Is your honey real or FAKE?

It is used in our home to sweeten almost everything: granola, coffee, tea, lemon tea, yogurt, bread, spaghetti sauce, chili, etc. You get the idea.

Yup. Even the FDA declares ultra-processed, pollen-free honey, not honey at all. Typical honey you see in the stores is put through a filtration and pasteurization process which removes the pollen and burns off the nutrients and enzymes. Plus, much of the honey sold in the US is from China :(

76 percent of honey sampled from grocery stores had all the pollen removed. 

100 percent of the honey sampled from drugstores contained no pollen at all.

77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores had pollen filtered out leaving only trace amounts.

100 percent of the honey packaged in the small individual service portions for restaurants, coffee shops, and deli counters were void of pollen.

There is a belief (perhaps true) that the consumer wants the golden liquid to be well, liquid. Crystallized honey just isn’t as appealing to people. There is a misconception that honey in a state other than how we grew up knowing it to be (creamy and clear) is bad, expired and simply not as easy to use. That is far from the truth.

If you purchase raw honey and prefer the liquid form to the crystallized form, simply place in a bowl of hot water (not on the stove) until the crystals melt. Be careful not to get it too warm (above 105 degrees) as to eliminate all the beneficial nutrients.

Raw honey is unprocessed, unpasteurized (not heated) and in it's most natural state. It may be filtered to remove little particles but this is fine and preferable. This Raw type of "processing" ensures that you are getting all the enzymes, antioxidants, minerals and other nutrients that have not been burned off during the pasteurization process.

You may be wondering why that really matters. What are a few extra nutrients going to do for your health especially when you may not consume that much honey daily?

For years, a friend and I would travel an hours drive to a honey farm to gather up buckets of the gooey golden goodness. Rather than clear and runny, it would be opaque, crystallized and light gold in color. Our kids would spoon it up and have it as a "candy" treat.

Each fall (about the time we would begin our homeschool year), I would be a puffy-eyed, drowsy and not-nice version of myself. I would venture to my Naturopathic Doc's office to get my natural allergy remedy which worked well but took 2 weeks to kick in and was expensive.

Back in 2013, I purchased raw honey from a local farmer with hives within 10 miles of my house. He was passionate about his honey and I was glad to not have to make the hour-long drive.

It could have been a coincidence that I did not need allergy "meds" that fall. Yup. That was it. The Lord was being kind to me knowing that I needed the energy that fall as we had added another son to our family! Woohoo!

This was no longer a coincidence. Here, in the second allergy season, symptom-free. I had read enough to know that pollen in (really) locally sourced honey can help with allergy symptoms; I just had never experienced it for myself.

NEW UPDATE: I'm on year 7 with no allergy meds. This fall I did get a bit stuffed up but took a spoonful of honey daily for a week and it dissipated! So, no meds for me except raw honey.

So buying my honey from 10-15 miles (or less) away verses 1 hour away made a huge difference for me.

Think of the honey you purchase in stores. How many miles has it been flown or trucked to finally get to you? Think of all the puffy-eyed, drowsy, not-as-nice version of yourself you could avoid with buying honey locally.

I tried to find a website with raw-honey-near-me references but found only large suppliers not the farmers with the good stuff.

So, google (yeah for the internet) raw honey farms in your area. Ask them questions about their refinement process, whether their honey will crystalize and if they do pollen counts. You can tell a lot by the way they talk of their honey, much the same way you talk about the things you love.

1. Helps with Dandruff and other scalp issues.

2. Cough syrup.

3. Treat wounds as it has powerful antibacterial, anti-fungal properties and jam packed with antioxidants!

4. Helps with acne by cleaning out pores. We actually use raw Manuka honey for our face cleanser, WASH because of it's super powerful skin cleaning action.

5. This stuff boosts energy (mothers everywhere are clapping).

6. As you can tell by my story, raw local-to-you Honey has the ability to relieve symptoms of allergies!

So, feed the stuff to your kiddos, have a friend over to share some yummy tea, enjoy some pampering by adding it to you face while soaking in the tub doing NOTHING at all.

But make sure it is the real stuff.

Sources: 

1. http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/#.V5i8MZMrKjQ

2. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/10/20/health-benefits-honey.aspx