Babies under 1 year aren’t supposed to have honey. OK.
But why? Botulism, apparently; however, what I don’t understand is if I have a pasteurized jar of honey, and I eat half of it (or however much) doesn’t that sort of prove that it’s botulism free?
Or can botulism develop in pasteurized honey after it’s opened and partially eaten, and adults are just too big to be affected by it?
Or is it something completely different?
This is really just idle curiosity. I’m not planing to poison any babies.
Mature digestive systems apparently destroy the botulism spores safely - but babies don’t have that yet Honey - Wikipedia
And, the reason botulism isn’t a problem in honey for adults but is in improperly-canned goods is that the spores don’t develop in high-sugar environments but do very well in anaerobic environments, like those created by canning. If the canned goods are not pressure-canned (the intense heat kills the spores) or are water-canned without sufficient acidity (which also prevents spore development), botulinium spores can release the bacteria into an environment in which it can grow.
I eat babies with honey
I’ve done it all my life
They do taste kind of funny
But it keeps then on my knife
– with apologies to my peas.
Interesting fact, botulism toxin is the deadliest toxin in the world…a lethal dose for the average adult is less than 300 nanograms.
By contrast, a lethal dose of cyanide is around 200 milligrams…that’s almost a million times more.
(this info comes from wikipedia, and that was for an IV injection of botulism versus ingested cyanide…couldn’t find info on a lethal amount of ingested botulism, though i imagine it’s more than injected, but still orders of magnitude lower than cyanide.)
I had some friends who wouldn’t let their toddler have Honey Nut Cheerios because they have honey in them.
I could not eyeroll hard enough.
Hey, honey nut cheerios are good. I don’t care if there isn’t any honey or nuts in them.
You’re sure it was because of the honey, and not because they don’t want the kid having sweet cereals? There are legitimate arguments to be made against giving a toddler sweet cereals in general.
Yep. Explicity that the cereal had honey in it, not that it was sweet in general.
All the above posters seem to have missed the part of the OP that mentions pasteurization.
What’s wrong with giving some pasteurized honey to a baby?
It’s safer but it doesn’t necessarily kill all the botulism spores.
It’s a pretty tiny risk though - there were only 6 cases of infant botulism in the United Kingdom between 1976 and 2006. The US rate on that wikipedia page of 1.29 for 100,000 live births seems to be an infection rate. On the wikipedia botulism pagethe death rate is said to be less than 1% and 90% of cases involve babies under 6 months. So the death rate from infant botulism in the US is approximately 0.0129 per 100,000 live births. Oh and there’s an uncited claim on that page that only 5% of recent infant botulism cases can be attributed to honey - 95% are of some other origin.
By comparison the overall infant mortality rate is something like 6.22 per thousand live births (622 per 100,000 live births). Something like 1 infant death in 48,000 is due to botulism. I’d be more concerned with the baby choking on the toast than the very small risk of it contracting botulism from the honey.
They give me the poops. Now I know it’s because of the botulism.
Cite?
Because I have a BS in microbiology, and that’s the first I’ve heard of it.
Sure, but it’s easy to push the infant death rate from honey-borne botulism to zero. No reason to risk it when it’s not a necessary food source for babies.
That, and if everybody started feeding their babies honey (even pasteurized), the mortality rate would be sure to rise. It’s only as low as it is because the few honey-related deaths involve the small population of people who feed babies honey. There’s a bit of a confirmation bias effect going on in your thinking.
It’s like the vaccination stats. There may very well be more infants dying from vaccination related complications than measles each year. But that doesn’t mean vaccinations are somehow a bad idea and we shouldn’t be using them. It’s because vaccinations prevent even greater numbers of measles deaths. The numbers don’t exist in a vacuum. Likewise with honey. If we started feeding babies pasteurized honey, the mortality rate rises because the rate is not independent of that action.
I prefer artificial sweetener on my babies, because I’m watching my calorie intake.
Well yes if more infants eat honey we can expect the rate of infection and deaths to rise. As we don’t know how few or many parents give their kids honey at the moment we can’t really say how much by though. I guess all I’m trying to say is it’s a relatively minor risk, far lower than measles is.