Thistle honey from France

Very popular with young people, this French thistle honey is carefully harvested in spring. This is when the surrounding nature reaches full maturity. It flourishes under the sun’s extended rays, thanks to the lengthening days. Wild thistles, particularly fond of the sun and dry soil of Corsicaare adorned with magnificent fuchsia flowers during the flowering period. That’s when the bees get busy, gathering the precious nectar they need to produce this exquisite honey.

We offer two distinct harvests of milk thistle honey. On the one hand, we offer honey from the Spanish province of Soria in Castilla y Leon, offering incomparable sweetness combined with fine, white crystallization. On the other, we offer a harvest from Balagneharvested in spring 2023 by our Corsican partner beekeeper. It is this harvest that we offer you here.

Using French thistle honey in cooking :

Milk thistle honey goes particularly well with desserts. Indeed, we delicately tested a lemon tart with a little milk thistle honey. The result was surprising: A smooth, delicate sensation all at once. But we can just as easily mix it into summer salads; it’s sure to spice up a whole host of other dishes!

The taste and flavour of French thistle honey:

This honey has a more pronounced character than its Spanish counterpart. Its fluidity is also more pronounced. This year, we note the particular presence of honeydew. The result is a smooth, creamy mouthfeel.

Milk thistle honey keeps very well under no special conditions. Like most honeys, it should be kept dry and, if possible, away from light.

The benefits and virtues of thistle :

The ancient benefits of milk thistle for liver and gallbladder health date back to antiquity. Indeed, the Greek physician Pliny the Elder already recommended combining the plant’s juice with honey. In Europe, milk thistle was once used as a vegetable in its own right, without any knowledge of its virtues. Every part of the plant was eaten, from the leaves to the buds and young shoots. As for the seeds, they were roasted in the same way as coffee.

The use of milk thistle in the treatment of depression and liver disorders is thus rooted in an age-old tradition. Recent recent research has confirmed the plant’s effectiveness against liver poisoning caused by alcohol and other toxic substances. Today, milk thistle is widely used in the West to treat a variety of liver ailments.

Since then, scientific studies have highlighted a particular class of active ingredients found in milk thistle, notably silymarin, and among them, silybin. These compounds act as antioxidants to protect liver cells. The discovery of silymarin in the 1970s led to a number of clinical trials, all converging on the benefits of milk thistle for liver health.

Did you know?

And for a touch of historical anecdote, did you know that the name milk thistle comes from a medieval legend? According to this story, during a journey from Egypt to Palestine, the Virgin Mary, seeking to conceal the infant Jesus from the troops of Herod the Great, laid him in the broad leaves of the milk thistle. The characteristic white spots on the veins of the leaves are said to be the “hereditary” traces of the Virgin Mary’s milk drops. A fascinating story that adds a mythical dimension to this plant of many benefits.