is honey an allergen?

[**guest**]

as per our tibetan doctor, dd (3) does not eat any sugar, except of honey and mapble syrop -- a little of each. she is not into sweets.

but she takes her tibetan herb powder with honey, every morning. it has helped her asthma a lot -- no symptoms at all since the tibetan treatment, and we actually doubt the diagnosis now.

a friend of mine mentioned that honey is highly allergenic, and if she regularly eats honey, she will end up sensitised to it and subsequently allergic. is this true?

also, i give her garlic and onion with honey when she has a cold.

now i am worried about allergies.

currently she does not have any allergies, and was diagnosed with mild viral asthma 1 y 4 months ago.

thanks.

[bird_verde]

I have not heard that honey is allergenic at all. (Could be wrong ... if so, please correct me )

We are beekeepers and I know from the publications that we receive and the beekeeping classes that we have attended that honey (and beeswax), especially raw honey (not heated, not processed), possess a slight risk for botulism. Honey can contain bacterial spores that cause Infant Botulism-a rare but very serious disease affecting the nervous system that only babies can get. There is a bit of differing opinion as to what age is OK to give a child honey - 1 year, 2 years and 3 years. Maybe someone else here has the current standard or can quote a study -- I think the AAP currently says 2 years?? but my Dr. Sears' book says 1 year. In any case, you are safe.

[AdinaL]

As far as I know it isn't. A good remedy for local allergies is local raw honey...seems odd that taking honey would help allergies...and then be an allergen itself.

But I don't know.

[annettemarie]

Originally Posted by AdinaL

As far as I know it isn't. A good remedy for local allergies is local raw honey...seems odd that taking honey would help allergies...and then be an allergen itself.

But I don't know.

We just learned this on our field trip to an apiary yesterday- fascinating stuff (and we now have 2 pounds of yummy local raw honey!)

I think your friend is confusing the danger of botulism spores and infants with allergies!

[**guest**]

THANK you!

i actually just found honey on the 'least allergenic' food list. good. i was beginning to worry.

i find honey with garlic and honey with onion such a great remedy for her colds, and i tell her it is 'just like icecream' as i freeze it a bit :LOL

[Wolfmeis]

Everything I have read suggests that local honey (past teh age of one year of course) actually HELPS with airborne environmental allergies.

Allergies are reactions to the PROTEINS in a substance. What I have seen is that if a person is pretty allergic to a specific pollen, that can come across as an allergy to honey, given that the honey contains said pollen.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract