Creamed (raw) honey OK ?

[samadhi]

I know this isn't quite paleo, however, I think many ppl here like to eat some honeycomb occasionally..

Many beekeepers like to make their honey creamy (=stirring during crystallization) so it's spreadable / even pours etc. Creaming is known to somehow break the sugar molecules in honey so it doesn't turn hard.

However, I have begun to doubt this. I'm 95% sure that that stirring causes some heat from friction.. and that my health has greatly deterioriated thanks to this kind of "raw honeys" (half-dead pancreas & kidneys / corroded bones), never eat any honey but honeycomb!

Maybe here's someone who knows better if my doubt is correct.. thanks !

[edmon171]

I don't think stirring would damage the honey. I think it is just unhealthy to eat a lot of honey. It is high in fructose, which means it can't be burned for energy directly. It must be detoxified by your liver, much like alcohol, and causes damage along the way. Then it is stored directly into fat cells. Alcohol is actually fermented fructose and the molecules are quite similar. If you are anticipating a coming famine or period of hibernation, then loading up on honey might be wise. I just bought a jar of unheated honey myself, but I don't plan to eat it. I will keep it as a medicinal paste to seal wounds.

[PaleoPhil]

Few foods are more Paleo than raw wild honeycomb and grubcomb, which have been consumed throughout human history and millions of years before that.

Many raw honeys crystallize on their own without stirring. You can see this if you buy a common raw honey that hasn't yet crystallized, such as a wildflower honey, and let it sit for a long while. Only a small number don't, such as tupelo honey (the "champagne of honeys") and certain other tree honeys, and they are regarded as the creme de la creme.

Raw honeys do reportedly tend to resist crystallization longer than heated ones: "There is evidence that when stored properly, unprocessed or raw honey, which comes straight from the honeycomb and is slightly more expensive to the buyer, resists crystallization longer than processed honey" (Why does honey crystallize? http://scienceline.org/2007/04/ask-westly-crystallizedhoney)

"Tree foods" in general are regarded as quite healthy and it makes some sense, given that trees can outlive humans and that tree foods were part of the diets of primates that we descended from. There is even a Buddhist immortality practice called Bigu that includes a "tree eater diet."

Of course, if your cellular respiration is incomplete, so that too much waste products like lactate are generated, then you might need to severely restrict or avoid even the best honeys for now. Thus, what's medicine for one can be poison for another.

I don't have very good glucose tolerance myself (fructose hasn't been nearly as much of a problem for me, despite the recent bad press about it). I realized that my long term goal should be to try to fix the underlying problem causing the poor metabolization/tolerance of honey and other carby foods, rather than just avoid them all and possibly thus worsen the problem, which appears to have happened to me by keeping carb and prebiotic intake too low for too long. YMMV

Don't believe most of what you read on the Internet about honey. Even beekeepers tend to be ignorant about a lot of things.

I tested all the honeys recommended in this forum and more and found a fermented raw honey to provide superior health benefits for me to any of the honeycomb honeys.

[Sorentus]

Frankly I don't understand why one would NOT want their honey to crystallize, to me crystallized honey taste way better then raw honey, that's why raw fermented honey taste so good to me because of its crystallization, unfortunately that is one of those things I must avoid eating like the plague, for some reason i can eat a ton of sucrose,glucose,fructose without severe concern but honey has something in it that makes my body go haywire. Once I had so much that I could barely breath and had nausea for a whole day and thought I would pass out.

[PaleoPhil]

The fermented Really Raw honey does crystallize some, especially near the bottom of the jars, but not nearly as much as the unfermented, which gets rather hard. I suspect that this is at least partly due to the natural bacteria and yeast that do the fermenting consuming some of the glucose. Honeys with a higher fructose/glucose ratio crystallize more slowly. http://www.montcobeekeepers.org/Documents/Honey_Crystallization.pdf

I get worse effects from the unfermented honey than the fermented, and liquid tree honeys don't seem to affect me as negatively as the kinds that crystallize easily. This fits with my past finding that glucose is much more of a problem for me than fructose. Those who have the opposite issue might have better luck with a fast-crystallizing honey.

I noticed that you were eating bigger quantities of honey at a time than I normally do. I think it's also a good idea for people who aren't used to eating honey to test their blood glucose after eating it and limit intake as necessary. A high BG spike (hyperglycemia) can cause nausea. Honey is very acidic too (and this is one of the reasons it works as a natural antibiotic), so when someone who is new to it eats too much at once it can cause stomach burning.