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Comment by radicaledward | Hacker News Reader

DO NOT FEED YOUR INFANT HONEY

Just in case anyone read the first paragraph and thought, "Hey that's a good idea!" Honey contains bacteria that causes infant botulism [1]. Once a child has a more fully developed digestive system, this is no longer a problem.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism#Infant_botulism

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Just to be clear - the story in the first paragraph is about royal jelly not honey. Royal jelly a totally different thing than honey: a bee glandular secretion rather than bee processed plant nectar [1].

However I doubt it should be given to infants either and would not base any health decisions on anecdotes like this no matter how appealing the narrative.

[1] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_jelly

> not base any health decisions on anecdote

It's not even an anecdote. It's a "short story by Roald Dahl". You know, fiction from a writer known for his "unsentimental, often very dark humour." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl

Really, don't base health decisions on surreal horror stories.

I guess I made a couple of assumptions when I wrote my comment. 1) I thought a lot of people wouldn't know the difference. 2) I guessed that royal jelly would be host to a similar spectrum of bacteria to honey. These are possibly not true, but I figured that caution was better than anything else.

Thanks for your clarification though!

Royal jelly? +1 str. Would eat any day.

Botulism is one risk from honey, and it's a good reason to avoid it until the child is a year old.

It's also mostly sugar and thus is not needed by tiny children. Avoiding it is probably a good idea for tooth health.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/foods-...

"English teeth" is a bit of banter, but it's true. Tooth removal is the main reason to hospitalise (primary school age (4 to 11)) children. One in four children at five years old had some decay.

Being strict with sugar - especially in drinks - and proper toothbrushing will reduce this.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Dental-decay/Pages/Introduction...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10964323/Tooth-...

Honey is a natural expectorant, however - used in cough drops like certain Ricola flavors, so assuming your child is > 1 year old, it's actually beneficial to administer occasionally.

Yes, the careful use of honey is beneficial in some situations. I'm not suggesting that all sugars should be excluded from a child's diet.

I've also seen honey used in burn dressings which was fascinating. Also grusome.

I don't understand how this is the most important thing one can say about this article. No remotely reasonable person would take this as an endorsement of feeding honey (or royal jelly) to an infant.

I hope no one mistakes Roald Dahl for Doctor Spock.

I'm not at the top of comments list am I? I agree that there are definitely more important take aways from this article. However, I felt that it would be worth my while to write this comment to make people aware of the issue.

It was the top comment when I made this one which was confusing.

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