If you fancy a food buzz, consider honey. Pun intended.
For many, honey is simply a sticky spread for their toast in the morning; and rightly so. Yet it has so many other uses and nutritious properties that it can and should be considered for many more applications from breakfast time to the moment you go to bed.
First let’s have a look at what honey is.
It is a natural gift from our friends, the bees, whose entire life is focused around the hive, the queen bee and making honey. If there are any Gods, it would indeed be their true elixir.
Such was its importance in the ethereal side of life, according to an article in CNC World, in ancient Georgia, “honey was packed for people’s journeys into the afterlife”. Also, Ancient Egyptian and Middle Eastern peoples used honey for embalming the dead. The fertility god of Egypt, Min, was offered honey.
Gods aside, the magical honey bees bumble around flower beds, apparently with no plan;
but they do have a plan, a very well rehearsed one, and they can be seen in the warmer months busily homing in on various flowers and plants and thorny gorse, seeking out and collecting nectar, to ingest and carry back to the hive, to provide them with enough food in the winter for them to continue to build a well constructed honey-comb that forms their large, shared house with thousands of hexagonal chambers.
I didn’t want to bring this up but if you really want to know, it is a sugary, regurgitated meal. Pun intended. It is a bit like finding out and coming to terms with the fact that your favourite little barbeque savoury is made from the nether regions of swine; or a bit like discovering that the story of the birds and the bees actually applies to your own parents.
We humans collect this honey from bees, on who we depend heavily for pollinating our flora, and we take the honey-combs from the bees, who sort of let us have it but unwillingly. How would you like it if someone popped i
n to your homestead on a regular basis and stole the contents of your fridge and cupboard? Their sting hurts. But we build them a protected hive, charge no rent but in return we get some of their bounty.
But such is the goodness bound up in their golden manufacture that we humans are more than quite prepared to take that risk.
And I’m now going to tell you why.
Honey is a monosaccharide, and is largely fructose and glucose. But it is a sugar that has gone through a completely natural process. So it makes for a very convenient sweetener which when exposed to heat adds a delicious caramel flavour. You can use it to sweeten your more earthy vegetables, take the bitterness away from some beverages and also enhance the fatty flavour of your Sunday pork, chicken or even lamb roast. The runny stuff is ideal for this purpose. There are many distinct flavours, depending on where the bees collect their nectar, from floral, to heavier heather-types, woodland accents, some incredibly sour and others equally sweet, so pick wisely for your own palate.
The remaining constituent parts comprise zinc and vitamin C, a host of B vitamins, protein, iron, potassium, magnesium and of further note calcium. They are all in trace quantities but together they appear to provide the human throat with a layer of sticky protection to help fortify us mortals against throat infections. Zinc and vitamin c are well known and medically proven for their ability to help boost our natural defenses. But the small quantities in honey, perhaps when combined with the sugars and other vitamins and minerals are sufficient to give us a boost. There are many varieties of honey, so find out which one you find tastes best for you, a medicine that tastes good? That HAS to be a winner for parents when administering their poorly child. Manuka honey is reported to be best at that according to Holland and Barrett, but check the flavour first before you buy it, it is for many an acquired taste, as is the price.
Owing to the blend of sugars and about 8 acids, honey has also been dubbed nature’s natural expectorant. If you develop a cloggy cough in the winter, a couple spoonfuls of honey morning noon and night will help you ‘bring up’ the phlegm and mucus. You’ll be better in two shakes of a bees behind.
Furthermore, it is also a recommended herbal and homeopathic remedy to reverse the irritating effects of hay-fever. You don’t see bees sneeze, do ya?!
What is more, and somewhat surprisingly, if applied to a mild dermatological graze, it can function as a topological ‘ointment’ of sorts. It is the hydro peroxide release that acts a mild antiseptic.
The antioxidants in honey also help to reduce the free radicals in our stomach, and even repair stomach 
ulcers, even ones caused by diabetes. People with diabetes should check the glycemic index of honey because if the ulcer is diabetes related, the disease may well be exacerbated by consuming honey on that basis. So, check with your doc first.
But ultimately, the health benefits aside, the best use of honey is just to make your cooking taste so sticky-finger-licking good.
Honey is so clever that it can attract moisture and prevent dehydration, and it also caramelises so beautifully that a good joint of meat will come out of the oven for the better for having been dowsed in honey to your heart’s content.
So go on, content yourself, have a spoonful of the stuff. And see if you can do it without making a mess.
P.S. Please remember to thank the bees for their incredible gift.
cocobela 