Local raw honey has been used for medicinal purposes for a long time, and one of the most popular medical uses has been for allergy relief. Many healthcare experts and sufferers of pollen allergies agree that local raw honey can work like an allergy shot for seasonal allergies.
“The idea behind eating honey is kind of like gradually vaccinating the body against allergens, a process called immunotherapy. Honey contains a variety of the same pollen spores that give allergy sufferers so much trouble when flowers and grasses are in bloom. Introducing these spores into the body in small amounts by eating honey should make the body accustomed to their presence and decrease the chance an immune system response like the release of histamine will occur. Since the concentration of pollen spores found in honey is low — compared to, say, sniffing a flower directly — then the production of antibodies shouldn’t trigger symptoms similar to an allergic reaction. Ideally, the honey-eater won’t have any reaction at all.
Raw local honey is generally accepted as the best variety to use. There’s no real rule of thumb on how local the honey has to be, but proponents suggest the closer, the better. This proximity increases the chances that the varieties of flowering plants and grasses giving the allergy sufferer trouble are the same kinds the bees are including in the honey they produce. After all, it wouldn’t help much if you ate honey with spores from a type of grass that grows in Michigan if you suffer from allergies in Georgia.”
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