Hello, this is Monica Reinagel, and you're listening to The Nutrition Diva

podcast. I'm glad you're here. This week's show was prompted by an email

from Stephanie who writes,

I've heard a lot about bee pollen lately.

Is it good for you? Is it really a miracle food?

Bee pollen has been used throughout the ages and around the globe as a medicinal food and an all-purpose

elixir. There are references to the healing powers of bee pollen in ancient Egyptian

and Chinese manuscripts, the Bible, and the

Quran. It's still promoted today as a superfood, which is a term that's

generally applied to foods that are thought to be particularly nutritious.

And it's also touted as a natural remedy for allergies and asthma to enhance athletic performance,

to boost the immune system, to guard against the toxic effects from chemotherapy and as a general health tonic.

But is there any scientific basis for any of these alleged benefits?

Let's take a closer look at how the evidence for bee pollen

stacks up. Be pollen is made up of pollen from flowering plants which is

collected by the bee as it roams around the world and then mixed with small amounts of bee spit and nectar.

Although its nutrient composition varies greatly depending on what plants the bee visited that day, most bee pollen is about

15% protein, usually less than 10% fat and about 70% carbohydrate.

And it also contains various vitamins and minerals.

In fact, one of the claims for bee pollen is that it contains every nutrient needed for life.

This has been demonstrated by experiments in which lab rats were fed nothing but

bee pollen and water for a year and they thrived. Now even if the idea of eating nothing but a pound of a slightly bitter granular powder every day as your sole source of nutrition sounds appealing to you, I wouldn't advise it.

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