Why are some ingredients account bound?
The ingredients that are account bound can be bought with karma from vendor, while the others have to be harvested or bought off the TP.
And ArenaNet doesn’t seem to want you to make money in any form by converting your time gaining karma into goods/items that you can sell to others. Puts a crimp in market play and lowers fun in general.
At least they’re account bound instead of character bound, which is a good thing.
The account bound food items are usually rewards for story or whatever. All karma recipes are account bound and so are ingredients you pay for with karma. It makes sense since your account earned the karma.
You can sell goods crafted with karma recipes on the TP.
What annoys me more is the random type of harvesting. In the early maps, you will know what you get from them because it tells you “Carrot” or “Potato” but then you hit a “Variegated Vegetable” patch and out comes a CARROT! Annoyed to waste a Darksteel for that. Every other Gathering is consistent.