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Anyone here consuming honey?
As a beekeeper, I saw how fast some people went through honey. They wanted gallons and gallons it was crazy. And I always have it out at parties and see people putting huge tablespoons of it in their hot drinks.
I kind of agree with one health writer who was anti-sugar and that is, honey is still sugar. It doesn't matter that an insect spits it out!
I guess what I'm saying is I think people give themselves permission to eat honey (a sugar) over other carbs. Maybe you'd be better adding a starch like rice if you want a carb in the diet?
When it comes to sweets, I want them to knock my socks off and so I will just put the white sugar because that is what is going to fit the bill and get the idea of a sweet off my to-do list. I guess I have moved slightly in the direction (which is somewhat adverse to my current point) that maybe sugar isn't white death and maybe sugar isn't solely responsible for carious teeth and diabetes! 🙂
Honey is a miracle cure for sore throats, laryngitis. I actually think some very herbal honeys can ward off a cold if taken soon enough when symptoms first arise.
My guess is that anyone who is managing to get early spring honey is probably feeding sugar water, and the honey is not 100% from flowers.
Honey revisited : a reappraisal of honey in pre-industrial diets
In pre-industrial times, honey was the main source of concentrated sweetness in the diets of many peoples.
There are no precise figures for per capita consumption during most periods in history because honey was
part of either a hunter-gatherer or subsistence economy. Until now, historians and food writers have
proposed that it was a scarce commodity available only to a wealthy few. We do know, however, that
in a cash economy honey was sold in large units (gallons and even barrels) and it was present in such
abundance that mead, made from honey, was a common alcoholic drink. A reappraisal of the evidence
from the Stone Age, Antiquity, the Middle Ages and early Modern times suggests that ordinary people
ate much larger quantities of honey than has previously been acknowledged. Intakes at various times
during history may well have rivalled our current consumption of refined sugar. There are implications
therefore for the role of sugar in modem diets. Refined sugar may not have displaced more nutrient-rich
items from our present-day diets but only the nutritionally comparable food, honey.
@tim-2 Yesterday hubs and a friend caught a swarm. It's less dangerous than you would expect.
I would guess that honey was available to anyone not just the rich. At least anyone who was prepared with skills and a skep.
And back then there were less things to kill off your bees (such as disease and chems) so you'd have your hive for a long time. There were a lot more wild honeybees too.
Wax was also an important hive product.
Yep sugar was present in Europe before the arrival of cane sugar. It was sourced from honey, birch sap and to a lesser degree maple sap.
This is an interesting read: Uses of tree saps in northern and eastern parts of Europe
Where water-springs were rare, tree sap was the only drink for herdsmen.
The Importance of Honey Consumption in Human Evolution
The Ache of Paraguay consider honey and bee larvae to be the second most important resource class in their diet after large game meat(Hill et al. 1984; Kaplan and Hill 1985). The detailed data on the Ache quantifies the ways in which bees and their products contribute to overall diet composition. The energetic value of Ache honey is reported to be 3,232 calories per kilogram; consumption of honey and brood is, on average, 1,163 calories per person per day (Hurtado et al. 1985). Although honey is most abundant during the early part of the wet season, it is available in varying amounts throughout the year (Hill 2002; Hill et al. 1984; Hawkes et al. 1982).
In Asia, the honey foragers of Nepal target the nests of large stingless and stinging honeybees and collect approximately 40 liters of liquid honey and 10 kilograms of comb in less than one hour of foraging (Valli and Summers 1988). They utilize bamboo ladders to climb within reach of the nests, which are usually situated high in cliff crevices or in trees on the cliff face (Underwood 1990). The Tamang of Nepal (Masvie 2006; Thapa 2000)and the Onge of the Andaman Islands (Cipriani 1966; Crane 1975) also collect and consume large quantities of honey and bee larvae.
There is quantified data available, however, on the amounts collected and consumed by the Efe foragers of the Ituri Forest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Hadza foragers of Tanzania. The Efe have a “honey season” that lasts from July–August (Terashima1998). During this season, they move deep into the forest in search of the liquid honey and larvae of both stinging and stingless bees. During the honey season, they rely almost entirely on honey, brood, and pollen (Ichikawa1981; Turnbull 1976). Men and women collect honey together in family groups and share their yield once they have returned to camp. The average amount of honey and brood collected by the average person per day is 3.32 kilograms, and the average amount consumed per person per day is0.62 kilograms of honey (dry weight), which is calculated as 1,900 calories per day (Ichikawa 1981). Honey contributes roughly 70 percent of the diet by weight and 80 percent by calories (Ichikawa 1981; Terashima 1998), making it the largest component of the Efe diet during the wet season.
Among the Hadza foragers of Tanzania, honey is the most prized and highly ranked food source (Berbesque and Marlowe 2009). The Hadza collect the honey of stinging and stingless bees, consuming the larvae of both. Importance of Honey Consumption 263Honey comprises approximately 15 percent of the Hadza diet (Marlowe2001), is shared widely outside of the household, and is consumed by the entire camp (Bunn and Schoeninger 2009; Marlowe 2003). Liquid honey is a primary weaning food for Hadza children (Crittenden et al. n.d.). Male foragers are the primary honey collectors; however, children also routinely target beehives and return to camp with honey to share (Crittenden et al.n.d.). Young male foragers are able to collect and consume upwards of 3,000 kilocalories of honey during a three-hour foraging trip (Crittenden2009).
Yes we consume honey which we buy direct from a friend who has bees.
We were beekeepers and I've tried my best but I just don't really like honey. I do like a little maple syrup now and then much more. Honey is so great for sore throats and laryngitis though.
I regularly consume Manuka honey from New Zealand. It's considered to be the best honey you can buy.
High honey consumption has implications for sugar consumption. Fructose is the most problematic component of sugar and it's being claimed that we are now consuming more of it than ever before. Honey is even higher in fructose and if humans were eating a lot of it through the Paleolithic and Neolithic then it invalidates arguments for current rates of sugar and HFCS consumption being mismatched to our physiology.
@lil-chick wrote:
We were beekeepers and I've tried my best but I just don't really like honey.
I like it as an ingredient in foods and beverages especially now that butter is no longer an option for toast and honey lol.