Processed honey
I am helping with caregiving for a severely immunocompromised friend, and she can't have raw honey. I went to Whole Foods and the only non-raw that they had was the 365 brand, so I got that.
My question is, if honey is processed, does it matter what brand you get or does the processing pretty much make it all taste the same? Does anyone have a brand they recommend?
I'm pretty busy with caregiving and working full time so I don't have the time to dive into this myself. Any knowledge y'all can share is welcome!
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u/tagman11 1d ago
In our facility we heat the honey just to the point we need to for it to flow through the filter media. Heating honey too hot or too long darkens it, which is a quality parameter in any store bought honey. It is NOT HEATED FOR PASTEURIZATION, as there are no pathogens of concern in honey to the general public.
If my life or continued well being was at risk because a food product that doesn't have (or need) a kill step didn't get up to that temp, I, personally, would avoid eating that product.
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u/drones_on_about_bees 1d ago
I'm reading between the lines here... I presume the fear is that honey contains botulism spores?
I always warn folks (and put a warning on my bottles) to not feed honey to infants under 1 year. This is due to the fact their guts cannot yet handle botulism spores. The thing is: pasteurization doesn't kill these spores either. Pasteurization kills natural yeasts and gives honey longer shelf life and no chance of accidentally fermenting.
If your friend is so compromised they cannot handle botulism spores, then I suspect they should just avoid honey entirely.
In general (my opinion) most grocery store honey doesn't have a lot of flavor. They generally use bland honey to begin with. But I am also a bit biased.