Pomegranate is a truly amazing fruit with many medicinal applications, but the peel has unique applications that especially interest me, given my focus on gastrointestinal dysbiosis. The peel has incredibly potent antimicrobial effects, with an extremely broad range of action against multiple pathogens, including (but not limited to):
Blastocystis, Cryptosporidium, Giardia, Trichomonas, Tapeworm, Entamoeba histolytica, Streptococcus, E. coli, Enterococcus, Clostridium, Staphylococcus, Klebsiella, Shigella, Salmonella, Vibrio, Pseudomonas, H. pylori, and Candida.
Now, I never use a single botanical for pathogen eradication. I don’t think it works well and it isn’t reasonable in the context of dysbiosis to think that a single botanical can lower the microorganism threshold enough, broadly enough, to allow for beneficial commensal organisms to overgrow the targeted pathogen(s). This does sometimes occur and it has been documented with powerful and/or enhanced botanical extracts (some of which I use) but it is the exception to the rule, and it is generally best to use a multi-botanical approach.
That being said, pomegranate peel is both very powerful and very broad-spectrum and would possibly work better than some other options as a monotherapy. Personally, I still wouldn’t use it alone, but it would obviously make a great addition to a broader protocol.
Some of the antimicrobial research on pomegranate peel is in vitro, but there are also animal and human studies demonstrating pathogen eradication capabilities. Tincture extracts (both aqueous and ethanolic) work very well, but the problem is that pomegranate peel tincture is almost impossible to find here in the United States. So I decided to make my own.
Over the winter we ate a lot of pomegranates around here. And every time we ate one, I saved the peel in the freezer. Once I built up a good stash, I dehydrated them and ground them into a powder. I then added the appropriate amount of alcohol (Everclear is great for tincture-making) and water. It will be ready in about 2 weeks, and then I’ll have nearly a gallon of pomegranate peel tincture — a very rare remedy, indeed! If I were to purchase this amount from Australia (just about the only place you can find pomegranate peel tincture) it would have cost me at least $465.00 (not including shipping and handling). It was still not really cheap to make, but still a much better deal than importing it from another continent!
Pomegranate peel after dehydration.
Pomegranate peel after being powdered in the Vitamix. Everclear (95% ethanol) is standing by for the next step.
Alcohol and water added to the powder. Ready in 2 weeks. Store out of the light and shake daily.
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