I'm not certain that a paper with 36 participants would be representative of all humans.
Searching PubMed non-exhaustively for "honey" and "allergies" yields this paper, Allergies and Natural Alternatives (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.otc.2022.06.005), states, amongst other things, that "The efficacy of these therapies is varied and under-researched." Alas, this seems to be the case.
Definitely a shitpost, but please consider other treatments for allergies than honey. Honey bees are domesticated and have a net negative on local environments where they aren’t native, such as North America. And rearing honey bees is not vegan, for those who care about pollinator welfare on both the domesticated and natural sides.
alright we doin this okay so most small-time beekepers at least (can’t speak for the larger industrial ones) only rarely resort to providing sugar as a substitute for honey because bees massively overprodice it. Also, the lack of micronutrients is not supported by any literature I can find, and additionally sugar substitution should only occur during the winter regardless. Finally: if bees are being exploited they will just leave. Everything I’ve found indicates that under poor conditions the entire hive will swarm and just go somewhere else. I do think the point about impacting biodiversity is valid, but if that were a decider for whether a food source is vegan there would be a whole lot fewer crops on that list.
My dad is a beekeeper, so I can pretty much confirm what you’re saying about sugar bricks/syrup in the winter. And actually there is some evidence online saying that beekeepers should keep honey in the hives.
As for migration, many wild bees hibernate, in-place over the winter, and the research regarding wild honey bees, although sparse, seems to suggest the same. Having bees stay in the same hive over the winter isn’t necessarily unnatural.
On the swarming point, beekeepers try to observe and look out for specific signs of swarming in order to prevent this from happening. And if swarming does happen, beekeepers can set up swarm traps. My dad has done this in the past, and he has had some success.
The point about all of the above though is that beekeepers 1) intentionally rob the bees of the work (i.e. honey creation) they’ve contributed to over the course of the spring/summer/fall nectar flows, and 2) intentionally try to trap hives that want to escape due to a lack of good conditions - both immoral acts imo.
And the biodiversity impacts don’t just affect food sources. Honey bees in such high populations that even modest beekeeping operations sustain overcrowd the native populations, capitalizing on nectar resources first, and risk native populations via virus and disease spillover. Native plants often have adapted along with native bees over time such that both species receive/perform pollination activities to 100% effectiveness. Honey bees are generalists, and so while they may pollinate more plants, they may only do so to 75% effectiveness or less (just throwing a number out there). So, plants get pollinated to lesser degrees with honey bees, and the leftover nectar for native bees often isn’t enough to sustain populations meaningfully.
This is why when people say save the bees, the actual message of the campaign is geared towards native bees - not honey bees. There are capitalistic interests involved in keeping honey bees populations healthy and high to the detriment of local environments.
That’s different. With peanuts you’re directly ingesting the allergen. With honey you have to hope that enough of the allergen, survived the honey making process, assuming you’re allergic to something bees make honey from.
There’s no question that allergy immunotherapy is legit, but honey is unlikely to be a viable method of it.
I thought it would work until I realized I’ve been exposing myself to pollen every damn year as it is. If my body was ever going to get used to it then it would have already lol
Now I just keep eating the honey because it’s honey, why not? Lol
The concept is its very concentrated, but because it’s broken down in the stomach you won’t likely have an allergic reaction. I didn’t know people used honey when they sell bee pollen for the exact purpose.
Yeah the study used 1g/kg. So if we use nice round numbers, a 100kg person would be doing 100g of honey or roughly 80g of sugar to start the day. That’s more than a 20oz (568ml) bottle of Coke!
Same idea as immunotherapy shots or sublingual drops.
Whether it’s actually local, and if the allergens are actually concentrated enough to make any difference, is a very different question. Set of questions.
I’m guessing this is a US thing? At least I’ve never heard of it before as a european and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t be allowed to be sold as honey here
Same, and I eat a fair amount of honey. Even when I buy cheap stuff on the road, it’s 100% honey. Maybe there’s some Dollar General store brand that’s severely discounted and cut, but I’ve never seen it.
Home base is coastal, but I travel all over the US for work. I spend between 30-50% of the year on the road. I admit, not a ton of that time is in middle-of-nowhere Wyoming.
Also very much a problem in Europe sadly. Of course not allowed, but pretty hard to detect. There are test that can tell the difference, but they are not accepted by the EU (yet?).
i mean this is solved by not buying imported honey, even here in sweden i can just go on a walk around the area and find at least one person selling honey from their backyard at a perfectly resonable price, so i don’t see the point in buying imported unless you’re a colony of bees in a trenchcoat and need it to survive.
Excuse me? Immunology shots are freaking amazing. I’ve been on them for about 2 years and the difference between last spring and this sptirng is incredible. I no longer need Allegra daily.
I only did mine for 6 months, but I went from dying every spring to getting a bit sniffly if the pollen count is so high walking outside smells like it. I can’t imagine how effective it would have been if I did all 3 years.
Fun fact: you can do it with poison ivy. I knew someone who had it done, and he could rub the stuff on his face with no reaction.
The things you are alleegic to aren’t the things bees are making honey out of. We mostly have allergies to things that are broadcast spwaning obscene amounts their pollen like ragweed, mold, and grass, while bees use flowering plants to make their honey.
Except oir brains aren’t wired to consume kess if something. Sugar is great if you are an animal or a hunter gather bevause it is calorie rich while taking little effort to harvest (once you fogure out how to deal with the bees). Calorie dense is great when you dont know ehen your next meal is coming, but in out modern society it means health problems.
And i love honey, but your body doesn’t see any difference between a spoonful of honey, molasses, agave, maple syrup, or high fructose corn syrup. They are all just a concentrated dose of sugar.
The hypothesis is that you are eating all of the flower allergens that are causing your allergies. The body usually doesn't react to things you eat so by consuming those allergens your body does have an immune response since it's part of food.
This is a fine point because I have oral allergy syndrome, which is my body violently reacting to bananas because of my ragweed allergy and my immune system being dumb as hell.
But also o do react less to flower pollen with a spoon of local honey a day so maybe it’s just a big weird world we live in.
Add comment