What is a honeyberry?

The honeyberry, also known as haskap, is a nutrient-dense superfood native to northern boreal forests across the world. Unlike traditional berries, it thrives in cold climates, going dormant in winter and flourishing in alkaline soils where blueberries cannot.

For over 30 years, Dr. Bob Bors at the University of Saskatchewan worked to commercialize improved haskap varieties, making this once-wild berry accessible for cultivation. This breakthrough has unlocked vast northern landscapes for regenerative agriculture, allowing farmers to grow one of the healthiest berries on the planet in non-traditional regions.

Belonging to the blue honeysuckle family, honeyberries boast a unique sweet-tart flavor, often described as a mix of blueberry, raspberry, and black currant. In a world where nutrient-rich foods are becoming scarce, this remarkable berry stands out as a true powerhouse of health and vitality.

HIGH IN anthocyanins

Anthocyanins are a type of antioxidant called a flavonoid. They are what make berries (and other plants) blue, red, or deep purple and have a variety of health benefits, including lowering blood pressure, neurological disease prevention, and destruction of free radicals in our bodies. Anthocyanins trigger your body's detox function.

HIGH IN VITAMIN C

Vitamin C is a dynamic building block for the human body, which the body cannot naturally produce. It is an antioxidant that is also essential for forming blood vessels, muscles and bone collagen. Honeyberries have more vitamin C by weight  than blueberries, oranges, pomegranate, grapes, or apples. It is the perfect health smoothie during our long winters.

FREE OF PESTICIDES

Unlike most large-scale modern agriculture, Big Sky Honeyberries does not spray its plants. . Our mission is to provide a dynamic superfood and to be proud of the product we produce. We have handweeded 15 acres of bushes over the course of two summers to avoid traditional spray applications. We have been on our hands and knees pulling grass to be proud of our berry.

TRACE MINERALS

Honeyberries contain high amounts of magnesium and potassium. They also supply our bodies with trace minerals, which function as the catalysts of metabolic processes within our cells.

REDUCES INFLAMMATION

As a vitamin C superfood rich with anthocyanins, honeyberries have more antioxidant reduction potential than any other dark-pigmented berry, including blueberries and acai berries.

Health Benefit Comparisons

Dr. Vasantha Rupasinghe from the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in Truro compared 3 varieties of Haskap Berry (Borealis, Indigo Gem and Tundra) to partridgeberry, blackberry, wild blueberry, strawberry, raspberry and red table grape.

Not content with the standard ORAC test, Dr Rupasinghe carried out a number of different analyses to corroborate his findings, all of whose results confirmed the Haskap varieties to have the highest antioxidant values of all the berries tested.

In Dr. Rupasinghe's own words “The results indicated that haskap berries possessed the highest antioxidant capacities and total phenolic contents, specifically total flavonoid among the tested fruits and could be used as a promising fruit source of natural dietary antioxidants".
 
Dr. Rupasinghe's additional tests included a FRAP assay, total flavonoid content and total phenolic content. The results can be viewed below:

ANTIOXIDANT COMPARISON

Haskap berries have great health benefits, vitamin C contents range from 50mg-100mg/100g of the berries, outranking Blueberries. Secondly, they are a high source of antioxidants and other flavonoids such as Rutin, Ferulic acid, Epicatechin, Genistic acid, Protocatechuic acid, Caffeic Acid, Ellagitannins, Quercetin and many others which help fight cancer and other diseases.

The antioxidant levels are measured using the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) method. A wide variety of food has been tested using this methodology, with the Haskap Berry being rated very highly in comparison with other berries.

fruit comparison (per 100g)

Additional Information

Honeyberries (haskaps) have different varieties to cross in the field, in our front pasture we have our main cultivar as ‘Aurora’ paired with ‘Honeybee’ to pollinate 2 to 1. In our back pasture we have the Borealis series, specifically Borealis ‘Beast’ pollinating Borealis ‘Beauty’ & ‘Blizzard’ which ripen slightly later than the 'Aurora’ & ‘Honeybee.’ Additional research is being done for the leaves within that actual bush, which can become a value-added product in the future with the proper processes.  

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