Raw Honey vs Pasteurized “Honey”
Honey has been valued by people for thousands of years for its flavour, nutritional value and healing properties.
Honey is anti-microbial and was used in ancient times for both dressing wounds and as a preservative for herbal medicines.
In fact, raw honey has such amazing natural preservative qualities that it lasts for thousands of years! Jugs of honey have been found in Egyptian tombs over 2,000 years old that was still edible and delicious.
The anti-microbial effects of honey are being rediscovered today as researchers have found that wounds dressed with honey heal faster, infection is rapidly cleared, and inflammation, swelling and pain are quickly reduced.
A number of researchers are exploring its use as a wound dressing as microbes are becoming ever more resistant to Big Pharma antibiotics.
The alarming rise of drug resistant bacteria and infections that we are seeing today is a direct result of our over-use of antibiotics.
Look around you today, and nearly every store you visit will have a dispenser available for customers to sanitize their hands.We are prescribed antibiotics at the drop of a hat, they are sprayed on crops, and are fed to the animals that we eat.
Big Pharma and the chemical companies must be laughing all the way to the bank.
Of course, most folks eat the honey, and here raw honey offers some amazing health benefits as well.
However, more than three fourths of the honey sold in grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce as the product has had the pollen filtered out.
To remove the pollen, honey goes through an ultra-filtering process. This is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down, and then forced at high pressure through extremely fine filters to remove the pollen.
This is a technique that was refined by the Chinese, who have been illegally dumping tons of their honey, some containing illegal antibiotics, on the North American market for years.
Health advocates say that this high tech filtering process makes no sense, because it costs a lot of money. The basic filtering that bee keepers do to their honey removes the debris and solid bits, but leaves the pollen behind.
The real reason for removing the pollen is nefarious….without the pollen, you can no longer determine where the honey came from. Plus, this process, pasteurized product no longer offers any health benefits.
Knowing its country of origin would tell a lot about the quality of the product, so filtering to remove pollen is done to slip funny honey into North America.
Grocery markets have also been flooded with Indian honey, which is banned in Europe because of contamination with antibiotics and heavy metals.
Retailers and many consumers like that clear golden honey that doesn’t crystallize…but most consumers are totally unaware that this golden syrup stuff is no longer actually real honey!
Not only has the pollen been removed, it may have also have corn syrup or sugar water added.
You may be wondering just why you should care whether or not the pollen has been removed.
Raw honey is the only honey that offers medicinal and healing benefits. Pollen contains enzymes and anti-oxidants, as well as providing documented anti-allergy benefits.
In fact, you can buy bee pollen alone as a naturopathic remedy for allergies.
And how can you tell if honey is raw? It will crystallize in its container. Many people don’t like this, or find it inconvenient because they’ve come to think of honey as a liquid product. They like to squirt it out of a cute little bee or bear shaped plastic bottle!
But crystallized raw honey is perfectly good, and it has an amazing shelf life….at least 2,000 years!
If you need to make your crystallized honey liquid again, simply submerge the jar in hot water. Don’t microwave it, as microwaving food destroys its nutritional qualities and changes its molecular structure.
There is an enormous variety among honeys. They range in colour from glass clear to a dark mahogany, and in consistency from watery to crystallized solid.
The plants and flowers that the bees have visited to load up on pollen will determine taste and texture of the honey they produce.
Beekeepers can’t actually control where their bees forage for honey, so products that claim to be pure tupelo or buckwheat, for instance, are fudging the truth and generally carry a premium price tag.
Raw honey suffers in the marketplace, just like organic produce, as people are always seeking bargains. But what price can you put on your health? Like many things in life, you get what you pay for!
Beekeeping is a lot of work, as well as a labour of love. Bees are fragile creatures and right now we are seeing a truly frightening decline in world bee populations.
Bee colony collapse disorder has been devastating hives and bee colonies all around the world. There are several theories on the cause of this devastation, but sheer common sense would say that we have polluted our planet nearly to death.
Small wonder that these small insects are dying off. Bees pollinate our plants, and if the bees are gone there will be no crops to harvest.
There are a couple of local beekeepers who sell raw honey in the River Valley that
we know about. (If you know of others, please tell us about them)
Corey Crawford in Perth-Andover, and his uncle Boyd Nyborg of New Denmark both keep bees.
Boyd has kept hives for 30 years, and five years ago Corey began keeping his own bees. Both of these beekeepers sell their raw, unpasteurized honey locally. You can buy Corey’s honey at Clark’s SaveEasy in Perth-Andover, or buy it directly from him. Call him at 273-2778.
Boyd sells directly from his home and can be reached at 553-6490.
Last year Corey had 11 hives that produced 70 gallons of honey. Sadly, he lost 9 hives out of the 11 over the winter because of the weather. We had a long, cold, protracted spring that kept the bees from getting out and so they died in their hives.
He is now back up to 10 hives this year. Another local source of raw honey is from beekeeper Edmond Bellefleur of Drummond. Nissen’s Market in Perth-Andover carries his raw honey, and it is also available at Foodland and FoodMaster in Grand Falls.
Keep sweet and stay healthy with raw honey!
Stephanie Kelley
