Ahh fall. Leaves changing colors, the birds chirping, squirrels gathering nuts, and -----ahhhhhCHOO ----- snot flying everywhere. I have fall allergies. My daughter has fall allergies. Our wastebaskets are overflowing with tissues and our eyes overflowing with artificial tears. It certainly makes it difficult to enjoy the season when you need to focus most of your energy on breathing.
Enter, honey....that golden, delicious, precious little resource I took completely for granted until I moved halfway around the world for a bit and learned honey can help dramatically reduce seasonal allergy attacks. It makes perfect sense when I stop to think about it. Bees make honey from pollen, pollen makes me sneeze, and if I ingest pollen little by little, my body slowly realizes pollen compounds are not things we need to attack with the mucus of 1,000 noses. Kinda like that one time I was deathly allergic to cats as a child and got so fed up with it I grabbed my neighbor's cat and literally rubbed her all over my face. I broke out in hives and had a 60-minute sneezing fit, but I kid you not, from that day forward, no more cat allergies. True story.
But I digress.
So here we are, a mama-and-daughter-duo of boogers, desperately in need of some local, pollen-filled honey. I hopped on over to my local health food store and bought a beautiful jar of honey love.
Enter, honey....that golden, delicious, precious little resource I took completely for granted until I moved halfway around the world for a bit and learned honey can help dramatically reduce seasonal allergy attacks. It makes perfect sense when I stop to think about it. Bees make honey from pollen, pollen makes me sneeze, and if I ingest pollen little by little, my body slowly realizes pollen compounds are not things we need to attack with the mucus of 1,000 noses. Kinda like that one time I was deathly allergic to cats as a child and got so fed up with it I grabbed my neighbor's cat and literally rubbed her all over my face. I broke out in hives and had a 60-minute sneezing fit, but I kid you not, from that day forward, no more cat allergies. True story.
But I digress.
So here we are, a mama-and-daughter-duo of boogers, desperately in need of some local, pollen-filled honey. I hopped on over to my local health food store and bought a beautiful jar of honey love.
Naturally (see what I did there), when it came to my honey, I was Miss Suspicious. Sure, I was taking the proper precautions. I'd purchased locally, check. I'd purchased from a health food store, check. I'd checked the label to see if I'd missed any random ingredients, check check.
But here's the kicker: I'd done this before and gotten completely bamboozled. Oh yea.
Let me tell you a story about a girl named Jen. Jen was a bright-eyed, hippie-wanna-be with bad allergies and a sweet tooth like none other. She was feeling especially sweet one fine Saturday morning and decided to head on over to the honey table whilst perusing her local farmer's market. She'd seen the honey stand before, with it's huge "LOCAL HONEY" signs and sweet, homemade labels, but she'd never really checked it out and was reluctant to fork over $7 for a small bottle.
"Today is different!" she thought. "Today, I can feel my allergies just rearing to go! Today, I want something sweet! Today, I will BUY some of that delicious, golden, local syrup. It is time!"
Jen walked up to the stand and smiled at the man behind the table. He looked up from his phone for a minute, but did not return the smile. ***Clue #1 - Passionate, honest artisans are not grumpy to their customers!
No worries, Jen thought. I'm getting honey today. It is a glorious day! As she picked up a bottle, she asked the man behind the table where the honey was from.
"It's all locally produced and packaged just north of here," he said. ***Clue #2 - Lack of specifics equates to a lack of knowledge....passionate, honest artisans know everything about their trade...and they don't hire unknowledgeable folks to peddle their wares.
"Oh, ok," said Jen. "So the hives are located here, in our county?"
"Uh, no, the hives are up in Wisconsin," he said. "But the flowers and plants up there are the same as down here, so it really is local." ***Clue #3 - Generalizations about regional flowers and plants show a lack of consideration for micro-ecosystems. Each backyard has its own little ecosystem, and while some things are the same from yard to yard, to bet your business and someone's health on the similarities is just plain wrong. AP Bio taught me something - praise Jesus!
The state of Wisconsin sure is large, Jen thought. I wonder why he isn't giving me a straight answer? Oh well. I'm sure the town checked him out before allowing him to set up shop at their farmer's market. I'm gonna buy this honey because I really, really want it.
Jen brought her beautiful jar home and the next morning, added some to her oatmeal. It was superb! Delicious taste! Now, because Jen was a good little calorie counter at the time, she decided to log her honey intake. Strangely enough, she had noticed a little barcode on the back of her honey container. I wonder what this barcode is for? she thought. For good ol' curiosity's sake, she decided to scan it with her calorie counter app barcode scanner. Just for fun. A few little smirks and giggles.
She looked down and was surprised to see the barcode had actually registered...and pulled up a very specific, rather unsettling result:
TRADER JOES CLOVER HONEY
I'd done everything right. Local guy. Farmer's market. Asked all the questions. The only thing I didn't do was follow my intuition. I didn't listen to that little voice in my head that told me something wasn't right. I later went online and found anyone can have a booth at a farmer's market in my town....anyone. Literally. You have no idea where the food is coming from unless you ask, and even then, you are forced to take the person's word at face value.
Since then, I've researched everyone online. I take down the names of the farms I see and Google the living crap out of them. Regulations mean nothing, provided they exist to begin with. There is little to no regulation of honey in America. Most of the honey bought in stores doesn't even have pollen in it. Insane, yes? I've had to make myself here an edjumacated honey eater.
And no way was I gonna get bamboozled again. Not this year. No way man.
The second I came home with my health-food-store honey jar, I went to Google. I found an email address for the owner of the bee farm and shot this email over to him:
He wrote me back immediately. It was glorious. He explained his honey is as unprocessed as honey can get. He does not heat his honey beyond 100 degrees (bees maintain a temperature of 93 degrees inside the hive - stick that lil factoid in your pocketses!). He runs it through a sieve to get all the waxy weirdness out and then simply bottles that stuff up, pollen and all. He also added a few helpful bits of knowledge about "raw" honey. He said we don't yet have a universally accepted definition of raw honey, but most believe it to mean the honey is not heated beyond 120 degrees. He said many large bottlers (pretty sure he's talking about that cute honey bear at the grocery store) heat their honey to 180 degrees to keep it from crystallizing. Good rule of thumb? When searching for quality, local honey, crystallized honey is the bees knees! All it takes to re-liquify it is some hot water.
Pretty much the best experience I've had with a food-producing farmer. Not only did he explain, in detail, how my food went from flower to bottle, but he added in some interesting information I didn't even think to ask. Talk about taking the initiative to help your customers! I later found out this guy is also an aviation instructor and psychology professor. Can we please get more products on store shelves from people like this??
Honey can be a godsend this time of year, but unfortunately you gotta know where to look. If you find yourself torn between honey! and honey?, reach out to the farm (or company) on the label. Ask them the tough questions and if they can't answer, move along to someone else. Every dollar you spend is a vote. Vote health, vote education, vote for the proper way to stay snot-free!
A Few Resources for Your Reading Pleasure:
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/#.VC67SPldV8G
http://fox17online.com/2014/02/25/the-truth-behind-the-honey-labels-a-fox-17-investigation/
http://institutefornaturalhealing.com/2013/11/the-not-so-sweet-truth-about-honey/
http://www.offthegridnews.com/2013/09/23/the-truth-behind-manufactured-honey/
And no way was I gonna get bamboozled again. Not this year. No way man.
The second I came home with my health-food-store honey jar, I went to Google. I found an email address for the owner of the bee farm and shot this email over to him:
Good Morning,
I recently purchased a bottle of your pure local honey and I was wondering....is it "raw?" I've been trying to find local, raw honey to help alleviate our allergies for years and was hoping your honey was unpasteurized/unprocessed?
Thank you very much for your time.
He wrote me back immediately. It was glorious. He explained his honey is as unprocessed as honey can get. He does not heat his honey beyond 100 degrees (bees maintain a temperature of 93 degrees inside the hive - stick that lil factoid in your pocketses!). He runs it through a sieve to get all the waxy weirdness out and then simply bottles that stuff up, pollen and all. He also added a few helpful bits of knowledge about "raw" honey. He said we don't yet have a universally accepted definition of raw honey, but most believe it to mean the honey is not heated beyond 120 degrees. He said many large bottlers (pretty sure he's talking about that cute honey bear at the grocery store) heat their honey to 180 degrees to keep it from crystallizing. Good rule of thumb? When searching for quality, local honey, crystallized honey is the bees knees! All it takes to re-liquify it is some hot water.
Honey can be a godsend this time of year, but unfortunately you gotta know where to look. If you find yourself torn between honey! and honey?, reach out to the farm (or company) on the label. Ask them the tough questions and if they can't answer, move along to someone else. Every dollar you spend is a vote. Vote health, vote education, vote for the proper way to stay snot-free!
A Few Resources for Your Reading Pleasure:
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/#.VC67SPldV8G
http://fox17online.com/2014/02/25/the-truth-behind-the-honey-labels-a-fox-17-investigation/
http://institutefornaturalhealing.com/2013/11/the-not-so-sweet-truth-about-honey/
http://www.offthegridnews.com/2013/09/23/the-truth-behind-manufactured-honey/
What about you, dear readers? Any of you have honey woes? Anyone else suffer from fall allergies? I'd love to hear about it in the comments down below. Thank you for reading!
Jen
