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Make Sure It's Pure - Buy Local Honey

By Adrian Newby

     Have you ever eaten honey? Most of us have in some way shape or form, whether it was in barbecue sauce, on a biscuit, or in a cup of hot tea, it is the same great golden syrup. Some people have preferences about what kind of honey they enjoy the most, but at the end of the day, it’s all the same right? Wrong. It’s not even all from bees!
     Real honey is made out of nectar that comes from flowering plants. A growing amount of honey on the market, especially at large chain stores, is a blend of honey and corn syrup or other sweeteners. This is not “real” honey, and doesn’t hold the same medicinal values. These are supposed to be labeled as honey-blends, but you can never be sure with the foreign honey sold at large retailers. Another detriment to the health benefits of honey comes when it is filtered. When honey is excessively filtered, it loses it antioxidant value, enzymes, and other nutritional aspects.
     When honey is whole and natural, it comes with a plethora of health benefits. Honey can reduce risk of heart disease, help with indigestion, and improve mental heath! Throughout history, honey has also been used to treat burns, cuts, and coughs. The pollen that ends up in honey contains lots of vitamins, almost a whole alphabet’s worth. With vitamins A, B, C, D, and E, proteins, and amino acids, a little bit goes a long way.  These nutrients are most only really found in raw honey, so that is another reason to stick to a local provider.
      One of the most significant benefits of supporting local beekeepers is the effect their hives have on pollination. When a beekeeper puts their hives out in a field, their bees pollinate the farmer’s crops. Making them capable of yielding fruit and reproducing. Without pollinators, we won’t have food. If we only buy foreign honey from large stores, how will our beekeepers stay in business? Without any local beekeepers how will our local farmers get their crops pollinated? Without pollination, they won’t be able to produce food for us, and we will be forced to buy our honey AND food from different regions or nations. As we saw in 2020. Supply chains are not as reliable as we had hoped, so it is always ideal to get your food from as close to home as possible. So the moral of the story is to eat local honey; it will pay off in the long term.
     There are several honey producers in our area, and while raw, locally produced honey is a bit more expensive, it is more than worth it. It doesn’t taste processed, protects the local food supply, supports local beekeepers and farmers, is healthier, and has less opportunity for contamination. Just for the record, all that is well worth the price.