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I have been cooking with honey now as my choice of sweetener for about 12 years. I always knew that local honey was better for us, don’t ask me how I knew but I did. Here are my top reasons for cooking/using local honey.
- Much imported honey is from China, and of suspect origins.
- Some store bought honeys are not even honey
- Local honey aids in allergy treatment, desensitizing you to the local pollen.
- It tastes better
- I am supporting local business, often times my friends and neighbors. Money spent locally, is said to be circulated 7 times before leaving the local economy.
- You can use about 1/2 the amount of honey in a recipe as you do honey.
- I can use it to wash my face
- Honey is the perfect thing to take when you have a sore throat. it is soothing and antibacterial.
- Local honey has the lowest carbon footprint of any sweetener. A Swedish study in 2006 showed that it took far less energy to make and deliver a pound of local honey to consumers than any other sweetener (1.3 MJ/kg). By comparison, overseas honey requires 5.6 MJ/kg and refined sugar requires 9.8 MJ/kg.
- Eating local honey connects you to the environment around you! Each spoonful of honey contains a story about the landscape that you and your family live in. It gives you a great excuse to shop at a farmers’ market, meet a local beekeeper, learn about bees, and maybe visit an apiary!
Technorati Tags: local honey,benefits of honey
This post is linked up to Simple Lives Thursday, Food Renegade - Fight Back Friday,Fresh Bites Friday , Day 2 Day Joys
This post is linked up to Simple Lives Thursday, Food Renegade - Fight Back Friday,Fresh Bites Friday , Day 2 Day Joys
11 comments:
Great post! I would love to hear more about your transition to honey as your primary sweetener. I would love to ditch the sugar.
Okay Nada, you have given me my next post idea in the Real Foods series.
Your money circulation comment is absolutely correct, and a community currency experiment demonstrated that exactly. Plus, handing your money to the producer or the producer's direct agent is a lot more satisfying.
A great article. Honey is my favorite sweetener too. We are so fortunate to have so many local honey producers in our area. My sister and her husband are now keeping bees too and are producing their first batch of honey this week!
France, Thanks - Buying local is so important to me. I really like to know my providers personally. And with the recent news on honey coming in from China, it is even more important to make sure you buy from suppliers you can trust. Just today I was at a national store, looking for some honey for my husband to take on a trip. (I wanted a plastic container - that would not break during travel). The store brand was not labeled as a product of the USA but the store organic brand was. Guess which one I chose to give my husband?
FABULOUS post! I stumbled it :) We just bought 9lbs of local honey. And I just tried honeycomb this week too!
thanks ArtsyNina for the stumble! And thanks for being part of my posse.
New follower from Monday Mingle! I use local honey too! Please follow back :)
This is an excellent post. Local honey is SO good for you. It's one of the first things I look for whenever we move. I think the nicest tasting honey we ever had was from our local apiary when we lived in Littleover, in Derby. I must confess though, I still have an incredible fondness for Canadian Clover Honey, which I have to buy imported (I live in England), so I only have it once in a while as a treat! Thank you for sharing this post with the Gallery of Favorites.
April, thanks for hosting. I do enjoy my local honey but I am disconsolate because we don't have a crop this season. I will have to be satisfied with localish honey.
I am a huge fan of local honey! Thanks for sharing your reasons for using local honey with the Gallery of Favorites.
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