Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Source: Real Food For Life

Discover the health benefits of honey – one of the oldest sweeteners on earth, plus some interesting trivia, some great recipes and a few cautions.

Bees swallow, digest, and regurgitate nectar to make honey; this nectar contains almost 600 compounds. We need our bees, so let’s do everything we can to save them and keep them here on this earth.

Honey is so good we have included it in our list of power foods that should be in your kitchen right now.

“My son, eat thou honey, for it is good” — King Solomon – Proverbs: 24:13

Health Benefits of Honey

1. Prevent cancer and heart disease

Honey contains flavonoids, antioxidants that 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 105 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 in improving eyesight, weight loss, curing impotence and premature ejaculation, urinary tract disorders, bronchial asthma, diarrhea, and nausea.

Honey is referred to as “Yogavahi” since it has the 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 white sugar or artificial sweeteners. Its exact combination of fructose and glucose actually helps the body regulate blood sugar levels. Some kinds of honey have a low hypoglycemic index, so they don’t jolt your blood sugar.  Watch this video Sweetener Comparison where I compare stevia, brown rice syrup, honey, molasses, and agave, and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each.

8. Heal wounds and burns

External application of honey has been shown to be as effective as conventional treatment with silver sulfadiazine. It is speculated that the drying effect of the simple sugars and honey’s antibacterial nature combine to create this effect. Studies have shown honey to be very successful in healing wounds.

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. Strengthen the immune system

Manuka Honey has been found to stimulate the production of immune cells according to a study at the School of Medicine, Cardiff University, UK.