How cool is making your own gummy bears?! I can’t get enough of it at the moment. It is such a nice, healthy treat! They’re low in fat and calories and the gelatin is super good for your skin, hair and nails. It is also known to improve digestion and joint health. What better way to treat yourself, eh?

Now, as I just said gelatin is known to improve digestion. However, it comes in different forms. There’s the kind that is used in this recipe, the one that gels. Then there is collagen hydolysate which does not make things gel and is easier to digest. And you can also find gelatin in foods like homemade bone broth for example.

Apparently, how well you tolerate which type of gelatin depends on how strong your digestive system is. If your digestion is very weak, you might tolerate bone broth but have trouble digesting regular gelatin (Check out this interesting article about 5 things you need to know about gelatin that explains it further).

I can confirm this from my own experience. I made my first batch of gummies at home about 8 or 9 months ago. At that time my digestive system was not working very well. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was suffering from iron deficiency anaemia. My doctor explained to me that, basically my iron levels were so low and I was so anaemic that nothing in my body worked properly anymore.

I was incredibly tired  all the time and my digestion was not good at all. I’ll spare you the details, but my body didn’t react well to the gummies and my tummy was very upset. So even though they tasted great, I had to give them away to friends and family (who didn’t have any issues with them).

I’m not telling you this to discourage you from making these apple matcha gummies 😉 On the contrary. If you are healthy and your digestion works ok you likely won’t have any issues and can enjoy these gummies and their amazing health benefits!

I just though I should mention that if you come from a place of poor gut health you might wanna be cautious when introducing gelatin for the first time. Maybe start with bone broth, then try some collagen hydrolysate in your smoothie (it is cold water soluble, unlike regular gelatin) and THEN try making something like gummies with gelatin (I am not a health professional though, if you are really unsure about whether gelatin is for you or not you should talk to your doctor first).

After my anaemia was discovered my doctor put me on iron medication for several months and I am a lot better now. While my digestive health is not quite perfect yet, it has impoved quite a bit too. This is why a few weeks ago I decided to give homemade gummies another try. And it worked a treat! I had no issues with them whatsoever and have made several different flavours ever since :). The apple matcha ones were my favourite (and how cute are these dinosaur moulds I recently found?!), so I wanted to share the recipe with you! Hope you enjoy xx

Apple Matcha Gummies (paleo, gluten-free)

Makes 35 gummies

Ingredients

• 265g green apple, peeled and chopped into small bits
• ¼ cup lemon juice
• ¾ cup water
• 50g honey
• 2 tsp matcha powder
• 3.5 tbsp gelatin (from grass-fed animals)

Instructions

1. Add apple, lemon juice and water to a small saucepan. Bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat to low and let simmer for 8-10 minutes, until the apples are soft. Stir occasionally.
3. Using an immersion blender, blend everything until liquid. Be careful when blending hot liquids!
4. Add matcha powder and stir until incorporated (I like to strain my matcha powder through a sieve, that way there won’t be any lumps)
5. Add gelatin, 1 tbsp at a time and quickly stir to incorportate.
6. Pour into your mould of choice, I used small chocolate moulds (there was enough to fill 2.5 moulds).
7. Refrigerate until firm.

Stored in the fridge in an air-tight container the gummies keep for about 5 days!