100% grass fed and finished beef different from grain fed beef? Yes, it is! LEARN MORE HERE.

What's fermented honey? Get prepared for fall with these house recipes.

written by

Marie Reedell

posted on

August 25, 2023

I hope you've been enjoying the last of summer. And now, kinda similar to what farmers do, it's time to prepare for the fall and winter!

Since colds and flus are more common as the weather gets cooler and drier and we spend more time indoors, I start stocking my arsenal of natural remedies right now. You know, making elderberry syrup, harvesting and drying echinacea and boneset, making and stocking my freezer with bone broth, etc.

This year, I came across a new remedy to add to my arsenal -- fermented honey!

Fermented honey is exactly what it sounds like. It's raw honey that has undergone a fermentation process, kickstarted by the naturally occurring wild yeast, enzymes, and bacteria in truly raw honey. Under the right conditions, the living microbiology breaks down the sugars into alcohol and then into acetic acid. It produces carbon dioxide, too.

In addition to being uniquely delicious (think umami honey), there are numerous benefits to consuming raw fermented honey. It's a natural antioxidant, it can provide probiotics and better gut health, and it aids in absorption of minerals like calcium and magnesium. It contributes to general wellbeing. 

But today, let's pay special attention to fermented honey's ability to prevent and treat colds and flus. 

Raw honey on its own contains compounds with potential immune-boosting and antimicrobial properties. When you ferment honey, you are enhancing these properties by adding acetic acid, which is also shown to be an antimicrobial. And, you are increasing the level of probiotics consumed, which is an overall benefit to your body's functions.

So, if you regularly consume fermented honey, you can prevent illness from occurring. Or, if you consume fermented honey after getting sick, you can shorten your time needed to heal. Oh, and I should mention again that it's really tasty, too. So it's a great vehicle for getting in those not-so-tasty healing foods and herbs like garlic, echinacea, boneset, ginger, and cayenne.

All raw honey will eventually ferment. We talked about this recently in our blog post about how all raw honey will turn solid and crystallize. But, you can also make it ferment on purpose. It's really easy to do.

Basically, you need to create a certain level of moisture. Then let it sit at room temperature for a couple weeks. 

Fermented honey typically has a tangy or sour flavor due to the presence of acetic acid and other fermentation byproducts. It can have a frothy or bubbly texture and might even produce a small amount of carbonation. The flavor profile and characteristics of fermented honey can vary depending on the type of honey used, the specific strains of microorganisms present, and the duration of fermentation.

It's important to note that the quality of the honey matters A LOT, especially when it comes to using it for healing and wellness.

Not all honey labeled as "organic" or "natural" or "raw" is created equal. How far and what the bees forage for, what's used for mite treatment, whether extra ingredients are added, and whether it's strained or heated at all matters a lot. And now, there's that new mRNA vaccine for bees that we need to worry about, too.

This is why we work exclusively with Welsh Mountain Apiaries. We offer both their honeys as well as our own house honey, made by all-natural bees that live on our biodiverse pastures! Right now, we have 8 raw honey options to choose from.

Today, I'm happy to gift you 3 amazing recipes:

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Fermented Honey Recipes

fermented-honey.jpg

Plain Fermented Honey

Ingredients

  • (1 Part) Water
  • (8 Parts) Honey

Directions

  1. Pour the honey into a clean and sterile mason jar. Stir the water into the honey.
  2. Put the lid on the jar loosely, and place it in a cool dark spot.
  3. Every day: tighten the lid on the jar and flip it upside down. Loosen the lid when you return it to the upright position.
  4. The honey should start to bubble/foam after two weeks and have a sour smell. The honey will be sweet and tangy, and will likely have a whipped texture.

*Recipe adapted from: www.myfermentation.com

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fermented-garlic-honey.png

Fermented Garlic Honey

Ingredients

  • (1 cup) Whole garlic cloves, slightly crushed
  • (1 cup) Honey, or more to cover garlic cloves

Directions

  1. Add the slightly crushed garlic cloves to a sterilized wide-mouth mason jar. Add the honey, and completely cover the garlic cloves. Make sure they are completely covered and coated in honey.
  2. Put the lid on the jar loosely, and place it in a cool dark spot.
  3. Every day: tighten the lid on the jar and flip it upside down to coat the garlic cloves with honey. Loosen the lid when you return it to the upright position.
  4. Within a few days to a week, you should see small bubbles start to form on the surface of the honey.
  5. The honey garlic will ferment for about a month, but you can eat it at any time. The flavor will continue to develop over time, the garlic will mellow, and the honey will have a thinner consistency.
  6. Store in a cool place for many months or even a year, if not longer.

Notes: Once the garlic is fully coated, you no longer need to turn the jar over every day. You can do this from time to time.

Some say honey garlic must be fermented for at least one year to develop the real deal umami flavor. We say it’s ready when your taste buds say it is!

*Recipe courtesy of: www.growforagecookferment.com

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fermented-peach-honey.jpg

Fermented Peach Honey

Ingredients

  • (1 cup) Peeled and sliced firm peaches
  • (1 cup) Honey, or more to cover the peaches
  • (1 inch) Peeled ginger, slightly crushed, optional

Directions

  1. Add the peach (and ginger if using it) to the mason jar. Add the honey, and completely cover the peach (and ginger). Make sure they are completely covered and coated in honey.
  2. Put the lid on the jar loosely, and place it in a cool dark spot.
  3. Every day: tighten the lid on the jar and flip it upside down to coat the peaches with honey. Loosen the lid when you return it to the upright position.
  4. Within a few days to a week, you should see small bubbles start to form on the surface of the honey.
  5. The honey peach will ferment for about a month, but you can eat it at any time.
  6. Store in a cool place or in the fridge once you reach a flavor you enjoy.

Note: Fermented fruit honey, such as peach, can be eaten in a day or a few weeks. You should sample it from time to time to see how the flavors develop and change. If, after two weeks, you no longer want your honey to ferment, you can place it in the fridge to stop the fermentation process.

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Have you fermented honey before, either by accident or on purpose? What do you do to treat cold and flus at home?

More from the blog

100% grass fed and finished beef different from grain fed beef? Yes, it is!

Why grass fed beef? And, I'm not talking about that silly "grass fed" label in the supermarket, which doesn't necessarily mean what you think (read more on that here). I'm talking about truly pastured, 100% grass fed and finished beef. Feeding beef cattle 100% grass is the most natural way. Beef cattle are ruminants. That means they have 4 stomachs are are designed to graze and eat and digest plants... not fully grown seeds like corn and soy and canola or their oils. Eating 100% grass, ideally fresh from the pasture, is how cattle stay in their best health. When beef are fed grain, it creates a lot of acid in their stomach, lowering the pH. It creates an imbalance in gut microbiology, which can result in some pretty awful health outcomes for the cow (sometimes even death).  And of course, the healthier the animal, the healthier and more nutrient-dense the food it produces. 100% grass fed and finished beef is more nutritious than grain fed beef! Compared to conventional grain-fed beef, 100% grass fed and finished beef has: 3x more Vitamin E2.5x more Vitamin C2-3x more B Vitamins9x more Vitamin B310x more EPA3x more DHA10x more linoleic acid2-4x more Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA) And, grass fed beef has a much better omega 6/3 ratio, usually less than 3:1. Compare that to conventional beef, which has a ratio more than a 15:1. Wow! For some reference, humans should be eating a 4:1 omega 6/3 ratio for optimal health. But, the conventional American diet typically provides a 20:1 ratio. Ugh, no wonder Americans are so sick! Truly pastured, grass fed beef is more flavorful and has a better bite compared to conventional beef. When beef cattle aren't fed a bland diet of corn and soy and instead eat biodiverse, regenerately managed pasture, the meat has more flavor. When beef cattle have plenty of room to roam and exercise those muscles, the meat has texture to it. It has a bite.  When some people start eating grass fed beef, they're sometimes put off by the flavor and texture. They might describe it as gamey and tough. But, now that I've been eating grass fed beef for years, it's quite the opposite. Conventional beef is tasteless and boring and mushy. Do you choose grass fed and finished beef? Why? Is it because it's more humane, more nutritious, better tasting, or a combo of them all? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required) or keep it private and contact us 😊 ----- Sources Nutritional Comparisons Between Grass-Fed Beef and Conventional Grain-Fed Beef

Food web vs food chain. I'll use the crazy egg recall as an example.

At Miller's, we're building a food web. This is a lot different than the modern food chain most Americans rely on. A food chain is a factory-filled engine.  Here are the links that usually make up the food chain. Mega feed mills and fertilizer plants --> mega factory farms --> mega processing plants --> mega distributors --> mega supermarkets. And in between all of those things are mega supplies and transportation companies.  When one link breaks, the whole chain goes down! Sure, it's made food more affordable. But, it's also made our food system fragile. Let's use the egg recall that's happening right now as an example. It's a conventional egg recall (NOT our eggs, which we have plenty of btw). The current salmonella outbreak has sickened at least 89 people to date. It's affected 1.7 million cartons of eggs in 9 states, starting in March. Hundreds of thousands of people have eaten contaminated eggs. Wow, I mean, that's awful on such a big scale. But, here's what's interesting to me - there are 29 different products affected. How could that be? How could they be related? Well, those products come from 10 different egg brands who all have their eggs packed at 2 facilities. Talk about mega ag! Now, I don't know this for sure, but I would bet that all of those millions of eggs come from one mega-farm that has a salmonella outbreak inside one of its mega buildings. Keep in mind that a CAFO (confined animal feeding operation) is defined as having a minimum of 82,000 laying hens. In other words, it's plausible for those millions of eggs to come from one "farm". And the saddest part? All of those hens were likely culled to stop the outbreak quickly. One last note here -- the egg recall example is actually a small one. It's even worse with beef. Did you know that 85% of all grain finished beef is processed by just 4 companies? Geez! And, I mean, we all saw the food chain break during COVID.  On the flip side (and gosh, I'm happy there's an alternative), a food web is a collection of small feed suppliers, farmers, processors, etc.  They are all independent, and each has an important role in getting your food to you. When one intersection in the web breaks, it's fairly easy to repair it and find someone else to fill in. It's a resilient way to produce food. The downside to a food web is that the food does cost more. Let's take our egg farmers as an example. They work in small "pods". They all get their feed and cartons from the same place. They all follow the same farming practices. But, other than that, they work independently in "pods". Right now, we have 2 egg pods. A "pod" consists of 1-5 family farmers with small flocks (no more than 3,000 birds each). And that group of farmers has their eggs packed at one small family egg packer. If we need more eggs, then we need to start another pod. If one pod (or a part of a pod) goes down, another can likely fill in.  What do you think? Is it worth it to pay more for food from a resilient food web? Do we need the food chain to supply affordable food? What does our food future look like? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below (no account required) or contact us 😊 ----- PS: Did I mention we have plenty pastured, honest yolk, corn & soy free eggs right now? There's no outbreak or shortage for us! ----- Sources Eggs sold at Walmart, other grocers in 9 states recalled amid salmonella outbreakExplainer: How four big companies control the U.S. beef industry

Hidden ingredient in pure maple syrup? Yup, a defoamer! Ours is PUFA free.

I know you've seen it advertised everywhere - "PURE MAPLE SYRUP". But, is it really and truly pure? Not exactly. Why is maple syrup is advertised as "pure" anyway? Well, it's because it's being compared to the Aunt Jemima kind of syrup, which doesn't even have maple syrup in it! It's fake maple syrup made with corn syrup with colors, flavors, thickeners, and preservatives. It mimics maple syrup, but it's definitely not maple syrup. So... for companies that are selling actual maple syrup (you know, the kind that's cooked down from the sweet sap from a maple tree), they like to differentiate their syrup from fake syrups. They do this by calling it "pure". I've even seen it as "100% pure". But, that's not really true either. The dictionary definition of "pure" is "not mixed or adulterated with any other substance or material." Well, in order to make real maple syrup, you kinda need to do just that. Enter defoamers... Here's how maple syrup is made, including when defoamer is used. 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But first, let's finish making the syrup. Keep scrolling to learn more about defoamers. Here's what those bubbles look like as a defoamer is added: When the bubbles are smaller and the syrup has cooked down to the perfect thickness and specific gravity, it's done! It's drained into another stainless steel pot.  Final thickness and color testing is done before it's bottled. The Virkler family is serious about color distinctions. They always keep some super dark and super light syrup around to make it just right. Why is maple syrup different shades anyway? It's a natural thing! It has to do with the changes in the sugars within the sap as the season changes.  As the temperature warms up, naturally occurring bacteria become active and break down the sugar into glucose and fructose. These simpler sugars caramelize more easily during boiling, making a darker syrup. That's why lighter syrup is generally made at the beginning of the season when it's colder. But, just like the weather, the color varies throughout the maple syrup season. The Virkler family documents this every year. In the pic below, the first sap of the season is in the bottom left. And then every harvest after that goes to the right and then up to the next row. Pretty neat! And voila! That's how maple syrup is made! What's in a defoamer? A defoamer is a fat. It disrupts surface tension, breaking those syrupy bubbles down, because it contains non-polar molecules that are attracted to water.  Conventional Defoamers Conventional defoamers are a blend of who knows what kind of cheap oils. They can be mineral oils, silicone oils, vegetable oils (canola, soy, olive, etc), or other hydrophobic oils. Some contain up to 10% silicone. Did you know "pure" maple syrup can have that in it!? Conventional defoamers are a lab and factory made thing. And you know what that means - the actual ingredients are proprietary. That's 100% allowed, especially since the defoamer ingredients don't need to be listed on the label. It's less than 1% and considered a trace ingredient.  Natural Defoamers More natural defoamers are straight oils. For example, our old maple syrup used sunflower oil. I've seen other maple syrup makers use canola oil. But, the most common defoaming oils are seed oils, and that means PUFAs. Natural No PUFA Defoamers In an effort to reduce PUFAs whenever possible, we have a new no PUFA maple syrup! Virkler Farm & Forest uses organic coconut oil as their defoamer. We're so proud to offer it to you! *It's important to note that a really tiny amount of defoamer is used. Whatever is left in the final syrup is a trace amount. But, as I say again and again, if there's a trace amount of something bad in everything you eat, is it a trace amount anymore? So, what should you look for in a natural maple syrup? For the most natural maple syrup, you can look for a few things: From a pristine forest, free of chemicals.No added colors, flavors, thickeners, or preservatives.Boiled with wood to prevent any unnatural fumes from contaminating the syrup.A natural defoamer is used.Bottled in glass. This is particularly important with maple syrup since it's typically bottled hot/warm. Our maple syrup checks all those boxes! Do you use maple syrup? Did you know about defoamers? What's important to you when choose natural foods? I'd love to hear from you. Comment below or send us a message. ----- PS: Did you know that the maple syrup we sell is also used in a bunch of our products? That includes our ice cream, egg custard, maple sausages, chocolate and strawberry syrups, and more!