Living the good life…

28/6/2018 article in the Ermelo Insight

Meet the Brundyn family, living the good life… well not quite as primitive as Tom and Barbara Good in the 1975 British sitcom, ‘The Good Life’, living a life of simplicity and self-sufficiency when they turned their suburban home into a farm complete without electricity and chickens, a cow and a pig in the back garden.  No, the Brundyn’s do have electricity (unless our national provider decides otherwise) and the only animals running free in the back yard are the dogs and a cat.

   Four years ago, Marius and Carla along with their three children, Lusanti, Charis and Timon decided to change things and opted for a healthier lifestyle by changing their eating habits to include healthier options such as nuts and organic produce.  Today it’s a way of life, the good life, back to, treating the fresh produce in such a dare I say, simple manner to extract every bit of goodness out of everything.  

   Gone are the days of buying produce that has been treated with chemicals or gone through all kinds of processes in order to preserve it with barely enough nutrients left to validate mentioning it on the label.  Eating healthy doesn’t have to be boring and everyday products like seed crackers, yogurt and butter are freely available in their home, the only difference is that it’s full of goodness because it’s homemade and take it  from a reliable source, really tasty as well.

   The Brundyn’s are passionate about the environment and though they know it’s impossible not to leave a carbon footprint, they try to minimise it by sourcing their organic produce as locally as possible and by that they don’t mean buying organic produce from the local supermarket that’s produced on the other side of the world, treated to keep fresh and flown all the way here.  As Carla explains, “where lies the integrity in that?

   Marius has been toying with the idea of Beekeeping for quite a while and at the end of last year, after returning from a visit to a friend’s Bee Farm in the Western Cape, he decided to spend the rest of December researching all the aspects of beekeeping.  One afternoon, just before New Year he checked on his emails and learned that his company has made him redundant and he realised that he had to do something to be able to provide for his family.  So with his new found knowledge of beekeeping he purchased his first 5 hives in January, put them on the garage roof and hoped for the best.  Two days later they noticed some activity around the hives and four days after placing them bee, colonies moved in.  

   With the help of local beekeeper, Johan Snyders who generously shares his knowledge with Marius, his dream is fast becoming a realisation and today his operation is 125 hives strong with 250 hives his next target and eventually ending up with 400.  Marius explains that he doesn’t want to expand too much as they still want to treat the honey with integrity and keep it raw, a process that will be difficult to handle and process with too much honey on hand.  Raw honey is kept under the hive temperature (37°) thus maintaining a thick consistency which make the packaging process a bit more challenging as it cannot easily be poured into containers.

   They realised that changing to a healthy lifestyle, moving here from the Lowveld, losing his job and gaining knowledge on beekeeping was all part of a bigger picture.  So by combining a healthy lifestyle which has become a way of life with their raw honey products, Quercus Health was established earlier this year.  They decided on the name Quercus because Oak trees are synonymous to the Highveld and they belong to the plant genus Quercus and both Marius and Carla have fond memories of the Oak tree lined Stellenbosch where they both studied years ago.  

   The whole family is actively involved in the business with Marius and Charis managing the hives and honey harvest and Lusanti, Timon and Carla seeing to the packaging, marketing and admin side.  Carla is the brain behind the new range raw honey products that include pots filled with golden deliciousness, infused with among others: cardamon, cardamon and coffee beans, turmeric and black peppercorn, cinnamon, ginger, chilli and cocoa nibs to creamy salted honey.  Alongside the honey they also offer a comprehensive range of health food products and is equipped to render a bee removal service. 

   Good news for those wanting to learn more about their healthy lifestyle and have a share of the good life, Carla will join the Ermelo Insight, writing a new weekly column titled “The Good Life”. 

For more information regarding the products available go to www.quercushealth.co.za or contact Carla at 082 786 9745.