Anybody eat raw honey for health reasons?

Bought a quart jug of raw honey a while back at a feed store.

I cracked into it. Gonna try and substitute honey for refined sugar. See what happens.

Ancient people ate a lot of honey. The Mayans ate honey for who knows how long.

Honey probably contains something the human body needs. I think its highly likely we evolved that way.

Anybody have any experience with the health benefits of honey?

Ancient people at it because it is high in calories and was an excellent source of energy.

It might be slightly better than refined sugars, but in the end, it is broken down into sugar and thus should be used in moderation.

From what I've read in the past, there is no added benefit to eating honey (other than the sugar) and it doesn't spoil.

Honey was used as a preservative as well.

As a wound dressing and for skin treatments

As a prophesying tool

Embalming...

Ancients were mad for honey (and mad hiney) for sure. But most likely due to its huge array of uses, not just as a sweetener and potential psychedelic (mad honey).

Like many hugely beneficial plants, animals and substances. Honey was worshipped in many cultures, no different than hemp/cannabis, poppies/opium, ayahuasca, etc...

I think there may be some trace minerals and phytonutrients in honey that may have some unquantifiable, likely marginal, health benefit. But at the end of the day, you're still getting sugar that's virtually identical to any other sugar you'd ingest.

I add one tbsp of raw honey to my whole milk yogurt every morning.

I've heard eating raw local honey is supposed to help with allergies since the bees are collecting pollen from the local flowers, but I do not have any idea if that's actually true.

It's carbs. If you want carbs, eat if. If you don't, then avoid it. Not really a whole lot more to it than that

Max Power said:

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I've heard eating raw local honey is supposed to help with allergies since the bees are collecting pollen from the local flowers, but I do not have any idea if that's actually true.

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I've always heard the same thing but never tried it. Curious if anyone has seen any improvements from it.

texasaggie2015 said:

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Max Power said:

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I've heard eating raw local honey is supposed to help with allergies since the bees are collecting pollen from the local flowers, but I do not have any idea if that's actually true.

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I've always heard the same thing but never tried it. Curious if anyone has seen any improvements from it.

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I've always heard that but the one time I did any googling seems most sources say it's a myth and no study or research has ever been able to make a connection between local honey and fewer allergy symptoms.

htxag09 said:

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texasaggie2015 said:

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Max Power said:

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I've heard eating raw local honey is supposed to help with allergies since the bees are collecting pollen from the local flowers, but I do not have any idea if that's actually true.

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I've always heard the same thing but never tried it. Curious if anyone has seen any improvements from it.

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I've always heard that but the one time I did any googling seems most sources say it's a myth and no study or research has ever been able to make a connection between local honey and fewer allergy symptoms.

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This is my experience: I used to have severe "hay fever" allergies every spring since childhood, such as sneezing a dozen times in a row and having to pull my car over because I couldn't see.

About ten years ago, starting around September, I started putting local honey in my coffee every morning. Spring came around and it was as if my allergies had disappeared. No medications. I have not used much honey since then. I'll usually have mild symptoms in the spring, but never as bad as before. In other words, I'm a believer.

I buy local honey for that reason. It helps with my allergies. Especially living in MO now and different pollens, molds, etc. Plus, unless they got it cleaned up, China was sending some low grade honey into US so another reason for local.

I replace sugar with honey. I think it's much more healthier because it's natural product.

Isn't sugar natural also?

After a long morning run I like toast, PB, banana, and vanilla bean honey from Breckinridge Colorado

But that is just for a bunch of carbs after a run and the only time I eat honey.

Hoosegow said:

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Ancient people at it because it is high in calories and was an excellent source of energy.

It might be slightly better than refined sugars, but in the end, it is broken down into sugar and thus should be used in moderation.

From what I've read in the past, there is no added benefit to eating honey (other than the sugar) and it doesn't spoil.

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Honey is WAY better than refined sugars. It doesn't create an insulin spike like sugar does. It has significantly less fructose and glucose. With that said, it is still a carb and somewhat calorically dense. It is, however, sweeter than sugar and less of it should be required.

If you don't need a sweetener, you wouldn't necessarily want to add honey to you diet, but if you need one or want to replace sugar, honey is a good way to go.

I put honey on PB sandwiches.

To replace sugar, I use erythritol.

Hmmm, interesting info I wasn't aware of.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5817209/

Stat Monitor Repairman said:

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Anybody eat raw honey for health reasons?

Bought a quart jug of raw honey a while back at a feed store.

I cracked into it. Gonna try and substitute honey for refined sugar. See what happens.

Ancient people ate a lot of honey. The Mayans ate honey for who knows how long.

Honey probably contains something the human body needs. I think its highly likely we evolved that way.

Anybody have any experience with the health benefits of honey?

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Honey is sugar. Your body may treat it a little differently and anecdotally it helps my allergies. But I really wanted to address this point because I see it a lot with dieting…

The ancient Mayans also played their version of basketball/soccer and made a human sacrifice of the captain of the winning team. Actually, just a lot of human sacrifice for all sorts of reasons. They drilled holes in their own teeth to inlay jewels.

Skeletal records don't reflect positively on their health by my reading. They were an advanced (albeit weird by modern standards) civilization, but weren't some all-knowing health experts. They used honey because it was available and high in calories to support the necessary hunting, gathering, and cultivating activities, not because they'd unlocked some secret to long life and health. They also had diets heavy in maize (not very nutritious) and cassava (which will kill you with cyanide if not properly prepared).

I use honey as a sweetener, but it's still just sugar. Probably better than a more complex carb, but still sugar. It doesn't have superpowers.

If we want to try something that WAS really healthy for the ancients, I'd recommend monotheism, not a fad diet.