Staying Cool with Chamomile Popsicles: June Blog Party

This blog post is part of the June blog party hosted by Kristine Brown of Herbal Roots Zine. The topic for this month's blog party is beating the heat of summer...herbs used for summertime to treat heat

It was originally published as an HerbMentor Newsletter.

Are you looking for a way to help your friends and family enjoy herbs? Who doesn’t love popsicles? Cool and refreshing, popsicles scream of hot summer days and the deliciousness of cooling down.

I came up with this recipe with kids in mind but I’ll bet a lot of us older kids will appreciate them as well.

Of course you can easily buy popsicles at the store. However, many of the popsicles commonly found in the grocery stores are simply artificially colored high fructose corn syrup.

High fructose corn syrup is often used as a sweetener in soda pops, candy, processed foods, ketchup, salad dressing, etc. It is being blamed in part for the obesity epidemic now facing many adults as well as a growing number of children. In our household we avoid high fructose corn syrup completely.

We can easily avoid the perils of conventional foods simply by creating our own healthy alternatives.

This popsicle recipe uses two herbs that taste great as well as offer many health benefits.


Chamomile is truly an amazing herb. It can soothe a distressed child (or adult!), it calms tummy troubles, and provides support during colds and flus. This all-purpose herb is safe for children and kids usually love its sweet and mild taste.


Hibiscus flower is high in vitamin C and has a great tart taste. It also has the added benefit of turning tea red!

These popsicles are a tasty treat for a hot summer day but are also a great remedy for children.

They can replace electrolytes, helping to rehydrate kids (or adults) who have been in the sun too long.

They can be used after a child is recovering from any kind of stomach illness such as diarrhea, upset tummy, or even vomiting. The chamomile can soothe the entire digestive tract and, again, it can help rehydrate by balancing electrolytes.

The prospect of popsicles is very exciting and you may find that you have some eager helpers in the kitchen. When I made the popsicles for this newsletter my little friend Pearl lent me a hand. You’ll see her in the photos below.


What you’ll need for this recipe:
Two tablespoons of dried Chamomile
One tablespoon of dried Hibiscus
1 and 1/4 cup boiling water
1 cup of greek yogurt
Honey to taste
Pinch of salt
Tablespoon of lemon juice
Popsicle molds (You can use paper cups and popsicle sticks)

Begin by making a tea out of the chamomile and hibiscus. Put the herbs in a cup, pour the water over the herbs, and let steep for 5 minutes. (Sometimes waiting is the hardest part!)





Strain into a small bowl



While the mixture is still hot, add honey to taste. Stir well so the honey combines with the tea. You will be mixing this with the yogurt so you may want to make it more on the sweet side.


Add a pinch of salt.


Add the lemon juice. You can use the juice of a fresh lemon. We keep this type of fresh lemon juice on hand for convenience.


Let the mixture cool a little.

Add the yogurt and mix well.


Pour into the popsicle molds.


Place these in the freezer until frozen solid. This will take several hours.


My friend Pearl loving making these and especially eating them!

This recipe is just one example of how to make herbal popsicles. There are many different herbs you could use as well. There are also a variety of different ingredients you could use. For example, you could try adding a mashed banana or rose hips. If your family has dairy allergies you can easily substitute coconut milk for the yogurt.

Let your creativity guide you as you find new ways for your friends and family to enjoy the many benefits of herbs.

If you enjoyed this post you may want to sign up for the FREE HerbMentor Newsletter. This newsletter goes out a couple times a month and is full of fabulous herbal recipes and remedies.

Grain-fed beef healthier than grass-fed?

So says the headline at AgriLife News, a service of Texas A&M University.   A team of researchers led by Dr. Stephen Smith, an AgriLife Research meat scientist, claims to have found that ground beef  has beneficial effects on plasma lipids if made from meat of corn-fed cattle but not if made from meat of pasture-finished cattle.

According to this article, Smith claims:

"We looked at the scientific literature and could not find any justifications for the statement that pasture-fed beef is better for you. All we found were rat studies in which they were fed omega-3 fatty acids, so we wanted to know if this applied to beef from grass-fed cattle."

The team produced ground beef from three types of cattle, one finished on pasture until 20 months of age, one fed a corn-based feedlot diet until 16 months of age, which produced meat graded USDA Choice, and one fed a corn-based feedlot diet until the meat reached USDA Prime grade.  

They took the meat and fat from each set of cattle and created ground beef having 24% fat.  "Next, a group of 27 men completed a three-way crossover study. Each group rotated, consuming five 114-gram ground beef patties per week for six weeks from each of the three sets of cattle used in the study."

According to Smith, "There really were no negative effects of feeding ground beef from the pasture-fed cattle" but

"We did see many positive effects in men that consumed ground beef from corn-fed cattle. The ground beef from the USDA Prime cattle increased HDL cholesterol and LDL particle diameter. Both effects are protective against cardiovascular disease. The Prime ground beef also decreased insulin, so it may have some protective effect against type II diabetes."

So according to this guy, grass-fed beef won't hurt you, but if you want to get healthier, you should eat corn-fed beef. 

Perhaps no surprise, this research was paid for by and presented to the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which defends Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs) and would rather irradiate E. coli laden beef  than employ forage feeding which can reduce E. coli populations in cattle by 1000-fold.  Might this perspective influence the outcome of this "study" which so far as I can tell has not received peer-review?

I am not surprised that the corn-fed beef-rich diet had blood-lipid and insulin-lowering benefits, particularly if the increased dietary beef replaced some carbohydrate-rich foods in the experiment.  I certainly recommend eating corn-fed beef instead of modern carbohydrates.  However, I suspect a conflict of interest underlies this report of no benefits from eating grass-fed beef.