With the current wave of going natural and organic, many people have opt for raw, unprocessed food. Naturally many people thought that having raw honey is best for health. Do you know that you raw honey may cause danger to you?
This may shock you as it did me. I have no clue at all that something as nutritious as raw honey can post a health risk. Don't be unduly alarm though, as long as you know what it is then you can take the necessary precaution.
The main reason why there could be health risk is due to the fact that raw honey has NOT been processed at all. There is no filtering, no heating or pasteurising. So can you imagine what could be in the honey?
Unprocessed honey that is taken from the bee hive can have remnants of spores from flowers, bits of comb, wings of bees etc. This by itself is okay. However, there is a potential that it got "contaminated" with clostridium botulinum spore. When this happens, when there is no oxygen, the spores starts to germinate and produce toxin which is deadly. With the amount that is present, it may not affect adults but it can be harmful to infant.
This is so serious that the American Academy of Pediatrics and National Honey Board recommended that raw honey should NOT be fed to infant less than twelve months. They may develop infant botulism which can be fatal. When a baby who is less than a year old contract infant botulism you can see the signs of constipation, growing weak and having difficulty when sucking, crying and breathing. The medical implication is very serious and if diagnosed positive they have to be warded in intensive care unit for at least a month.
Does infant botulism happen often? No it doesn't. Is eating raw honey the only cause? No, the botulinum spore can be in the air or on earth. Why focus on this is because eliminating it from the baby's diet probably is one step that we can do actively.
Apart from infant botulism, another potential danger is that it is possible that the flowers from which the honey is made is poisonous to human or the flowers are sprayed with chemicals. So in this case the reliability of the source of honey is important. There are ratings given by government agencies which will show the quality of the honey produced.
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