Honey Health Benefits
The benefits of honey go beyond its great taste. Its main ingredients are carbohydrates or sugars. It also contains, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, organic acids, pollen, fragrance and flavor compounds carbohydrates, protein, vitamins, and antioxidants. Raw, natural, unpasteurized, honey is a remarkable substance that is receiving a lot of well deserved attention. Honey really has a complex chemistry.
To get the most honey health benefits, it is best to buy locally grown, raw honey. This will be produced by bees living in the same area, town, suburb, county or state that you live in. Consuming foods from the area you live is beneficial as they contain the immune stimulating properties needed for your body to adapt to its environment.
Here are ten Honey Health Benefits (Ref):
1. Prevent cancer and heart disease:
Honey contains flavonoids, antioxidants which help reduce the risk of some cancers and heart disease.
2. Reduce ulcers and other gastrointestinal disorders.
Recent research shows that honey treatment may help disorders such as ulcers and bacterial gastroenteritis. This may be related to the 3rd benefit…
3. Anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-fungal:
“All honey is antibacterial, because the bees add an enzyme that makes hydrogen peroxide,” said Peter Molan, director of the Honey Research Unit at the University of Waikato in New Zealand.
4. Increase athletic performance.
Ancient Olympic athletes would eat honey and dried figs to enhance their performance. This has now been verified with modern studies, showing that it is superior in maintaining glycogen levels and improving recovery time than other sweeteners.
5. Reduce cough and throat irritation:
Honey helps with coughs, particularly buckwheat honey. In a study of 110 children, a single dose of buckwheat honey was just as effective as a single dose of dextromethorphan in relieving nocturnal cough and allowing proper sleep.
6. Balance the 5 elements:
Honey has been used in ayurvedic medicine in India for at least 4000 years and is considered to affect all three of the body’s primitive material imbalances positively. It is also said to be useful useful in improving eyesight, weight loss, curing impotence and premature ejaculation, urinary tract disorders, bronchial asthma, diarrhea, and nausea.
Honey is referred as “Yogavahi” since it has a quality of penetrating the deepest tissues of the body. When honey is used with other herbal preparations, it enhances the medicinal qualities of those preparations and also helps them to reach the deeper tissues.
7. Blood sugar regulation:
Even though honey contains simple sugars, it is NOT the same as eating white sugar or artificial sweeteners. Its exact combination of fructose and glucose actually helps the body regulate blood sugar levels. Some honeys have a low hypoglycemic index, so they don’t jolt your blood sugar.
8. Heal wounds and burns:
External application of honey has been shown to be as effective as conventional treatment with silver sulfadiazene. It is speculated that the drying effect of the simple sugars and honey’s anti-bacterial nature combine to create this effect.
9. Probiotic:
Some varieties of honey possess large amounts of friendly bacteria. This includes up to 6 species of lactobacilli and 4 species of bifidobacteria. This may explain many of the “mysterious therapeutic properties of honey.”
10. Beautiful skin:
Its anti-bacterial qualities are particularly useful for the skin, and, when used with the other ingredients, can also be moisturizing and nourishing!
As a healing remedy, honey can address multiple issues. For many, the honey health benefits are endless, but many have yet to be proven by scientific studies. Searching on the internet, one can find many more than are listed here, but some of the most common home remedies that include the use of honey are listed here for reference.
Home remedies with honey health benefits:
- Honey can provide an energy boost. Its carbohydrates supply energy and strength and it can boost your endurance and reduce muscle fatigue.
- Honey is a great aid in relieving morning sickness, reportedly even more effective than traditional soda crackers.
- Honey is good for sore throats, laryngitis and pharyngitis.
- Honey and cinnamon can help in many areas including relief from bladder infections, arthritis, upset stomach and bad breath. It’s even supposed to be able to slow down hair loss.
- Raw honey can be used as a medication for issues related to male impotence and female infertility. Warm raw goat milk and raw honey is believed to increase sperm count considerably.
- A salve made of honey, for diabetic ulcers, has been proven effective when other topical antibiotics are not well tolerated. It can be applied to eczema, canker sores or bleeding gums.
- Honey and apple cider vinegar can be used for many ailments like stomach aches, constipation and even migraines.
- Honey and lemon goes to work in the body shifting the extra fat stores, thus making it usable energy for regular body functions. Honey is cholesterol-free and can reportedly help keep cholesterol levels in check
- Raw honey has a viscous texture due to its low water content. It is a poor environment for bad bacteria to grow and is a good natural preservative. It has been used to preserve many things throughout human history.
No doubt there are far more honey health benefits that have been developed, and possible lost, through the ages than can include here. Of course none of these claims and home remedies have not been proven through scientific, but they are interesting to read about none the less. Using honey should not be considered a substitute for medical advice, taking prescribed medicines, or seeking medical treatment. It might be a good idea to use honey to augment common medical treatments, but ask your doctor first.
There are a few things to keep in mind when eating honey:
Do not feed honey to infants. Despite honey’s antibacterial properties, sometimes spores of Clostridium botulinum have been found in a small percentage of honey in North America. This is not dangerous to adults and older children, but infants can have a serious reaction of illness in their first year because their immune system has not been fully developed yet. Do not add honey to baby food or use as a soother to quiet a fussy or colicky baby.
Honey is a sugar, so do not eat jars full of it if you value your good health and want to maintain a healthy weight. It has a high caloric value and will put you on sugar highs and lows as it is processed by the body. Unless you are burning all the calories consumed through physical activity, it will end up being stored as fat.
More information:
Honey Health Benefits can best be obtained when eating raw honey. Read on to find out about raw honey benefits.