It’s almost turkey time! No matter how you celebrate this time of year, a local, pasture-raised turkey is the quintessential centerpiece of gatherings with family and friends. Purchasing a local, pasture-raised turkey is a small act that falls into the spirit of the season: celebrating the harvest, honoring our small farmers, and cherishing community. Note: this post was last updated Oct. 2023.

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by Julia Mangan, Author of A Little Bit of All of It | Apr. 4, 2011 – 

Spoonful of honey from a jar

I love local, raw honey. I use it to sweeten my hot tea daily. I love it in Greek yogurt and green smoothies. I mean, what’s not to love? Not only does it taste delicious, but it is good for you, too!

  1. Local, raw honey has healing properties. Add it to your hot tea to soothe a sore throat, for instance. Because it has antimicrobial properties, it doesn’t just soothe your throat as it coats it; it can also kill certain bacteria.
  2. Local, raw honey helps with seasonal allergies. Don’t bother with allergy shots; take honey “shots” instead! The same allergens that trigger a reaction in you are present in local, raw honey. By ingesting the honey regularly, you are, in effect, taking “shots” of the allergen in small, manageable doses. The effect over time is similar to getting a whole series of allergy immunology injections. Doesn’t taking honey sound a lot more pleasant?
  3. Local, raw honey reduces the lifespan of colds. Eating two ounces a day can reduce a cold by up to two days! How awesome is that?
  4. Local, raw honey is a natural antiseptic.  As mentioned above, honey has antimicrobial properties. That’s what makes it great for treating wounds. Because many types of bacteria can’t survive in honey, it speeds up healing, diminishes swelling, and gives tissue the opportunity to grow back more quickly.
  5. Local, raw honey helps tame the stomach flu. Because raw honey calms the inflammation of the stomach, it is a great pain reliever for the stomach flu.

Those are just five reasons local, raw honey is fantastic but there are a whole host of awesome health benefits to honey besides those five.

But you may be wondering, why local and why raw?

  • Many of the health benefits of honey are lost when it is filtered and heated to high temperatures.
  • Local, raw honey has unique flavors that are lost when industrialized.
  • To help with allergies, you need to have local, raw honey. This will insure that the honey has the allergens native to the area you live in.
  • Buying local is better and not just because it reduces pollution and saves resources. Bees shipped from elsewhere pollinating one crop is how commercial honey is made. This is completely unnatural and hard on bees. Let’s keep the bees home and pollinating as nature intended.
  • Local, raw honey is full of all kinds of healthy ingredients. Industrial methods dilute the good stuff out.

I purchase my local, raw honey from either the farmer’s market or Earth Fare. The honey I buy is from the Bee Well Honey Farm in Pickens, SC. I love that I can buy it with or without the honeycomb, too.

Do you enjoy honey? How do you eat your honey? Where do you buy local, raw honey?