I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a “food hippie”. I will never go vegetarian. I think the Kashi people are a bunch of left-wing America haters. I think organic food is mostly a ripoff. I don’t care how much carbon was belched into the air by airplanes delivering my British cheese or Chilean plums. And while I do agree that farmer’s markets are excellent sources of fresh, inexpensive, locally-grown produce, I frankly just can’t be bothered to wake up early on a Saturday morning to do my shopping.
There is, however, one “localtarian” thing I do agree with, and that’s honey.
For starters, most of the “commercial honey” available at your local megamarts comes from overseas. Oh, the label might say otherwise, but around two-thirds of all the honey Americans eat comes from overseas, and around half of that comes from China. And much of the Chinese honey is tainted with antibiotics like ciprofloxacin and chloramphenicol – substances that are banned in the US by the FDA. To compound the problem, many honey companies buy their honey on the “spot market”. Since they claim to never buy tainted honey, they don’t consider it “theirs”, so they don’t tell the FDA about it… which means that the honey normally just ends up somewhere else in the supply chain. Bill Allibone, president of Sue Bee, said that his company “has no intention of telling government regulators about the bad honey”. So the FDA continually underestimates the problem, and tainted honey continues to reach store shelves. And due to funding shortfalls, the amount of honey that the FDA actually inspects each year is laughably small.
But there’s an even better reason to buy local honey, and that’s because local honey might help with seasonal allergies. Honey contains small amounts of pollen, and by ingesting that pollen, you’re supposedly able to assist your immune system into building up a tolerance for that particular pollen. Buying honey from China only helps your body build immunity to plants that grow in China, not those in your neighborhood. Locally-made honey, on the other hand, can allegedly help you out if you’re sensitive to local trees or plant pollen. I say “might” and “allegedly” because there are conflicting medical reports as to whether this is actually true or not. In my book, it can’t really hurt (especially given the unwanted additives in Chinese honey)… so why not give some local honey a try?
Read more about tainted import honey here and the health benefits of locally-grown honey here.