We know honey as a sweet and viscous fluid produced by honey bees (and some other species of bee), and derived from the nectar of flowers. This wonderfully rich golden liquid is the miraculous product of honey bees and a naturally delicious alternative to white sugar. In addition to its reputation as nature’s nutritive sweetener, research also indicates that honey’s unique composition makes it useful as an antimicrobial agent and antioxidant.
The process of making honey happens when the bees feast on flowers, collecting the flower nectar in their mouths. This nectar then mixes with special enzymes in the bees’ saliva, an alchemical process that turns it into honey. The bees carry the honey back to the hive, where they deposit it into the cells of the hive’s walls. The fluttering of their wings provides the necessary ventilation to reduce the honey’s moisture content, making it ready for consumption.
The Benefit of Honey
- Improve Athletic Performance and Heal Wounds with Honey. Primarily honey has been used as an energy source, but recent research has examined the use of honey as an ergogenic aid (a food or ingredient that helps an athlete’s performance) and wound healing agent, both of which were once considered merely age-old anecdotes, because in the time of the ancient Olympics, athletes were reported to eat special foods, such as honey and dried figs, to enhance their sports performance. The wound healing properties of honey may, however, be its most promising medicinal quality. Honey has been used topically as an antiseptic therapeutic agent for the treatment of ulcers, burns and wounds for centuries.
- Reduce the cholesterol in the blood. By mixing 2 spoons of honey with 3 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and 16 ounce of tea into a potion, can decrease the amount of cholesterol in the blood up to 10% in two hours. The pure honey that is consumed daily can reduce the cholesterol effect to your body.
- Prevent heart attack. Spread some honey and ground cinnamon on your bread every breakfast. It will reduce the cholesterol in your blood and prevent the risk of heart attack. Even people who had had heart attack before, if they consumed honey and cinnamon everyday, it will prevent them from the second attack.
Others honey’s benefits include treatment for hair-fall, cure for bladder infection, tooth-ache, flu, infertility, stomach-ache, bad breath, fatigue, cancer, overweight, blemishes, and a lot more.
How to Choose the Honey with Good Quality
In many occasions, we often hear that there are the “original” and the “unoriginal” honey. Actually, there is no such thing as the “original” and “unoriginal” honey. All honey is original, because it is only produced by the bees. So, there are only honey with good or high quality, and honey with bad or low quality.
It is very difficult sensory to be able to find out whether the honey sold in the market has high or low quality. It has to be tested in the laboratory. But don’t worry, so you will not be tricked in buying honey, there are some characteristics that define the quality of honey.
Honey with fine quality usually has a very high level of viscosity. It must not also have foams, because it shows that the honey has experienced the fermentation process which made the quality turn poor.
The people’s perception to test the quality of honey by filling it in a bottle, then if the bottle explode it means good honey, is also a mistake. Testing honey by using ants also can’t be trusted.
Raw honey that has not been pasteurized, clarified, or filtered – provided it is of the highest organic quality – is your best choice. Look for honey that states “100% pure.” While regular honey is translucent, creamy honey is usually opaque and is made by adding finely crystallized honey back into liquid honey. Specialty honeys, made from the nectar of different flowers, such as thyme and lavender, are also available. Remember that the darker the color, the deeper the flavor. You might also look for darker-colored “honeydew” varieties produced by bees that collect the sugary secretions insects leave on plants, which is called honeydew.
So when are you going to start consuming honey?