Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: PaleoPhil on December 27, 2014, 07:38:30 am
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"F. Marlowe and his research group have demonstrated that the Hadza eat huge quantities of honey for months on end - something I've witnessed and participated in as well." - Jeff Leach, Founder of the Human Food Project, 12.23.14, https://www.facebook.com/humanfoodproject/posts/774527309299502 (https://www.facebook.com/humanfoodproject/posts/774527309299502)
(http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/385px-Cueva_arana1-192x300.jpg) (http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/09/20/the-sweetness-of-human-evolution/)"In her ethnographic research on honey consumption, Crittenden discovered that human hunters have long targeted bee hives. The artists who painted Altamira cave in what is now Spain some 25,000 years ago, for example, left depictions of bees, honeycombs, and—most amazing of all, in my opinion—honey collection ladders. And in Zimbabwe, archaeologists recorded a cave depiction of a human smoking out a beehive. San hunters and gatherers in the region told archaeologists that their ancestors had frequented the cave for nearly 10,000 years." - Heather Pringle, The Sweetness of Human Evolution, September 20, 2012, http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/09/20/the-sweetness-of-human-evolution (http://www.lastwordonnothing.com/2012/09/20/the-sweetness-of-human-evolution)
"Upper Paleolithic rock art from Spain, India, Australia, and southern Africa all illustrate collecting honey. Altamira cave, in Cantabria, Spain, includes depictions of honeycombs, dated approximately 25,000 years ago. The Mesolithic Cueva de la Araña rock shelter, in Valencia Spain, contains depictions of honey collection, bee swarms, and men climbing ladders to get to the bees, at ~10,000 years ago.
Some scholars believe that collecting honey is much earlier than that, since our immediate cousins the primates regularly collect honey on their own. Crittendon has suggested that Lower Paleolithic Oldowan stone tools (2.5 mya) could have been used to split open beehives, and there's no reason that a self-respecting Australopithecine or early Homo could not have done that." - K. Kris Hirst, History of Honey Bees: The Human Management of Apis mellifera, http://archaeology.about.com/od/hterms/qt/Honey-Bees.htm (http://archaeology.about.com/od/hterms/qt/Honey-Bees.htm)
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(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PUY1zmx1IZk/TfS3lRJvl3I/AAAAAAAAACY/7YhQ9i9NgtM/s320/P1000494.JPG) (http://apvtravels.blogspot.com/2011/02/living-with-hadzabe-in-tanzanias-yaeda.html)"hunting with the Hadza meant walking through brush, across savannahs, up hills and down escarpements from 7 am until 2 pm, which was a short day for them. We saw gazelles, wild boars and baboons, but didn’t catch anything. We’d be in the trail of gazelle, zebra, giraffe, ect., but our guides just kept getting sidetracked by honey! I guess its immediate and guaranteed food whereas the animals are much harder to catch." ("Living with the Hadzabe in Tanzania's Yaeda Valley," http://apvtravels.blogspot.com/2011/02/living-with-hadzabe-in-tanzanias-yaeda.html (http://apvtravels.blogspot.com/2011/02/living-with-hadzabe-in-tanzanias-yaeda.html))
"Foragers in Latin America, Asia, Australia, and Africa include honey and bee larvae as major components of their diet. The Hadza hunter-gatherers of Tanzania, the population with whom I work, even list honey as their number one preferred food item!" - Dr. Elizabeth Gray, http://www.thehadzalastofthefirst.com/2012/07/30/alyssa-crittenden-how-honey-helped-to-make-us-human (http://www.thehadzalastofthefirst.com/2012/07/30/alyssa-crittenden-how-honey-helped-to-make-us-human)
From "Sex Differences in Food Preferences of Hadza Hunter-Gatherers" (2009. 7(4): 601-616, http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/EP07601616.pdf (http://www.epjournal.net/wp-content/uploads/EP07601616.pdf)):
> “The most highly prized components of the Aboriginal hunter-gatherer diet were the relatively few energy-dense foods: depot fat, organ meats, fatty insects and honey” (O’Dea, Jewell, Whiten, Altmann, Strickland, and Oftedal, 1991, p. 238)
> Honey is the most energy dense food in nature (Skinner, 1991), and is highly prized by the Hadza. Honey combs often contain small amounts of bee larvae, which the Hadza consume along with the comb.
> Both males and females ranked honey first [in terms of preference]...
> ethnographers often claim that meat is the most preferred food among foragers (including the Hadza) (Bunn, 2001), yet our empirical data on individual preferences demonstrates that honey is more preferred than meat among the Hadza.
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"The story of Beowulf includes a Mead-Hall called Heorot that was so big and had so much attendant laughter that the monster Grendel broke in and slaughtered the noisemakers." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead_hall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mead_hall)
"This Estland [Estonia] is very large and has many fortified settlements, and in each of these there is a king. There is a great deal of honey and fishing." - Wulfstan, Two Voyagers at the court of King Alfred, trans. by Christine E. Fell (York, 1984). https://classesv2.yale.edu/access/content/user/haw6/Vikings/voyagers.html (https://classesv2.yale.edu/access/content/user/haw6/Vikings/voyagers.html)
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(https://static.squarespace.com/static/52e678e9e4b0c97661e7dc2a/52e7e001e4b06914b0374bfe/52e7e187e4b022186f7b859e/1390928265655/086_va78b.jpg?format=1000w)Gurung honey hunter of Nepal with a load of honeycomb.
(https://static.squarespace.com/static/52e678e9e4b0c97661e7dc2a/52e7d30ce4b05ac4d922e194/52e8f17fe4b0bc7aa7261aba/1390997888816/105_val104d.jpg?format=1000w)Raji nomad of Nepal gathering honeycomb.
Of course, we cannot assume with certainty that just because our Paleo-ancestors and other peoples ate a food that we can eat it without ill effects today. That would be blind Paleo re-enactment, which I reject. The evidence we have about the diets of our ancestors are clues, rough templates, starting points, rather than detailed prescriptions for optimal diets today.
Jeff Leach reported in a presentation I attended that the Hadza he shared honey feasts with did not suffer any signs of diabetes. He said most of them did clean their teeth often with the twigs of certain trees.
I have seen multiple reports from researchers in the field that obtaining honey from small trees normally requires no more expenditure of calories than hunting game. When the trees are not huge, my guess is that the calorie expenditure is actually less. Thus, it's no surprise that honey provides the highest net energy return of any food in the wild.
"Honey is the most energy dense food in nature. It is therefore notsurprising that, whereitexists, honey isan important food for almost all hunter-gatherers. Here we describe and analyze widespread honeycollecting among foragers and show that where it is absent, in arctic and subarctic habitats, honey beesare also rare to absent." https://www.academia.edu/9180464/Honey_hunters_and_gatherers_and_human_evolution (https://www.academia.edu/9180464/Honey_hunters_and_gatherers_and_human_evolution)
As Sabertooth perceptively noted: "Hunter-gather paleolithic man in [his] prime must have had a [superb] enzymatic capacity to devour and metabolize large portions of honey intermittently." And as Jeff Leach noted above, "intermittently" can mean nearly ever day for months at a time in season during plentiful years. For a HG to eat his fill, in season, of raw honeycomb and grubcomb, instead of just a smidgeon or two, would be quite "Instincto/Instinctive."
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I used to be a big fan of honey until I realised I was getting a very nasty toxic reaction in my mouth after swallowing any liquid honey, however labelled "raw". Even eating raw honeycomb eventually brought on this reaction, albeit in a very delayed, reduced way.
Whatever the case, honey should never, imo, be eaten in liquid form, but only as raw honeycomb as the wax seemingly reduces the sugary effect on the body. I am also sceptical as to the daily amount of raw honey eaten without knowledge of apiculture, something likely only knowable by agricultural societies.
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It's probably also wrong to assume that just because they prefered honey over meat that if honey were to be more plentiful than meat that they would have been just as healthy or continue to uphold such preference.
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It's probably also wrong to assume that just because they prefered honey over meat that if honey were to be more plentiful than meat that they would have been just as healthy or continues to uphold such preference.
Which is why I wrote above: Of course, we cannot assume with certainty that just because our Paleo-ancestors and other peoples ate a food that we can eat it without ill effects today. That would be blind Paleo re-enactment, which I reject. The evidence we have about the diets of our ancestors are clues, rough templates, starting points, rather than detailed prescriptions for optimal diets today.
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hard to get diabetes like symptoms when you spend seven hours a day hiking up and down hills looking for food.
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The assumption that hunter-gathers burn a lot more calories than sedentary Westerners is a common one made by many people, most often by critics of Paleo diets in general--claiming that Paleo diets were actually unhealthy and the only reason hunter gatherers are slim and generally free of diseases of civilization is because they exercise so much, and that eating a more modern diet is better. A recent study did not support that assumption. Instead, it found that while HG's like the Hadza are more physically active, they actually don't expend more energy than moderners, even if they climb trees to get honey, like the Hadza. (Why Aren't Hunter-Gatherers Obese? Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer, 09 August 2012 Time: 05:18 PM ET, http://www.livescience.com/22251-hunter-gatherers-calories-obesity.html (http://www.livescience.com/22251-hunter-gatherers-calories-obesity.html))
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I doubt that the Hadza are in any way representative of paleo HGs. I mean, there were other aspects in those days such as the megafauna and the limited wild areas that the Hadza have today would have been much bigger in palaeo times, plus climate would have been harsher etc. etc. There is also one other thing:- I have noticed that once one becomes expert at a particular sport or physical activity, one starts using much less energy than when one was a beginner. I see this, for example, when I go skiing which is almost effortless compared to when I first started when I had to exert a lot of energy to get down the slopes.
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I can tell that you didn't read the article.
"While no living population is a perfect model of our species' past, the Hadza lifestyle is similar in critical ways to those of our Pleistocene ancestors," writes the team, referring to the epoch that spanned from 2.6 million to 11,700 years ago and saw the first emergence of our species.
http://www.livescience.com/22251-hunter-gatherers-calories-obesity.html (http://www.livescience.com/22251-hunter-gatherers-calories-obesity.html)
Besides, isn't it rather contradictory of you to cite the Hadza HGs to support your tuber arguments, and then claim that they are not representative when it comes to honey? You can't have it both ways.
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I can tell that you didn't read the article.Besides, isn't it rather contradictory of you to cite the Hadza HGs to support your tuber arguments, and then claim that they are not representative when it comes to honey? You can't have it both ways.
Haha love this paleophil. Thank you for sharing this article.
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I can tell that you didn't read the article.Besides, isn't it rather contradictory of you to cite the Hadza HGs to support your tuber arguments, and then claim that they are not representative when it comes to honey? You can't have it both ways.
I did indeed read the article and also read that absurd, spurious, unproven claim you quoted as well. I had already cited several factors which would have made Hadza lifestyles appear anything BUT palaeo.
I never suggested that the Hadzas' preference for honey above other foods was necessarily palaeo, (though that did merely confirm my past comments re tubers not being considered ideal for modern HGs). Indeed, I had mentioned that, prior to agriculture/apiculture, getting hold of regular, sizeable supplies of honeycomb must have been quite difficult.
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"If current models for obesity are correct, the Hadza, with their natural diet and lack of mechanization, should expend more energy than individuals living in market economies with comparatively sedentary lifestyles and highly-processed, sugar-rich diets," they write.
In the context of the current calories-in-vs-calories-out model of obesity, the article seems to prove the study team's conclusion. That model of obesity attributes calorie-expenditure as the only metabolic impact of exercise. That was echoed in the Editor's Note, which says "The results of the study indicate that the caloric intake in western countries, not a sedentary lifestyle, have lead to high rates of obesity."
Anybody who is successfully treating for metabolic syndrome can tell you that IF you don't exercise, your body cannot regulate storage of dietary carbohydrate as fat, even with good caloric balance.
Starting out with erroneous science as your premise is a good basis for politics, not science.
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Is the wax from the honeycomb, when eaten whole with the honey and so, of some nutritional value? I have never swallowed it. (just in really small pieces, but not in purpose, when eating honeycomb)
Apart from energy (fructose, glucose, sucrose, etc) and water, are there in honey some nutrient in a significant amount? does honey have another benefits? I have seen that you must eat like 8-9 pound of honey to see some benefit from the mineral-vitamin content of it.
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Technically, I believe that the wax has no definite nutritional value, but it does seem to negate a nasty reaction I have to it. Ideally, one should eat the raw honeycomb plus any bee propolis, bee pollen or royal jelly.
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when i chew honeycomb, when the wax starts to desintegrate, I have the desire to swallow it as it is, with the wax. If I continue chewing (and separating the wax from the honey) i don't want to swallow it anymore.
Can I ask you, do you have any intestinal discomfort for swallowing the wax? have you ate little of it or sometime too much? i feel like i will be constipated from the wax (like blocked) but it is just an unjustified fear. I have never tried to.
what is the nasty reaction you are having from honey alone? i think i have like ache on my gum, somethimes in the theets. (i don't know if it is exactly cause of honey, but i suspect).
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Would it be safe to assume eating honeycomb with the wax could lower honey's GI?
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when i chew honeycomb, when the wax starts to desintegrate, I have the desire to swallow it as it is, with the wax. If I continue chewing (and separating the wax from the honey) i don't want to swallow it anymore.
Can I ask you, do you have any intestinal discomfort for swallowing the wax? have you ate little of it or sometime too much? i feel like i will be constipated from the wax (like blocked) but it is just an unjustified fear. I have never tried to.
what is the nasty reaction you are having from honey alone? i think i have like ache on my gum, somethimes in the theets. (i don't know if it is exactly cause of honey, but i suspect).
No, I get no intestinal discomfort from swallowing the wax. It seems purely beneficial to me and I get the nasty reaction from it only if I have consumed a lot of raw honeycomb at one sitting, whereas so-called raw, liquid honey has a negative reaction immediately.
As for the negative reaction, it is difficult to describe as it is such an alien feeling. Basically, it feels like suddenly something very toxic is in my mouth and I feel a bit weak overall. I think it must have something to do with affecting the blood-sugar-levels or something.
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insulin is release when eating sugar, even when not swallowed,, simply the body recognizing the immediate need of it from being in the mouth. Or it might be a Palovian response, maybe even the sight of it..
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should have been Pavlovian
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insulin is release when eating sugar, even when not swallowed,, simply the body recognizing the immediate need of it from being in the mouth. Or it might be a Palovian response, maybe even the sight of it..
The sight of the honey or honeycomb did not trigger the reaction, it just happened soon after it came into my mouth. Maybe I was just extremely sugar-sensitive at the time. I had been eating RVLC for quite some time then.
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You're welcome, Tribe. I hope it goes without saying that I'm not prescribing honey for anyone else. What works for me may not work for others, and what works short term may not work as well long term or at the same doses and frequencies. I don't eat a lot of honey myself, usually just a teaspoon or two now and then, sometimes more, of the few honeys that I do well with. I don't have the Hadza HG's abilities to metabolize honey and tolerate carbs and I doubt I ever will, though it is improved and who knows--as the saying goes, "anything's possible." I'm just trying to figure all this stuff out myself and share what I find and experience. It's heartening to see that you seem to have found some things that are helping you and I wish you good luck with your search for what will work for you.
raw honeycomb as the wax seemingly reduces the sugary effect on the body.
Indeed, Tyler, the possibility of honeycomb having a prebiotic effect is something I hypothesized myself and discussed offline, and someone gave me a link supporting it, but I can't find it. Please let me know if you come across anything.
This is the closest thing I could find--interestingly, this study found that even liquid (eucalypt tree) honey has a prebiotic effect, which I doubt you'll care for, but maybe someone else may find it interesting:
“For the first time researchers engaged in this study have been able to show in human trials that Australian eucalypt honeys have prebiotic qualities at levels that could help improve gut health, which can have a couple of important flow on effects,” Dr Dall said.
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“Prebiotic foods promote the growth of beneficial bacteria in the human intestine with a positive impact on health. In recent years awareness of the role of intestinal bacteria and their complex interactions in human health has increased markedly.
“There is increasing evidence that the gut microbiota is intrinsically linked to our metabolic health and a number of gastrointestinal diseases, such as inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease and obesity have been linked with a degradation of beneficial gut microbiota.”
Aussie honey good for gut health: new research uncovers prebiotic qualities, 08 May 2014
http://www.rirdc.gov.au/news/2014/05/08/aussie-honey-good-for-gut-health-new-research-uncovers-prebiotic-qualities (http://www.rirdc.gov.au/news/2014/05/08/aussie-honey-good-for-gut-health-new-research-uncovers-prebiotic-qualities)
Of course, it's only one study and the Aussie gov't has the bias of wanting to help their honey industry. The results need to be reproduced by other studies before conclusions can be drawn. It appears to be another interesting clue, though.
Ideally, one would eat the honeycomb and the grubcomb along with the honey, and eat meat, fruits and veggies from purely wild, pristine sources, but we don't live in an ideal world and do the best we can in the context of what's available and affordable to us and fits our individual needs and choices.
One thing I have found is that my personal experience doesn't always match that of other folks or Internet theories. I tested various honeys, including the best honeycomb honeys I could find, and I actually found that I fared better with certain comb-less honeys. If they had the combs, I would certainly eat those too, and my experience won't necessarily match anyone else's. It's just my n=1 experience, FWIW.
I did indeed read the article and also read that absurd, spurious, unproven claim you quoted as well. I had already cited several factors which would have made Hadza liefestyles appear anything BUT palaeo.
How do you square dismissing as "absurd, spurious, unproven" and "anything BUT palaeo" Hadza HG research on honey and their overall "lifestyles" despite having used Hadza HG research yourself re: tubers?
I never suggested that the Hadzas' preference for honey above other foods was necessarily palaeo, (though that did merely confirm my past comments re tubers not being considered ideal for modern HGs). Indeed, I had mentioned that, prior to agriculture/apiculture, getting hold of regular, sizeable supplies of honeycomb must have been quite difficult.
The research I shared from multiple sources and personally discussed with one researcher is about Hadza HGs gorging on WILD--not agrarian/apiculture--honeycomb/grubcomb in sizeable quantities for weeks and even months at a time, in season. If you disagree with the researchers, then I suggest that you discuss it with one of them, as I did. I don't want to debate your opinions on it. If you learn something new from one of the researchers or come across new additional scientific research, please let me know. I seek to learn, rather than debate.
I'm not interested in trying to convince anyone of anything who is set against it. The info I share is for folks like Tribe who are open to it and interested. If anyone is not interested, that's fine. To each his/her own.
In the context of the current calories-in-vs-calories-out model of obesity, the article seems to prove the study team's conclusion. That model of obesity attributes calorie-expenditure as the only metabolic impact of exercise. That was echoed in the Editor's Note, which says "The results of the study indicate that the caloric intake in western countries, not a sedentary lifestyle, have lead to high rates of obesity."
Anybody who is successfully treating for metabolic syndrome can tell you that IF you don't exercise, your body cannot regulate storage of dietary carbohydrate as fat, even with good caloric balance.
Starting out with erroneous science as your premise is a good basis for politics, not science.
Indeed, and the findings of the study were pretty much the opposite of what the food industry and public health authorities have been saying for years, and thus the opposite of politics.
Here's the study, for anyone interested:
Hunter-Gatherer Energetics and Human Obesity
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040503 (http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040503)
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Do you guys have any insight on Manuka honey? Does it live up to all the "hype"???
Is the really raw honey brand a safe buy?
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I don't care much for the taste or effects of most of the Manuka honeys I tried, though I did like the Healing Honey brand, and other people swear by Manuka, so it all comes down to the particular Manuka honey and the individual.
I found what I liked and tolerated well by trying small containers of many different raw honeys, including nearly all the ones that were highly touted in this forum. I disliked some so much, or fared so badly, that I threw them out. I rank health and well being effects #1 when it comes to honey and other foods, with taste being secondary, yet also important. I find that the foods that have good health effects also tend to taste better over time, as I eat more of them. I find that there are two basic types that I do well with--tree honeys that aren't super sweet (such as wild harvested Neem tree honey and Spanish old growth forest honey - which means the honey comes mainly from the nectar of the blossoms of those trees) and fermented honey (which is not mead--I find I have to write that every time or someone will claim that it's mead :( -- which is not to say that I don't like any mead, it's just a different thing).
Among the more ordinary honeys, such as clover honey, I found Wee Bee wild harvested honey to be pretty good. I tend to find wild harvested honeys to be better than average. Perhaps more wild-like bees are healthier and produce better honeys?
Among comb honeys, Tyler tipped us off to look for ones that have some dark bits in the combs, which is also more like wild honey. I find that the ones where the bees make the honey combs right in the round containers tend to be pretty good, such as Rabbit Mountain raw comb (clover) honey. Unfortunately, they are also somewhat more expensive than avg.
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I heard really raw honey and honey Pacifica feeds there bees sugar syrups/corn syrup! Does anyone know a few reputable brands that are not just labeled raw, but are unheated, organic/non Gmo? I need a brand that's safe to buy from?
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HI all.
I too noticed that I could eat raw honey on the comb without getting any high blood sugar reactions. When I could not get hold of any comb I tried the best raw liquid honey with very negative results - I wouldn't recommend any liquid honey . The comb defininitely makes a difference. And the best part of the comb is the darker more caramel looking part. It is a bit strange that when I see this my eyes want to feed on it and I get a little excited. So rich, so good - nothing can beat that in the world of rich sweetness.
I also feel that it cleans my teeth as I chew on it. I may swallow a tiny bit, removing most of it after sometime; maybe 10 minutes.
Are you aware that Manuka honey is pasteurized? Google airborne.co.nz for good NZ honey, though comb honey is out of stock at the moment.
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I have also witnessed the same thing as one of my diabetic friend often eat raw honey on the comb and his blood sugar levels remain stable. Raw honey is one of the healthiest thing you can eat and it will keep you safe from many diseases.
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Haai and I just came back from our mountain drive and we were able to buy wild honeycomb with baby bees frozen in a freezer. We liked the taste. It does seem to deteriorate very fast when out of the freezer. So it seems the good strategy is to keep it in the freezer, then just thaw out bits at a time of what you are going to eat.
This was a first time for me to eat honey comb wild with baby bees. It's good stuff.
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This seems to be the best, real honeycomb. I wish I could get this sort of thing. Hmm, maybe in my Italian garden......
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I heard really raw honey and honey Pacifica feeds there bees sugar syrups/corn syrup! Does anyone know a few reputable brands that are not just labeled raw, but are unheated, organic/non Gmo? I need a brand that's safe to buy from?
Where did you hear this? Curious because I use there brand
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do you guys think that if I pour the honey out of the comb, it will cause sugar to raise or not? Or it must be eaten with the comb?
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In 2 weeks, I will be getting raw honeycomb straight from the hive. I hope it will also have bee-carcasses on it. At the very least, propolis is guaranteed by them to be in it.
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Aajonus said:
'In the body, 80-90% of unheated honey turns into enzymes for digestion, assimilation and utilization. Whereas, honeys that are labeled ‘Raw’ or ‘Uncooked’ can be heated to 160° which they do to thin the honey for quicker filtering and bottling for more profits. ‘Raw’ or ‘Uncooked’ honeys mainly turn into radical blood sugar. ‘Unheated’ is the key word with honey. You can eat as much unheated honey as you want, as long as you have a taste for it.”
So probably the honeycomb is THE BEST bet to get truly raw honey and benefit from its healing properties and thats why you guys who ate honeycomb did not experience negative effects, because it was truly raw.
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Aajonus said:
'In the body, 80-90% of unheated honey turns into enzymes for digestion, assimilation and utilization. Whereas, honeys that are labeled ‘Raw’ or ‘Uncooked’ can be heated to 160° which they do to thin the honey for quicker filtering and bottling for more profits. ‘Raw’ or ‘Uncooked’ honeys mainly turn into radical blood sugar. ‘Unheated’ is the key word with honey. You can eat as much unheated honey as you want, as long as you have a taste for it.”
So probably the honeycomb is THE BEST bet to get truly raw honey and benefit from its healing properties and thats why you guys who ate honeycomb did not experience negative effects, because it was truly raw.
Yes, I highly doubt so-called "raw" liquid honey in bottles. This is because I got the same negative reaction in the mouth and the rest of my body from sampling the same as I did with pasteurised, liquid bottled honey. I later found out that UK law allows honey to be labelled "raw" as long as one "only" heats the honey up to 80 degrees Celsius for a short time! So I stick to raw honeycomb unless it has been imported from abroad, as the latter must have been preheated beforehand.
I was told by a friendly, honest beekeeper in the UK that it is possible to put raw honey into jars without heating it but this manual work is a hassle and takes time so that most beekeepers do not bother, using automation and heating it first in order to get it fluid enough to quickly pass into the jar.
Given past experience when I was still ill, I should caution that those who are susceptible to sugar in any way will likely experience some negative effects from eating raw honeycomb in more than small daily amounts, though, admittedly, the wax seems to make any effects much less nauseous than more processed honeys.
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Haai and I just came back from our mountain drive and we were able to buy wild honeycomb with baby bees frozen in a freezer. We liked the taste. It does seem to deteriorate very fast when out of the freezer. So it seems the good strategy is to keep it in the freezer, then just thaw out bits at a time of what you are going to eat.
This was a first time for me to eat honey comb wild with baby bees. It's good stuff.
what do you mean by: '' It does seem to deteriorate very fast when out of the freezer. ''?
deteriorate in what way?
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With all the talk of honeycomb I bought some local truly raw unheated honeycomb from a local beekeeper source I hadn't tried yet. It was awful and it didn't provide any of the mild benefit I get from the raw fermented honey. It even gave me mild nausea and malaise, which the wax unfortunately didn't help with. If I tried to eat more than a small amount, the nausea increased. Ended up throwing much of it out, which I never do with good honey. I much prefer the raw fermented honey and the liquidy yet truly raw tree honeys like raw neem honey. The honeycomb honey was liquidy inside the comb too because it was rather fresh and hadn't thickened much yet, despite being an ordinary clover/wildflower honey that does thicken. I think I've had it with unfermented clover and wildflower honeys. Never again. The fermented honey is also a wildflower honey, yet it gives me benefits instead of problems.
I can eat a whole one pound jar of the fermented stuff (I tried that once out of curiosity when Brady said he did that daily) without noticeable ill effects aside from higher blood sugar and a slightly chapped lower lip that quickly healed and then was in better shape than it had been before. I actually felt better after I ate that one pound jar of fermented honey than I did before, which made Brady's claim about eating a pound a day of raw honey and benefiting believable (I don't think it's a good idea to do that endlessly on a daily basis, though).
I should have guessed. I've had back luck with local honeycombs. Only good honeycomb I've had I had to order via the Internet.
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With all the talk of honeycomb I bought some local truly raw unheated honeycomb from a local beekeeper source I hadn't tried yet. It was awful and it didn't provide any of the mild benefit I get from the raw fermented honey. It even gave me mild nausea and malaise, which the wax unfortunately didn't help with. If I tried to eat more than a small amount, the nausea increased. Ended up throwing much of it out, which I never do with good honey. I much prefer the raw fermented honey and the liquidy yet truly raw tree honeys like raw neem honey. The honeycomb honey was liquidy inside the comb too because it was rather fresh and hadn't thickened much yet, despite being an ordinary clover/wildflower honey that does thicken. I think I've had it with unfermented clover and wildflower honeys. Never again. The fermented honey is also a wildflower honey, yet it gives me benefits instead of problems.
I can eat a whole one pound jar of the fermented stuff (I tried that once out of curiosity when Brady said he did that daily) without noticeable ill effects aside from higher blood sugar and a slightly chapped lower lip that quickly healed and then was in better shape than it had been before. I actually felt better after I ate that one pound jar of fermented honey than I did before, which made Brady's claim about eating a pound a day of raw honey and benefiting believable (I don't think it's a good idea to do that endlessly on a daily basis, though).
I should have guessed. I've had back luck with local honeycombs. Only good honeycomb I've had I had to order via the Internet.
Maybe that honey was partially made by the bees from sugar water instead of nectar. I don't know if there's enough nectar yet in your area for the bees to be off sugar water completely.
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Interesting thought, though I can buy the fermented honey any time of the year without a problem, and it's made along the same general latitude in the next state over, though it is stored so it can ferment, so it's possible they use less sugar. On the other hand, I have the same problems (not quite as bad, but nearly so) with the exact same brand of honey when it's not fermented, and there the only difference is the fermenting. So the fermentation seems to be the key for me when it comes to wildflower honeys.
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I thought the P5P had mostly gotten rid of those problems.
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paleophil, do you know how they do the fermentation? have you already explained it in other tread?? have you tried to make it?
after reading your post i want to try and see the difference, i'm eating honey actually.
is that fermentation in wich you raise the water content on the honey just a little bit? lets say maybe 20%? and then just sit in the darkness?
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Yes, P5P does help some with carb tolerance, less muscle tension, slightly cleaner teeth, slightly better mental clarity and performance, slightly better sleep, improved dream recall and more colorful dreams. All rather mild, though welcome, effects. Like most supplements, it helped early on the most (presumably because the deficiency improved as I took it). It seems to provide slightly better alcohol tolerance too, though I still have much lower tolerance than the avg person and far lower than the reports about my ancestors and traditional peoples in general.
I don't recall P5P helping that much with the lower lip chapping symptom from consuming easily-digestible glucose, but maybe I'm just forgetting. For some reason, that has been one of the more stubborn symptoms, though it too has improved during the last year or so. It seems more correlated with when I started consuming more prebiotic foods, especially resistant starch powders like potato starch, mung bean starch and tigernut flour and the whole foods that contain them, more so than with P5P. These aren't normally regarded as "Paleo" here, so I try not to anger folks by discussing them much. My long term goal is to get to the point where I no longer need the powders except for an occasional horchata beverage treat or energy boost and will be able to get all or nearly all the prebiotic sustenance I need from whole versions of the foods.
BTW, I don't mean to give the impression that I consider the lip chapping thing a serious issue. It's more of an early indicator of overdoing it on glucose, which I discovered through experience. Danny Roddy (a former member here) also had this symptom and in his case vitamin A helped the most. He thinks salt deficiency can also be a factor. For some reason, neither of those seemed to help me much, but prebiotics do seem to very gradually help. I'm also finding that I need less and less of various supplements, like P5P, potassium, zinc and magnesium and my fingernails and toenails are looking better. So maybe I'm slowly developing more good bacteria which are generating the nutrients I need.
My long-term goal is to get to the point where I don't need much in the way of supplements. I may always need vitamin D (whether internally or externally, we shall see), though, because it's difficult to get enough sunlight where I live and in this modern era. I just got a blood panel done today, so I'll get an update on the status of some vitamins, such as D, which I was very low in last time. Unfortunately, I wasn't good about taking D3 supplements recently, so it may not be much improved.
Speaking of alcohol tolerance, someone recently reported that the Elixa probiotic greatly helped them with that, and I have that on order, so it will be interesting to see if it does anything there, though that wasn't the primary reason I decided to try it.
It has been quite a while since I tried the unfermented version of Really Raw Honey. So regarding that, I was referring to a past comparison of the fermented vs. unfermented of that brand. At the time, I had tried the fermented variety first and I was curious as to how much of the superiority of that honey over other brands was due to the fermentation vs. the honey itself. For me, I found that fermentation accounted for most of the difference, which was a bit surprising even to me, because hardly anyone talks about fermentation (though there was a brief mention of it in an article at the WAPF site).
I did discuss before that the Really Raw customer service lady explained that they don't do anything to the honey to make it ferment aside from let it ferment naturally. However, she is not a beekeeper. My understanding is that the Really Raw people just buy the honey from beekeepers and tell the beekeepers their requirements about keeping it truly raw and such (and Really Raw honey is one that Aajonus himself personally verified as truly raw when tested randomly--it was from Aajonus that I found out about it, so I owe the guy a debt of gratitude on that--he really did know his honeys). I read beekeeping forums in the past, and what the beekeepers report is that when the honey is kept in a warm and humid environment is when it tends to ferment naturally, and they normally throw it out then, but the Really Raw people and some others buy it from beekeepers who are aware of the small demand for it from people who will even pay extra for it because they know about the taste, digestability, and health benefits.
The Really Raw folks are very nice about answering questions to the best of their ability. You can email or call them. If I ever get a jar of honey that's broken or too smoky (because the beekeeper overly smoked the bees when extracting the comb), they replace it free of charge.
I tried fermenting honey and making mead and failed miserably at it. I figure it's just as well, as I should probably try to improve my sugar and alcohol tolerance further before getting into making foods that contain either of them.
I haven't had Really Raw honey in a while, because I've been focusing on lowering the budget and trying to build up some savings, but I've got the budget in pretty good shape finally, so I'm looking forward to ordering that honey again. It's not for everyone (my nephews say they can taste the fermented taste, which I no longer could detect after the first couple teaspoons I tried--it just tastes nicely sweet and flavorful to me now--and say they don't like it--whereas I like the taste of fermented foods quite a bit).
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Maybe that honey was partially made by the bees from sugar water instead of nectar. I don't know if there's enough nectar yet in your area for the bees to be off sugar water completely.
I think that it is quite possible that it was. I bought half a kg of comb honey from another supplier, and after a spoonful have not touched it since. The impression left with me is that they feed there bees glucose.
I got another batch from my previous supplier and it is very, very moorish.
Also, one thing to keep in mind when having an adverse reaction is the honey may be contaminated by nectar from flowers toxic to humans.
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paleophil, dammit, i wish i had money just to buy you this honey so i could have your critique, its raw, its grown in far out locations in an area that is so arid you cant really have industrial agriculture, and there is very limited human culture as well, just the subtle desert and all of its wild inhabitants, its amazingly delicious http://shop.nativeseeds.org/products/shf500 (http://shop.nativeseeds.org/products/shf500)
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Thanks for the thought and recommendation, Jessica.
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Do you notice any health benefits from the Happy Bear Honey?
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i havent had it for quite a while. although i ate decent amounts, i never ate it regularly enough to notice health benefits. all i noticed was maximum quality and taste. i have tried really raw honey, and while its good quality because it is raw and not filtered, i prefer happy bear because it is also those things plus comes from the most delicious mesquites and desert flowers. i really havent had any other high quality honey that can compare in taste.
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I'm not particularly fond of the unfermented version of Really Raw honey and didn't notice any benefits from it like I did the fermented version. To me they are very different.