Producer
American River Pine Pollen
Contact: Ryan & Stacy Edwards
City: Cool, CA,
About Us
American River Pine Pollen is a small wild foods business owned by Ryan and Stacy Edwards. Based out of Cool, California we pride ourselves in providing nutritious hyper-local, sustainably-harvested wild foods from the American River watershed.
We believe that modern society has become disconnected with the landscape in which we live, and that healing that connection begins with consciously consuming wild foods ethically harvested from the landscape.
Our passion is in wild, edible, and medicinal California plants and bringing these local products to market. Driven by our own health journeys we were motivated to create American River Pine Pollen to share the amazing superfoods that grow right here in Northern California.
Our main focus is on pine pollen - a superfood that has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for at least two thousand years for its vitality, anti-aging, and hormone/endocrine system balancing properties. Containing all of the amino acids and over 250 micro-nutrients, vitamins, enzymes, and antioxidants - it is nature’s multivitamin!
Additionally, we do occasionally offer flavorful tinctures, medicinal extracts, and other hand-made goodies inspired by the watershed.
We believe that modern society has become disconnected with the landscape in which we live, and that healing that connection begins with consciously consuming wild foods ethically harvested from the landscape.
Our passion is in wild, edible, and medicinal California plants and bringing these local products to market. Driven by our own health journeys we were motivated to create American River Pine Pollen to share the amazing superfoods that grow right here in Northern California.
Our main focus is on pine pollen - a superfood that has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for at least two thousand years for its vitality, anti-aging, and hormone/endocrine system balancing properties. Containing all of the amino acids and over 250 micro-nutrients, vitamins, enzymes, and antioxidants - it is nature’s multivitamin!
Additionally, we do occasionally offer flavorful tinctures, medicinal extracts, and other hand-made goodies inspired by the watershed.
Practices
Pine pollen is extremely time consuming to harvest, requiring hand-harvesting and a ton of legwork, and only available for a very small window of time at each elevation during spring. You could definitely call American River Pine Pollen a labor of love!
Most of the pine pollen available on the market is Masson pine harvested in China. It is mass produced with questionable handling processes, microwaved, and sold cheap.
Unlike the Chinese pollen product, at American River Pine Pollen we pride ourselves on providing pollen that is of the highest quality - pure, raw, wild, and minimally processed. Our pollen is small-batch, hand-harvested, gently dried, triple-sifted to 70 microns for the purest raw pollen, and then kept in temperature controlled storage.
Finally, pine pollen is a completely sustainable resource - an individual tree can produce up to six million grains of pollen per season and the National Forests (Tahoe and El Dorado) of the American River Watershed can produce 26 million quarts of pine pollen per day during peak season!
Most of the pine pollen available on the market is Masson pine harvested in China. It is mass produced with questionable handling processes, microwaved, and sold cheap.
Unlike the Chinese pollen product, at American River Pine Pollen we pride ourselves on providing pollen that is of the highest quality - pure, raw, wild, and minimally processed. Our pollen is small-batch, hand-harvested, gently dried, triple-sifted to 70 microns for the purest raw pollen, and then kept in temperature controlled storage.
Finally, pine pollen is a completely sustainable resource - an individual tree can produce up to six million grains of pollen per season and the National Forests (Tahoe and El Dorado) of the American River Watershed can produce 26 million quarts of pine pollen per day during peak season!