Honey is all the buzz. Not only does it taste like Summer, but it has some amazing qualities that help your body. It's antimicrobial because of its high sugar content, so it's great for treating cuts and burns to prevent scarring. You can keep a jar in your medicine cabinet for years — it's slightly acidic, so it never goes bad.
I've also heard that honey can be used to treat seasonal allergy symptoms. In order to understand why, you need to know a bit about how honey is made.
Honey bees (the female worker bees) travel from flower to flower, drinking nectar, and storing it in sacs in their little bee bodies. Then they buzz back to their hive and use their "honey stomachs" to regurgitate and ingest (I know it sounds a little gross, but cool somehow) the nectar a number of times until it's partially digested. They then store the nectar in the honeycombs, fanning it with their wings to evaporate the water, turning it into the thick sweet honey we know and love.
So what does honey have to do with your allergies? To find out read more.
The reason honey may help with seasonal allergies is because honey contains a bit of pollen from plants. So if you eat the sweet treat that is made by bees in the area where you live, the honey will often act as an immune booster, reducing your allergy symptoms to local flowering plants. It's a good idea to take two to three spoonfuls each day for several months prior to pollen season.
Fit's Tip: Eating local honey works for some people, but may not for others. It's a folk remedy with no scientific research to back it up, but it's worth a try if you suffer from seasonal allergies. If it doesn't help with your sniffles and sneezing, well at least you're getting vitamins B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid and minerals like calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc. Honey also contains antioxidants and vitamin C. All that and it tastes good, too!
Littlewoods
Marni
Yoox
I love honey
1Great applied on skin and hair too!
2♥ hunny.
3I've read this before.
4This is one of those folk remedies that seems like it makes a lot of sense! of course, I haven't tried it but I should.
5For the reason that honey is so beneficial (for allergies & Ive been using it for facials), that I'm glad there's a bee farm a couple of miles from my house
6That's kind of neat...it's like homeopathic allergy therapy. I like that idea. I'll have to eat more honey. We have lots of local beekeepers here that sell honey at the farmers market. I'll pick some up next time I'm there!
7my mother has been doing this for years. it works. central texas is a host to all sorts of allergy nightmares of which i am quickly reminded when i visit. she has a little bit of honey every day, usually with some green tea. she's sniffle free.
8you know, I'll take pretty much ANY excuse to eat honey.
9This bee loves the honey!!! Even though it's illegal to keep bees in NYC, a guy in my neighborhood keeps bees on his rooftop - so I can get some local honey.
10My mother has always practiced the local honey thing, to help with allergies. It works for me. I always sweeten my coffee and tea with honey. I just had a piece of toast, with p-nut butter & honey on it, this morning. Delicious!
11Mmmmmmm honey!! Now i just have to find some local honey...
12the farmers markets usually carry at least ONE honey stand. even the flea market
campbell, lost gatos, moutain view and sunnyvale are just some of the places that i know of locally where i've seen honey for sale. and damn it's sooo good.
13For more information on the medicinal use of bee products, go to www.apitherapynews.com
14I love honey in my tea, on biscuits and with peanut butter toast. I don't know about allergies but it certainly can't hurt to try it!
15great tip =)
16i have the worst allergies
i'll try it sometime this week
This is a huge help! Holy Grail My husband and my son both suffer from horrible allergies. We went to a more raw diet. I juice for them
in the morings and then add flax and 1 inch of honey comb to their
juice. I spin that in my Magic bullet. I get my honey comb from a local family. It is sold at every grocery store in St. Louis as well as at our Health food stores. You have to buy the comb that isn't all dried up. I'm picky about the comb. I also have the clover honey from the same people.
We are a big believers in nasal washes. I'll have my guys rinse their nostrils with either Ocean (salt water rinse) or Xclear. You can also use a nettle pot but that's a little rough for a 10 year old. We nasal wash daily to keep colds at bay as well.
Both of my guys are off allergy medicines completely. They have some symptoms but no inhalers, no claritin. We deal with it as the symptoms come. Most are no more than a little stuffiness and coughing or sneezing. I would not put them in the 'suffering' category at all.
We do this protocol daily even in the non allergy seasons.
BTW. My Pediatrician had my son on Claritin D, Albuterol, Nasonex,
17Flonase.. ugh. He took all that from the time he was about 3 years old.
I have recently moved from western oklahoma to nw. ark and have had severe allergy problems, usually 2 or 3 times a month and have had alot of trouble getting over them, i bought some local honey at the farmers exchange and it has made a diffrence, i take on tea spoon and sometimes just eat it with toast, but i am very pleased, Honey makes everything sweeter!
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