Honey - Good for allergies, but bad for babies?

Honey - Good for allergies, but bad for babies?

Honey is a natural sweetener with proven antibiotic and bioactive antiseptic properties. Whenever possible, it is best to produce honey in your area. Honey is made from the nectar of flowers. The nectar is converted into honey using invertase, an enzyme that mixes with bees. Honey contains vitamins and enzymes that are necessary for the proper metabolism and digestion of glucose and other sugar molecules.

Honey - Good for allergies, but bad for babies?

Many beauticians use honey to extract blackheads. You apply a thin layer of honey to the area with the blackheads and then gently dab the area repeatedly until the honey pulls the blackhead out of the pore. Disgusting, but it works.

Honey is twice as sweet and has a glycemic load. Hence, it should be avoided in large amounts if you have diabetes, candida, or other sugar problems such as low blood sugar. The taste of honey varies depending on the source of the flower.

Honey is a great source of potassium. It also contains thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pyridoxine, and ascorbic acid, not to mention calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and sodium. I love darker honey because it has a "pop". Darker honey is also rich in minerals.

 Honey may contain spores that can cause botulism in infants in children under one-year-old. Adults and older children are regularly exposed to botulism spores in dust, dirt, honey, and other raw foods, but are rarely affected. However, in the digestive tract of immature babies, the spores can germinate and release botulinum toxin.

Symptoms of infant botulism include constipation, lethargy, poor nutrition, weak crying, droopy eyelids, and sometimes respiratory failure. By the age of 12 months, babies develop a digestive tract that is mature enough to deal with the toxin.

Is local honey useful for allergies? We really don't know why direct exposure to pollen causes hay fever, while small doses of honey (up to two teaspoons per day) do the opposite. Some people think that the small doses of pollen in honey work as homeopathic. A homeopathic dose of something works in the body, allowing it to recognize a certain foreign object in the body (like pollen) and get rid of it by attacking it and removing the harmful toxin through the kidneys and liver, intestines, and skin.

I have allergies and eat honey every day, not sure how well it works, but it's cheaper than allergy shots. The more local the honey, the better. Sourcing locally ensures that the honey contains the pollen that you are allergic to. We get ours at the local outdoor farmers market.