health.” Nutrients, vol. 9, no. 8, 2017, p. 866.
7. Cassidy, Aedín, et al. “Habitual Intake of Anthocyanins and Flavanones and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in Men.” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, vol. 104, no. 3, 2016, pp. 587–594.
8. “Vitamin K.” National Institutes of Health Office of Dietary Supplements, ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminK-HealthProfessional/.