Honey

[Scarlett]

Hi there. I am quite new to being completely raw and l'm always learning. Is raw honey the same as unpasterized honey?
Cheerfully
Scarlett :p

[RawFoodieMom]

I would have to say no. Even if it's unpasteurized, it doesn't mean it hasn't been heated. Most raw honeys will say "raw" on them. Another clue is if the honey is liquidy, it's not raw. Raw honey is solid, and you have to scoop it with a spoon to get it out.

[spicyfull]

Any honey comes from Bees and they have to ingest it and regeritate it in order to make honey.............

[Davylp25]

Anyone know where you can get bulk raw honey? Instead of all these lil jars?

[Conscious Midwife]

Honey is not considered vegan by most. But you can find large jars a farmers markets and middle eastern grocers. ( in the US)

[Vanessa]

Honey is a flower product, not a bee product. Yes, the bees carry it, but they do not produce it. So really- it is vegan.

I'd try a co op for bulk raw honey....

[PATH301]

RawFoodieMom,

Raw honey is solid, and you have to scoop it with a spoon to get it out.

I always buy the raw type. It's really thick and it will pour out of the jar if you have enough patience. The kind that I get at the HFS is sorta a light whiteish color. And yes it's much quicker if you use a spoon to get it out. -

[JennaBoBenna]

The honey I get that is labeled "raw" all over it is really easy to pour. I've never seen solid honey before :confused:

[rawbeliever]

yep, i've gotten honey straight out of the hive, and it was liquid dripping out of the honeycomb.

[madmel]

There are honeys that will solidify quickly, they are usually of a creamy white colour - it depends on the flowers/trees the bees are using. Not every solid honey is a truely raw honey.

mel

[alex]

Honey is a very interesting food!

It is the only natural food that does not spoil.

It is almost always considered to be non-vegan. There is a new category used by some called 'beegan' - a vegan who eats bee products.

Recently honey has started being used to treat wounds that are not healing, with very good success.

Apparently, Alexander the Great's body was covered in honey after his death and transported back to Greece without decomposing.


alex

[rawnora]

Yes, honey is an interesting substance. Although I ate it in transition and don't begrudge new raw fooders from enjoying it if it keeps them from eating worse things, honey is not an optimal food. The reason why it has such a long shelf life and is used to preserve things (like Alexander's body) is that it contains acids that keep it from decomposing over time, and that means they don't break down in our bodies when we eat them either. The body cannot digest them, so it must only eliminate them and in the meantime it uses minerals from the bones and teeth to neutralize them. This may be where honey gets it reputation as bad for dental health. Dates are a much better choice for sweeteners, as they have no toxic constituents.

Best wishes,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[RawFoodieMom]

I had a conversation through email with a local beekeeper about if his honey was truly raw, and he gave me a lot of insight into the process. I really wish I could find the email now. But basically, yes when the honey comes out of the hive it is liquid, and it's raw of course, but within a month or 2, it turns to solid. So if the liquid honey you bought just came out of the hive recently, it could be raw. He said that most beekeepers expose the honey to heat because it's easier to get out of the hive and into the packaging. But it's beekeepers with patience that can sell raw honey, LOL. The kinds of honey you see in the store that are pourable for months are not raw. So unless the honey was just put in a package for you from the hive within a month or so, it should be basically solid.

He used to sell honey on eBay, but he hasn't for a few months, he had expressed a LOT of frustration about sellers on eBay listing their honey on eBay as RAW when he knew it was not. :(

[Lay-Lay]

I buy from a hive less then a mile from my house. They do not harm their bees in any way. I buy huge jars. They do not cook at all. I have watched them take the honey out of the hives and put it into the jars. My honey from there pours pretty easy because it is right out of the hive. I really don't use too much honey. I enjoy it in nutmilk shakes and lemonade. It has a much different tastes then dates and things such.

[Sheryl]

Interesting idea Nora...

My understanding was that honey was stable because it has a very high sugar content combined with a lower water content. This means there's not enough water to support life of bacteria, mould, fungus. When these things land on it, the extra sugar / low water dehydrates them and they do not grow. Preserving food with white sugar is another example of this, as is the long shelf life of maple syrup, agave etc.

I did find one reference to the acid in honey though "Neutralize the acid in honey by adding 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda for every cup of honey used, but if the recipe already calls for soda, don't add more." . This refers to a cooked recipe of course!

What exactly is the acid? I'm curious and would like to read more.

Cheers,
Sheryl

[Sharon in Colorado]

Nora I am interested in the acid reference as well, and how is it different from the acid found in fruits?


Honey is a flower product, not a bee product. Yes, the bees carry it, but they do not produce it. So really- it is vegan.

Vanessa if the bees do not produce honey, then how it is made? I would like to know.

[Sheryl]

Bees gather it and carry it back to the hive in a modified stomach where it is mixed with enzymes. Then they hold a drop in their mouth and open and close it until the honey is thick enough to store! They definitely have a hand in making it what it is!

Pollen they just carry back and drop. That would be more flower than bee product.

Even with that many still consider honey vegan. I'm fine with that. I occasionally use it, but mostly use agave nectar now. I like that it doesn't influence the flavour of recipes as much.

Right now the banksia trees are blooming here. If you find a low flower you can tap it on your hand and end up with a teaspoon of flower nectar sparkling with fresh soft pollen. If there was a way to harvest that I would pay $100 a bottle it's that good.

Cheers,
Sheryl

[Sharon in Colorado]

Thanks Sheryl. I guess I was trying to get the point across that bees DO produce it. Man can't produce honey to the best of my knowledge.

I'm not vegan and do use honey but I realize it is a bee product.

You can't just carry the pollen from a flower and bring it to a hive and it turns into honey on it's own. It is regurgitated with some of the bees saliva or enzymes or what-not in order to make it. That is why some people refer to it as bee vomit, lol.

I also use agave more than honey these days - as agave doesn't over power recipes and is free flowing, doesn't harden.

[fikustree]

I talked to a bee keeper last week at the farmer's market and he said that the only thing they do between pouring it out of the bee hive and putting it in a jar is run it through a cheesecloth.

He said the reason that Raw Honey is usually solid is because the blend it with parts of the honeycomb which leads it to being more of a solid. He said regular honey will stay liquid for a long time. (But maybe that is just because we are in Texas where it is so dang hot)

[Joyful Mary]

My husband and son worked at a relatively small honey place one summer. The kids and I often went in, looking around and visiting with the workers. The process was interesting. The biggest surprise, though, was that dead bees, mold, & such were mixed right in with the honey. It just wasn't profitable to seperate the yuck off the top from the honey. I'm sure some honey is cleaner than others depending on the supplier. Therefore, I recommend that if you use honey, you buy it locally and watch their procedure from beginning to end before buying to make sure it meets your standards.

[Cinnamon]

I've seen raw honey at one of our local farmer's markets and it actually had dead bee bodies still in it! I would have thought to at least strain things like that out of it.

Agave has worked so well in the recipes I have that call for honey that I haven't used honey for a long time now. And I do love dates in recipes too that need that extra sweetness.

[rawnora]

Sorry to take so long to get back to this. Honey is actually higher in water content than dates, yet dates will go bad if left at room temperature and honey will not. There is a detailed explanation for this as well as (I think) identifying information about the acids and other toxic substances in honey in the Life Science course. I'd look it up but it's in a box right now having just got back from the printer. I've also heard it said that the sugars in honey, syrups and other fractionated sweeteners (whether the process is done by humans or by bees) are too concentrated to be made use of by the body. Dates are concentrated also but are a whole food, eaten in their natural state and are therefore a better choice, although it's easy to overeat them as well.

Hope this helps.
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[RawFoodieMom]

If you get honey straight from the hive, how is that not in it's natural state? :confused:

[Veganforlife]

I just found this. I personally do not use honey, being 100% Vegan and now Raw Vegan...

Honey is made from sucrose-rich flower nectar that is collected by honeybees and then regurgitated back and forth among them until it is partially digested. After the final regurgitation, the bees fan the substance with their wings until it is cool and thick. This mixture, which we call honey (which is essentially bee vomit), is then stored in the cells of the bees' hive and used as their sole source of nutrition in cold weather and other times when alternative food sources are not available. During the collection of flower nectar, the bees also pollinate plants. This is part of the natural process of life and is necessary and unavoidable. Even though humans inadvertently benefit, the bees do not pollinate plants in order to serve human needs; it is simply a secondary aspect of their nectar collecting. The honey that bees produce is stored in their hives for their own purposes. When humans remove honey from the hive, they take something that is not rightfully theirs.

To collect honey, beekeepers must temporarily remove a number of the bees from their home. During the course of bee management and honey collection, even the most careful beekeeper cannot avoid inadvertently injuring, squashing, or otherwise killing some of the bees. Other commodities may be taken from the hive as well, including beeswax, honeycomb, pollen, propolis, and royal jelly.

Bees are not harmed by the process of pollination -- it is something they would do whether or not humans were involved or reaped any profit. If one were to stretch the point, using honey could, in a broad sense, be considered analogous to dairying. Furthermore, there is no reason to take honey from bees other than to sell it. Utilizing bees to pollinate crops in no way necessitates ravaging their hive.

Although the issue of honey is not deemed the most pressing concern of many vegans, honey is nevertheless considered an animal product. Because there are numerous alternatives to honey, from a vegan perspective there is no justifiable rationale for using it. Furthermore, the vegan position on honey is definitive. Honey was prohibited for use by vegans according to the 1944 manifesto of the British Vegan Society (veganism's founding organization), a position consistent with the requirement for full (vegan) membership in the American Vegan Society since its inception in 1960.

from: http://www.vegsource.com/jo/qa/qahoney.htm

[Sharon in Colorado]

If you get honey straight from the hive, how is that not in it's natural state? :confused:

I don't think honey is not unnatural. Except for mass-produced over-processed honey like the Sue Bee variety. Be sure to get unheated honey. There was a discussion here a while back about making sure the honey says unheated rather than raw because it could still be heated, and maybe at too high of a temperature.

Plus I've also read somewhere that the cooked honey actually changes the sugar so that your body responds to it the same as processed sugars. When it is in its natural raw state, the body isn't affected as much.

[RawFoodieMom]

I don't think honey is not unnatural. Except for mass-produced over-processed honey like the Sue Bee variety. Be sure to get unheated honey. There was a discussion here a while back about making sure the honey says unheated rather than raw because it could still be heated, and maybe at too high of a temperature.

Plus I've also read somewhere that the cooked honey actually changes the sugar so that your body responds to it the same as processed sugars. When it is in its natural raw state, the body isn't affected as much.

To me, honey is a natural product (even though it's made by bees) if it's straight from the hive and not heated in any way, only strained. The beekeeper I got my honey from last time assured me this is the way he did things and he told me all about his process. It came in a big plastic bucket. I agree that if it just says raw on it, it doesn't necessarily mean it hasn't been heated.

Anyway, I think the honey debate has been beaten to death around here in the past few months so I don't want to get into that again if you know what I mean. ;)