From Tree to Bottle: Maple Sap

Tree sap has been used in traditional folk medicine in North America, Korea and Northern Europe for 1000s of years. For those of you who don't know about the maple sap, it is the clear sweet liquid that is harvested from the maple tree each spring of the year. This liquid is then boiled until it becomes maple syrup. To make 1 litre of syrup approximately 40 litres of sap is used. Not only is this a refreshing drink, to be enjoyed on those hot summer days, maple sap has many nutritional benefits. Maple sap, with over 80 nutrients, is a natural way to replenish the body's electrolytes after the morning jog, bike marathon or hot yoga session.

There are many essential minerals in maple sap including calcium, potassium, magnesium, iron and zinc as well as vitamins, amino and organic acids. The type of sugar in maple sap is a complex oligosaccharide which is considered a pre-biotic. Many Antioxidants are also present. The list goes on and on. It also tastes good! Smoothies, herbal teas and rice all made with maple sap retain the goodness that has been provided by nature.



Unfortunately many of the family sugar bushes are falling into disuse. The ageing farm population can no longer keep up to the physical and economical demands of the boiling process (sugaring off)to make the famous maple syrup. The maple sap is very unstable and must be boiled down almost immediately to syrup, this means that the process goes on non-stop for 24 hours a day for days. The typical season is a six week of harvest. Bottling the pure maple sap bypasses this expensive, labour intensive work. It is hoped that more sugar bushes will be brought back on line to meet the demand for this refreshing drink. Once again providing the first harvest income of the season.

Troll Bridge Creek Inc. has been able to bottle this beneficial liquid so that it can be enjoyed year round. KiKi Maple Sweet Water, which is produced by Troll Bridge Creek Inc., Arthur, Ontario, is a one ingredient drink and that ingredient is pure maple sap drawn directly from the tree. Visit the Troll Bridge Creek Inc. Website www.trollbridgecreek.ca to learn more about this product and the nearest location where you can purchase these amazing beverages.


Keith and Lorraine Harris,
Owners of Troll Bridge Creek Inc.
KiKi Maple Sweet Water

Picture Post

NNS staff are fortunate enough to be able to come to work at a beautiful location on Nova Scotia's Eastern Shore every day: our manufacturing facility is located on a 150acre property on a 250 year old farm. When Nancy Smithers purchased the property, she decided to keep the authentic look of the old farm, so she built her manufacturing facility back so that all you can see from the road is the quaint red farmhouse and barn.







The yellow barn to the side of the driveway contains our resident llama, named Dayley. Dayley is the inspiration for 'Dayley's Eco Bites' that are posted to our blog several times a month.





Walking further into our property, you can see part of our manufacturing facility, along with a beautiful view of the Atlantic Ocean.





What is your favorite place to visit in Nova Scotia, or what would you like to see the most if you visited? There are so many hidden gems in the province, it can be hard to choose just one!

Why I Buy Certified Organic Acerola Sourced Vitamin C

As our understanding of nutrients has grown over the last century or so it's become apparent that the health benefits we derive from vitamins and minerals are often the result of groups of nutrients acting together rather than being the result of a single nutritional factor. One of the first observations of this behaviour was with respect to Vitamin C. Albert Szent-Györgyi, a Hungarian scientist and Nobel prize winner is often credited with the discovery of Vitamin C. His work in the late 1920s and early 1930s led both to the discovery of Vitamin C and a basic understanding of it's antioxidant characteristics. Szent-Györgyi's experiments were conducted using Vitamin C extracted from Hungarian peppers. As important as his discovery was it is in some ways overshadowed by his observation that the dried whole food product of Hungarian peppers was actually more biologically active (several times in fact) than the purified Vitamin C from the same food source. This led Szent-Györgyi to suggest that there were other chemicals or phytonutrients in the peppers which enhanced the antioxidant characteristics of the Vitamin C present. This observation underlies much of our understanding of modern nutrition specifically whole food nutrition.

Whole foods contain more nutrients and deliver greater health benefits then purified single nutrients.

Acerola berries that are carefully selected on the basis of their Vitamin C content are an incredibly rich source of both Vitamin C as well as the complex mixture of phytonutrients (bioflavonoids, caroteniods etc.) that enhance C activity. A natural combination that cannot be duplicated in a lab and that will outperform Vitamin C alone.

When purchasing an acerola product look for the following:

Certified organic - certification ensures that the product is as free from synthetic contaminants as is possible.

Standardized Vitamin C content - C content varies wildly in food products, never purchase an acerola product or other food sourced C product unless it clearly states the Vitamin C content.

By Graham Butler
Brand Manager for Naturally Nova Scotia

Want to see how NNS's Vitamin C line holds up to Graham's checklist? Visit our website.

We're Back!

So, after a (very) long hiatus, get ready for some new NNS blog content! We will be posting several posts a month: you can watch for these by following our blog, or joining us on Twitter and Facebook.

We at NNS love to hear feedback and our staff is looking forward to interacting with you. What a great way to get to know not only our products and brand, but the faces behind that beautiful logo of ours!

Follow us to learn about our company history, what drives the staff here at NNS, meet members of our team, and be the first to learn about new products. Plus, we would love to take requests - is there something you want to hear about? - Post a comment or send us an email at comments@naturallynovascotia.com.

In health,

the staff at Naturally Nova Scotia Health Products