Is Wildcrafted Honey Good for You?
As we start start talking about nutritious food, the terminology clean foodies use often is hard to understand. So, today I would like to begin clearing the confusion by talking about what the word, “wildcrafted,” means with respect to improving your food choices.
What Is Wildcrafted?
Wikipedia has a great definition for wildcrafting. Simply stated, wildcrafting is the practice of harvesting anything in its natural state. For a more thorough understanding of wildcrafting, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wildcrafting.
What Is the Wildcrafted Honey Difference?
So, what is wildcrafted honey? When I first met John, the owner of Bee Wild, I asked him this very question. I was surprised to learn that many honey producers grow specific crops to feed their bees. So, for example, a company who sells clover honey might very well grow fields of organic clover in order to entice the bees to feed on the clover.
Our wildcrafted difference is that Bee Wild lets the bees choose what plants they eat from. In that way, the bees always eat from natural, local, seasonal plants. That is why, for example, our sourwood honey is very seasonal. The bees only produce sourwood honey when the sourwood trees are in bloom (last week in June to Mid-July, which is why we consider our sourwood honey to be liquid gold). This is why, for example, we can truthfully claim that we sell wildcrafted honey!
Why Is Wildcrafted Food Superior?
Why is wildcrafted food nutritionally superior? Wildcrafted foods are:
- local
- sustainable
- seasonal
- have no genetic modification (non GMO)
- are pesticide and chemical fertilizer free
But, in our experience as long-time consumers of wildcrafted superfoods, the benefit we most appreciate is best explained in the (now extinct) Greenwala food blog :
Many eastern practitioners believe that wildcrafted plants are healthier for consumption because they are grown in natural conditions, which gives them vital energy.
We have found that we have more energy when we eat wildcrafted food. To the staff at Bee Wild, having more energy to do what we love to do is the wildcrafted difference!
