A sweet relief for allergy season

Is eating local honey for allergy relief just an old wives’ tale? Or can the sweet relief allergy sufferers seek from their nonstop miserable “cold” symptoms be as simple as eating two teaspoons of honey a day?

“Local honey” is honey that has been collected from beehives no more than 50 miles from where you live. The closer the hives, the more effective the honey will bee (pun intended) in alleviating allergy symptoms, it is believed.

While not a “cure,” anything that eliminates my symptoms is cure enough for me. And this is a feeling shared by the many people who have found sweet relief by eating local honey.

Please note: Never feed honey to babies under 1 year old. Their bodies have not had a chance to build up tolerance of the many micro-organisms in honey, and it can cause severe gastrointestinal problems.

What is honey’s secret? It’s another of nature’s “gee whiz” phenomena.

Allergies arise from continuous exposure to the same allergens. If, for example, you live in an area where there’s a great deal of grass pollen – North Idaho’s worst allergen – you will be exposed to it over and over. In time, you could develop a serious allergy to it.

In Kootenai County, there’s a host of other allergenic culprits – lamb’s quarters and Russian thistle, to name a couple. This is our environment.

It also is the local bee’s beat. As these industrious and miraculous little creatures cover their daily honey-gathering routes, pollen sticks to their legs. Some of it gets into their honey.

Because raw, unfiltered, unheated honey contains bits and pieces of pollen, it becomes a powerful immune system booster, according to honeybee experts.

Local honey that is raw, unfiltered and unheated is not usually available in grocery stores for several reasons. When honey is harvested in late summer, it can be stored only for three or four months before it begins to get thick and sugary. Beekeepers prevent this by heating and filtering their honey.

Not too long ago, we could get local honey from most health-food stores. It was dispensed from an upside-down 5-gallon jug with a spigot.

But storekeepers stopped handling honey because of its tendency to turn to sugar right at the spigot. It kept sugaring itself shut!

Unfortunately, that source of local honey dried up, making it difficult to find local honey anymore.

But even worse are the reports about the mysterious disappearance – and dropping numbers – of honeybees.

That would be an environmental disaster of monumental proportions, not just because we love honey but also because honeybees play a critical role in agricultural interplay and food production around the entire world.

Beekeepers will begin their annual honey harvesting in mid-August, and this year’s crop of raw, unfiltered, unheated honey will be available in September.

If you buy a gallon or so, but by Thanksgiving it has sugared, you can heat it up – this will dissolve the sugar.

Chad Moore, of Three Bees Honey, is a local beekeeper. Three Bees has thousands of hives all over Rathdrum Prairie, and its honey is delicious. Moore can be reached at 265-4748.

Beekeepers say that for the best protection against seasonal allergies, people should eat honey for six months prior to the onset of allergy season.

For those of us living around Rathdrum Prairie – and that’s most of Kootenai County – the allergy season starts in early May, according to Dr. Kenneth Wakefield of Asthma and Allergy of Idaho.

Wakefield says there is no scientific basis for using local honey – or any other honey – to alleviate allergy symptoms. The pollens that cause our allergies are windborne.

Although Wakefield says the idea of eating honey for relief of allergies most likely is an old wives’ tale, he does not put it down. He says he has a lot of friends and patients who swear by it.

“If it works, why not?” Wakefield said.

My response is: “Now that is a refreshing attitude, doctor.”

Some cautionary words about eating honey: People can have an allergic reaction to it, with tearing, rash, itching, sweating and some shortness of breath. Anyone having such a reaction should be observed closely for swelling of lips, tongue, throat and other signs of anaphylactic shock.

My resource claimed never to have heard of such a response to ingesting honey, but if it does occur, it definitely is a 911 emergency.

Honey truly is “gee whiz” stuff – from the way it is created by those busy little bees to its many and sometimes curious uses. It truly is one of nature’s most perfect works.

And for many people, H-O-N-E-Y may spell sweet relief.