Sunday 4.29.12

Bought this from the produce guy who usually sets up shop at Kaiser Vacaville on Wednesdays

Allergy Season and Local Honey:

I'm not big on taking medications.  My wife has to beg me to take a Motrin when I have a headache, because of all the crying I do.  I'm not against medications at all.  I simply try to find another solution first before I resort to meds.

I used to not have allergies.  Then, a few years ago they hit me hard, usually when I was out patrolling in the county where it seems to be much windier.  I forgot to do any prevention before they hit, so I would pull into the nearest country store and buy a jar of local honey.  I would take a spoonful everyday and within a few days, and through the rest of allergy season, I wouldn't feel the effects of the allergies.

The argument for eating local honey is the same as for the flu shot: it introduces a dummy version of whatever virus/germ to trick the body into believing that it’s been invaded, triggering an immune system response. This encourages the body to produce natural anti-bodies to fight the infection, etc – thereby increasing the body’s defenses against the real thing. It’s called immunotherapy.

There have been no peer-reviewed scientific studies that have conclusively proven whether honey actually reduces allergies. Almost all evidence regarding the immunizing effects of eating honey is anecdotal – but there are sure a lot of people who will swear by it.

Why the honey has to be local

Seasonal allergies are caused by spring pollen in the air. If you have allergies, you are allergic to the pollen – and the idea is since local raw honey contains the same type (from the same flower source) of pollen as what you’re allergic to, introducing these into your system in small amounts (the concentration of pollen spores in honey is low, compared to, say, sniffing a flower directly) is enough to trigger your body to produce antibodies to the pollen for you go outside.  Therefore, the theory is the more local the honey the better because you want to be sure that you’re conditioning your body to the same pollen that you’re allergic to.


Since I feel I have had decent results from taking honey in the past, this year I am trying it as a prevention before my allergies start up.  I have no idea if this even works, or if its simply a placebo effect, but a little honey never hurt me and I like the taste so I really have nothing to lose.  I realize that some people have bad reactions to being introduced to an allergy and many people have bad reactions to even taking honey.  But if you know you have no reaction to honey, give it a try maybe it will help you this season.

Prices go up on several Tough Mudder 2012 events in 3 days, at midnight on April 30.  A group of us are going to the Norcal (Tahoe) event on Saturday, September 22nd. If you want to sign up and join our team, simply register on the Tough Mudder site and join our team:

Team: CompoundCrossfit
Password: Burpees

It will be a fun experience and no one is left behind so we all finish together!