By: Christina & Katy Snoddy
This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2019 issue of BEEKeeping Your First Three Years
The pillars of good beekeeping are managing poor nutrition, pathogens, and the effects of pesticides. Cautious steps in every aspect of these increases bee health. Beekeepers are fighting for our bees but are we fighting for ourselves? Let’s explore the first pillar. Do beekeepers make healthy nutritional choices?
Beekeepers manage the diets and lives of their bees, testing the viscosity and water content of their honey, or quantifying the number of Varroa mites in their hive. Many beekeepers are
meticulous about the economy of the hive and monitor everything they possibly can, down to removing drone cells to keep the composition of the hive exactly right.
Most beekeepers are enthusiastic about honey and seek to be ambassadors for honey consumption and use. One fact often quoted is that honey is raw, or unprocessed, uncooked, untouched by commercialization. White or brown sugar, which are ubiquitous in our daily lives do not possess these qualities: they are heated and bleached, a process which leeches the helpful amino acid and minerals from the raw sugar cane. Usually, honey only undergoes one or two process: centrifuging and/or straining, which leave the beneficial side products intact.
Local beekeepers are even passionate about honey they don’t make. Beekeepers strive to maintain a high standard of excellency for honey throughout the world, making sure it first fits our desires before we give it to the public. Local beekeepers strive to make commercialized honey producers uphold the same standards they uphold, maintaining the integrity of the honey, including the natural pollen content, which commercialized producers often denude. However, this passion and desire for integrity in honey often does not translate to other food or products besides honey.
Honey is a sweetener, a condiment, a small portion of one’s daily food intake. When we buy food, do we take into account the same standards that we maintain for honey? Do we care about how the food is produced? If the food is commercialized? Do we buy and support local farmers or wonder what types of herbicides or pesticides are used in our produce? Do we care that food processing strips the nutritional value out of foods?
Over the course of history, the way we as humans eat and prepare food has changed. Originally, all food was raw. However, with the advent of controllable fire, humans began to cook food, enabling them to travel larger distances and accomplish more mentally and physically. Though methods to preserve raw food, such as salting or icing, developed over time, the next big step in human diet did not occur until World War II, with the invention of vacuum-sealed food packaging. The most obvious example of a vacuum-sealed food is canned food, which most of us have in our pantries. Vacuum-sealing food initially allowed for transport to troops across both seas. After the war, food manufacturers leapt on the idea, which would rapidly accelerate into a multi-billion dollar industry, especially with the discovery of food processing.
Monocultures, or the growth of only one plant, are necessary to deal with the large harvests and high demand for products necessary in food processing. Monocultures disrupt the natural balance in the ecosystem. Monocultures produce food deserts, poor soil quality, and intimately, and often negatively, affect insects, especially bees, who like a balance of nectar and pollen. Monoculture and mass production of food are clearly bad for bees, but they are necessary to maintain the culture of food processing.
Food processing for manufacturing can simply be thought of as altering a food through the use of various chemicals and preservatives for mass transport and shelf life. The International Food Information Council (IFIC) defines processing as “any deliberate change in a food that occurs before it is ready to eat.” Under this definition, processing includes pasteurization, dehydration and refrigeration, though there are three stages of processing classified by the IFIC.
Primary processing ensures food adheres to FDA guidelines. Primary processing includes slaughtering meats, harvesting oats, and picking apples. Products of these processes are called whole foods, which, although “whole foods” is a buzzword, is an actual classification. Secondary processing actions are cooking, freezing, and canning. We can think of secondary processing as “simple processing”; they can be performed without access to a large-scale, industrial kitchen. The third stage involves adding foreign colors, sweeteners, preservatives, and flavors that are not native to the food being preserved. The third stage produces ultra-processed food. It is pretty easy to come up with examples for each stage: a banana is an whole, or raw, food; canned beans are a “simply processed” food; and a candy bar is an ultra-processed food.
Consuming a food in each stage of processing also has a different caloric effect, or effect on energy. Sweet potatoes are a pretty common food in American life. Let’s say, for instance, you wanted to eat a raw sweet potato. You would consume 115 calories. Instead of eating it raw, you bake it in your oven. This would be a form of secondary processing, or “simple processing”. You would consume 180 calories. Instead, you drive to your local grocery store and pick up some frozen sweet potato fries, which are ultra-processed. You would consume about 400 calories. The advent of ultra-processed foods are directly linked with higher obesity rates, as you can see from this example. If you’re eating more calories, you’re going to gain more weight.
Have you ever seen an overweight bee or insect? Probably not. Bees gather food in a way that expends a ton of energy. The food sources are raw and are not available all the time. The weather hinders when food can be gathered. Bees don’t have food stored up enough to waste; drones are not allowed to overwinter, since food is rationed, especially during Winter. Insects haven’t figured out how to process food to gain extra calories.
Let’s strive to not only to be good caretakers of bees, but of beekeepers. Nutrition is one of the most important parts of keeping a healthy hive. We should strive to commit to being healthy bee caretakers. We can eat less ultra-processed foods, and instead try to eat raw or simply processed foods. We can support local farmers who practice ethical farming strategies, including limiting insecticides, by eating their raw produce. If any industry knows the benefits of raw foods, it’s ours.
