Is wild honey really better? Should you buy it?

Recently, the second season of the TV series "Flavorful Origins" is being broadcast. In the first episode, "Sweet and Ethereal Records", the "honey hunters" collected wild honey using the most traditional and primitive honey hunting methods, which made many people yearn for this wild honey and eager to try it.

There is a lot of wild honey on the market now. Many people ask me whether wild honey is healthier? Are there any problems? Should I buy wild honey? Today we will talk about wild honey.

01Is wild honey healthier? The so-called "wild honey" is the honey made by wild bees from wild flowers. Many people think that "wild honey" is a purely natural product, so they naturally think that wild honey is healthier.

But this is actually a complete misunderstanding.

Compared with ordinary honey, "wild bees" may collect flowers from different places, so the taste may be a little different, which is why many people like wild honey, and even many people think that wild honey is more fragrant and tastier. But the nutritional value of the two is almost the same.

Because honey is nectar collected by bees from the flowers of plants, its main component is sugar, which accounts for more than 80% of honey. After removing more than 10% of water, other components are less than 1%. This 1% usually contains some vitamins and minerals, but the amount is really mediocre.

Therefore, whether it is "wild honey" or ordinary honey, from the perspective of nutritional composition, they are mainly sugar, and are always a high-calorie, highly nutritionally single food.

02Is wild honey safer? More importantly, "wild honey" may also pose safety risks. Because it is not clear which wild flowers the "wild bees" have collected honey from. Most flowers are non-toxic, but the honey produced by a few species contains toxic ingredients. If a small batch of honey happens to have collected a large amount of pollen from these plants, and the honey is not processed, then there may be certain dangers.

For example, the Hong Kong Food Safety Center once notified that some consumers who purchased "azalea honey" abroad were poisoned due to the natural ash toxin in azalea honey.

Ashwagandrin is a natural toxin that is mostly known to be produced by azaleas. Honey contaminated with ashwagandrin often tastes bitter and can cause ashwagandrin poisoning, also known as "honey poisoning". Patients will quickly develop symptoms such as dizziness, fatigue, excessive sweating, excessive saliva, numbness of the limbs, and nausea. In addition, honey may also contain toxins such as "pyrrolidine alkaloids" and "hydroxycoriolantoxin".

A few years ago, 19 villagers in Fujian, my country, were poisoned by eating "wild honey", resulting in the death of 3 people. The cause was the accidental ingestion of "Tripterygium wilfordii honey". The pollen of Tripterygium wilfordii contains different alkaloids, and they are all quite toxic.
In addition, a lot of wild honey is canned without being sterilized. In the video of #味人间#2, you can see that they pour the honey directly into the jar after collecting it. This makes it easy for microorganisms or bacteria to have problems, and it is also easy to deteriorate.
In general, wild honey is not healthier. On the contrary, it may pose certain safety risks. It is recommended not to blindly follow the trend and buy wild honey just because you have watched this documentary.

031-year-old babies should not eat honey! Finally, it should be reminded that babies under one year old should not eat honey. This is because honey may contain botulinum toxin.

Clostridium botulinum is widely present in the natural environment, and many foods may also be at risk of being contaminated by Clostridium botulinum. For children over one year old and adults, even if they eat honey containing a small amount of Clostridium botulinum, the original intestinal flora can inhibit the reproduction of Clostridium botulinum, so that botulinum toxin will not be produced.

The intestinal flora of babies under one year old is still very fragile and more sensitive to toxins. If they accidentally eat contaminated honey, they can easily be poisoned.