Honey and Infants

[zeno]

On honey labels it clearly states that honey should not be fed to children under the age of one. Does anyone know the reason for this and whether or not this is related to the pasteurization of honey?

[goodsamaritan]

On honey labels it clearly states that honey should not be fed to children under the age of one. Does anyone know the reason for this and whether or not this is related to the pasteurization of honey?

Do not give honey to children below 7 years old.

The explanation is that there is a school of thought that their immature digestive systems are not yet capable of digesting honey, even if it is raw.

We found this to be true when were adding honey to the lemon / calamansi drink of our then 5 year old eldest child.  He had a long running cold.  Then we remembered that honey thing.  We stopped giving him honey and his cold stopped.

[raw-al]

Do not give honey to children below 7 years old.

The explanation is that there is a school of thought that their immature digestive systems are not yet capable of digesting honey, even if it is raw.

We found this to be true when were adding honey to the lemon / calamansi drink of our then 5 year old eldest child.  He had a long running cold.  Then we remembered that honey thing.  We stopped giving him honey and his cold stopped.

Was the drink heated? Was the honey heated?

[PaleoPhil]

On honey labels it clearly states that honey should not be fed to children under the age of one. Does anyone know the reason for this and whether or not this is related to the pasteurization of honey?

Yes, that appears to be the main reason, and perhaps wildness is a factor too, as I'm not aware of any hunter-gatherer tribe that restricts intake of raw wild honey among its young and I'm not aware of a single case of botulism poisoning from raw wild honey. Are you? Unfortunately, raw wild honey is hard to come by, so I buy raw fermented honey, and I actually fare better on it than the local imported version of raw wild honey, which I find to be second best for me.

[goodsamaritan]

Was the drink heated? Was the honey heated?

Raw wild honey.

[Shana]

We have given our children raw honey from the beginning. After a well child check-up at 2 months and they came home with a cold, we started then. We were pretty much on a vegan diet with no artificial colors/flavors and minimally processed foods. The children were all breastfed till 2 or longer so they were really healthy and there body's were able to use the honey. I also gave them nut butters at an early age as long I had eaten a lot of the same nuts and they had absorbed the protein from my milk first. They did well with all this. However, I would never give a formula fed baby honey or nuts.

[raw-al]

A relative who is an allopathic doc mentioned that honey has been found to have botulism in it. I believe that somehow it was pasteurized but I don't know for sure.

What I do know is that Ayurveda says to never eat honey that has ever been heated more than the temperature of tea that you can drink easily. It causes toxins to be formed that will aggravate Pitta. Prior to having unheated honey I was unable to eat honey. It would burn my throat and give me indigestion. Now that I have discovered unheated honey and butter I can eat all I want with seemingly no bad effects. We have trouble with early season honey as it is too strong but we are both Pitta so a Kapha person would find the opposite to be true.

Honey is the only sweetener that can be eaten by a kapha person or a person that easily gains weight. Small to moderate amounts only. It has a heating effect on the body.

Ayurveda also says to not eat honey and ghee together in exactly the same proportions as it is bad news. However it also says that it is very good to eat them in proportions that are double or triple, ie have double the quantity of one or the other. They are complementary and have a synergistic effect that is very good. BTW your taste buds will tell you what is apropos.

Honey and ghee (not sure if this transfers to raw butter, but I seem to think it does.) are part of a group of foods that are considered anupans. This means that they are considered to be for transporting nutrients to the seven basic tissues (Dhatus); plasma, blood, muscle, fat, bone, nerve and bone marrow, and reproductive tissue. Honey is for transporting to the blood and muscle and ghee is for producing ojas, increasing digestive fire, increasing the bhutagnis (elemental fires in the liver which govern the transformation of food in the body) It does not clog the liver as do other oils and fats, but strengthens it.

However having said all this I will have to check on whether honey is OK for infants.

[PaleoPhil]

I thought I had read somewhere that the good flora in truly raw wild honey offset botulism spores enough to neutralize the danger, but I can't find anything on that now. Instead I find only pasteurization and gamma radiation reported as neutralizing the risk. At any rate, honey is not a necessity, so my own view is I wouldn't take the risk of giving an infant less than 1 year old any honey (they are at highest risk of death from botulism), as it isn't worth the tiny but lethal risk.

Although parents often know not to give their infants under twelve months of age plain honey, they often overlook other foods that contain honey in them, such as Honey Graham Crackers, Honey Nut Cheerios, Honey Wheat Bread, etc. Although the honey in these foods may be processed, it may not be pasteurized, and so may still contain botulism spores in them and should be avoided. http://pediatrics.about.com/od/weeklyquestion/a/04_infant_honey.htm

Botulism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Botulism

Because of the natural presence of botulinum endospores in honey,[74] children under one year of age should not be given honey. The more-developed digestive system of older children and adults generally destroys the spores. Infants, however, can contract botulism from honey.[75] Medical grade honey can be treated with gamma radiation to reduce the risk of botulinum spores being present.[76] Gamma radiation evidently does not affect honey's antibacterial activity, whether or not the particular honey's antibacterial activity is dependent upon peroxide generation.[77]

Infantile botulism shows geographical variation. In the UK, only six cases have been reported between 1976 and 2006,[78] yet the U.S. has much higher rates: 1.9 per 100,000 live births, 47.2% of which are in California.[79] While the risk honey poses to infant health is small, it is recommended not to take the risk[80]

[raw-al]

I am with you. I agree, it's not worth the risk.

[PaleoPhil]

We found this to be true when were adding honey to the lemon / calamansi drink of our then 5 year old eldest child.  He had a long running cold.  Then we remembered that honey thing.  We stopped giving him honey and his cold stopped.

The honey thing is regarding botulism rather than colds, though your son may be quite sensitive to carbs. I'm rather carb sensitive myself and Really Raw fermented honey is the only one I've found that gives me more benefits than problems. When I consume more than a small amount of most unfermented honeys, it tends to cause me to sleep with my mouth open, which leads to a dry throat, which sometimes in turn leads to cold symptoms like mucus in the throat developing.

Many people have reported benefits on colds from honey, such as in reader comments at Mark Sisson's blog:

"We also use [honey] to help an irritated throat from colds or other illnesses."

"In Eastern Europe buckwheat honey is widely used, especially as a home-made cold medication."

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-honey-a-safer-sweetener


My holistic physiatrist — Who’s been treating me for the sort of joint pains and tendonitis that come from forty years of chronic cardio and excessive grains — recommends honey for its anti-viral properties in moderation. This is just anecdotal, I know, but last week when I seemed to be catching my toddler’s cold, I made a hot toddy with honey. (We give her honey in place of OTC cough suppressants… works!) And I managed to avoid getting sick to the same degree as her. Was this the honey? Or the fact that I’ve been living Primal for six weeks now? (By the way, my joints feel MUCH better.)

Joe wrote on March 29th, 2010
Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/sugar-suppresses-immune-system/#ixzz1nQJ0fYs0

Mark Sisson also reported experiencing benefits on acute pollen allergy from raw honey, which is particularly interesting coming from him, given that he is a proponent of a low-carb, high-fat diet for most people:

[M]y personal opinion is that it can really work for seasonal, pollen allergies, because I’ve experienced it firsthand. On a family camping trip to Big Sur, I got a horrible case of hay fever. It was insanely windy all week, so all sorts of allergenic plant compounds were blowing around. It was like I had a tiny cloud of dust and pollen following me around, a la Pigpen from Peanuts. I’d never had it that bad – headache, stuffy nose, bleary red eyes – and it hit me about three hours after our arrival. I felt like I had the worst cold in the history of the world. I actually wanted to go home. On our second day, however, while on a hike, I came across an old guy selling raw, local wildflower honey by the side of the road. A handcrafted cardboard sign read “Good for hay fever.” I thought, “Why not?” and bought a pint. The guy was nice and enthusiastic about his product, and I always like to support small apiaries.

I took a big glug of it and continued on the hike. It was real good, not too sweet and with a raw floral quality to it. Again, I don’t eat a lot of honey, but this stuff was legit – even through my clogged nasal passages. We got back to camp, made dinner, and I went to bed soon after darkness fell. Nose was still stuffy, head was still congested, misery level was still elevated.

And then I woke up, and while things were still backed up, I could tell it was better. A thin jet of air even squeaked through my clogged right nostril, allowing me to breathe and (most importantly) taste the bacon that morning. Another glug of honey down the hatch. Overall, I’d say things were 25% better at this point. By late afternoon, I was 75% better. I kept taking hits of honey and by next morning, I was perfectly fine. Now, I suppose it’s possible that the honey acted as a placebo and my hay fever was already on its way out – I didn’t control for variables, there were no placebos involved, and I randomized absolutely nothing, so there’s no telling for sure. But I doubt it had no effect. Too many other people report similar experiences to make me dismiss my own experience as nonsense or coincidence.

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dear-mark-raw-honey-and-allergies-and-resveratrol-debunked/#ixzz1nQJTrMJx[/qote]

[raw-al]

When I consume more than a small amount of most unfermented honeys, it tends to cause me to sleep with my mouth open, which leads to a dry throat,[/url][/qote]

Can you explain this one. I always sleep with my mouth open, leading to dry mouth.

So what do you do to prevent it?

[PaleoPhil]

I limit my intake of most carby foods like most fruits and unfermented honey. For whatever reason, fermented honey, carrots, parsnips and certain other fruits like organic blackberries don't trigger the open-mouth-while-sleeping symptom as much as other carby foods. My only guess so far as to why it happens is that certain carby foods deplete oxygen within the blood, and perhaps bodily fluids and other cells, if they aren't easily digested and processed, thus the body reacts by trying to take in more oxygen, subconsciously opening the mouth; but it's just a guess.

[PaleoPhil]

BTW, I haven't gotten any colds from eating raw fermented honey and many people claim it soothes soar throats from colds, such as in reader comments at Mark Sisson's blog:

"We also use [honey] to help an irritated throat from colds or other illnesses."

"In Eastern Europe buckwheat honey is widely used, especially as a home-made cold medication."

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/is-honey-a-safer-sweetener


My holistic physiatrist — Who’s been treating me for the sort of joint pains and tendonitis that come from forty years of chronic cardio and excessive grains — recommends honey for its anti-viral properties in moderation. This is just anecdotal, I know, but last week when I seemed to be catching my toddler’s cold, I made a hot toddy with honey. (We give her honey in place of OTC cough suppressants… works!) And I managed to avoid getting sick to the same degree as her. Was this the honey? Or the fact that I’ve been living Primal for six weeks now? (By the way, my joints feel MUCH better.)
Joe wrote on March 29th, 2010

Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/sugar-suppresses-immune-system/#ixzz1nQJ0fYs0

Mark Sisson also reported experiencing benefits with acute pollen allergy from raw honey, which is particularly interesting coming from him, given that he is a proponent of a low-carb, high-fat diet for most people: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/dear-mark-raw-honey-and-allergies-and-resveratrol-debunked/#ixzz1nQJTrMJx

[aLptHW4k4y]

I limit my intake of most carby foods like most fruits and unfermented honey. For whatever reason, fermented honey, carrots, parsnips and certain other fruits like organic blackberries don't trigger the open-mouth-while-sleeping symptom as much as other carby foods. My only guess so far as to why it happens is that certain carby foods deplete oxygen within the blood, and perhaps bodily fluids and other cells, if they aren't easily digested and processed, thus the body reacts by trying to take in more oxygen, subconsciously opening the mouth; but it's just a guess.

Maybe your nose gets a bit blocked?
I always sleep with my mouth open, I think it's just a habit that is hard to change because you're unconscious. A small part of one tooth in the morning always whitens up from getting too dry I guess. Sometimes I just tape my mouth, and all is good then, but the tape is not a very good solution.

[PaleoPhil]

Maybe your nose gets a bit blocked?

I thought of that, but oddly enough it seems to happen even when the nose isn't blocked, but I'll try to pay more attention to that. Maybe just a mild blockage that I hadn't noticed is enough to cause the mouth to open.

I always sleep with my mouth open, I think it's just a habit that is hard to change because you're unconscious. A small part of one tooth in the morning always whitens up from getting too dry I guess. Sometimes I just tape my mouth, and all is good then, but the tape is not a very good solution.

I used to nearly always sleep with my mouth open too and also thought it was normal until my dental hygienist surmised that I was doing it based on what she saw and told me it is not normal and was probably aggravating my gingivitis, dental plaque and somewhat below-avg saliva at that time. I have zero difficulty changing the mouth-open habit if I merely avoid consuming too much of certain carbs like carby drinks, dried fruits, certain raw fruits, cooked starches, and unfermented honey. It requires no mental effort or awareness at all on my part.

[raw-al]

My nose is large but narrow and it seems to plug up easily. I think I should develop the habit of flushing it with water before bed.

I know that I snore, but I have found that I can move my head into a certain position that stops it, however, normally when I go to bed it takes me less than a minute to be sound asleep so I never think to move my head.

The only thing that seems to consistently stop my snoring is the homeopathic stuff that I got @ Wally World for that. However I have no interest in taking that every night.