Is eating a spoonful of raw honey a day bad?

I wouldn’t think so. I have heard that consuming honey from within x amount of miles from where you live is very beneficial for your allergies. Not sure if that’s just an old wives tale. I know at least three females that use honey instead of sugar in tea, and other beverages.

Obviously there’s a lot of calories in what is essentially pure sugar (from a metabolic perspective), but if you’re not diabetic and staying fit and active, I can’t imagine there’s any major concerns there. As @MrGrimm888 mentioned, I’ve heard local raw honey can be beneficial with regards to allergens, but I’m also not sure if that’s just a myth.

Also, I’m not sure if there are risks to eating raw honey, for example if the bees are collecting pollen from nightshade plants, could there be things that are poisonous to humans in the raw honey? I honestly have no idea, but maybe someone here knows. Obviously they process honey for a reason, perhaps safety is one of them? Good question.

Do you need to watch your sugar intake. Type I or Type II Diabetic? A spoonful,~ 20 grams is about 60 calories and 17 grams of sugar.. That is 5–6 sugar packets. Is that ok for your situation? I don’t know and have not seen your blood work up. A1C, etc.

For fun, I did a quick search on the toxicity of honey and was surprised to see that there are actually some honeys that are toxic. Here is a NIH National Institutes of Health publication on the subject Toxic Compounds in Honey
The plants are not in the US and are quite unusual. But they do exist. This sounds like a clever plot point in a murder mystery.

From the abstract:
“Rhododendron ponticum contains alkaloids that can be poisonous to humans, while honey collected from Andromeda flowers contains grayanotoxins, which can cause paralysis of limbs in humans and eventually leads to death. In addition, Melicope ternata and Coriaria arborea from New Zealand produce toxic honey that can be fatal. There are reports that honey is not safe to be consumed when it is collected from Datura plants (from Mexico and Hungary), belladonna flowers and Hyoscamus niger plants (from Hungary), Serjania lethalis (from Brazil), Gelsemium sempervirens (from the American Southwest), Kalmia latifolia, Tripetalia paniculata and Ledum palustre.”

If you are going to do that, make it local honey.

Never give raw honey to an infant.

Otherwise, I can’t see any problem with it. Many people put honey in their tea daily or bake with honey.

Filtration removes everything except the honey (including pollen). Unfiltered honey just means they only strain it- removing bee parts and debris.

If it’s unfiltered and from local bees, eating honey every day can be helpful. The benefit comes from the pollen in the honey.

An alternative to eating honey would be to find a source of local pollen and take a tiny bit of that every day instead. If you are looking to reduce allergies in the spring, you need to start in the fall. The link below was last updated in August 2020, and the directions say to start taking pollen “now” for spring allergies.

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/how-to-use-bee-pollen-for-allergies

I know this is not supposed to work but my wife’s allergies are greatly alleviated when she takes a spoonful of local honey daily

No. Not bad.

@Caravanfan Is the allergy improvement with local honey a myth or legit?

There are many benefits from eating a spoonful of honey daily, to many to mention here.

A simple Search Engine search asking ‘Benefits of eating honey’ will supply 1000s of links giving information about these benefits.

@Poseidon “A simple Search Engine search asking ‘Benefits of eating honey’ will supply 1000s of links giving information about these benefits.”

And a search for “what kind of ghost is haunting my house?” will also return thousands of results. Quantity of links doesn’t substantiate the veracity of the query. To be clear, I’m not saying those are all wrong, I honestly don’t know. I’m just saying the fact that they exist doesn’t mean any of them are true.

No, but for optimal health benefits be sure the honey was harvested locally.

@gorillapaws https://community.aafa.org/blog/aafa-explains-can-honey-help-my-seasonal-allergies

I think it is entirely possible there is another mode of allergy relief in honey other than pollen. Could be placebo, could be something real. All the stuff I read hinges on the argument that honey has pollen in it. Could be something else.

Awww. Buzz kill. (Pun intended.)
Thanks @Caravanfan…

Honey can be good for some types of wounds, topically

^We used it on occasion when I was a vet-tech. Predominantly on “bed sores,” that went beyond bad. It was a last resort, as actual ointments were better, but at some point we’d try anything.
I would use it, in a emergency situation, if it were available…

Medihoney for wounds. We use it. I usually interchange it with using hydrocolloid. I’m not sure why most doctors don’t tell patients to use hydrocolloid instead of ointment and bandaids? Hydrocolloid is so much easier and better, but that’s off topic.

Of course not. I eat honey almost every day.

No honey for babies, though—infant botulism.