Honey

[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?

[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?

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. ;)