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We hear a lot about saving honey bees lately (very important!), but what about the honey these bees create?  Honey is sticky, sweet, and a beautiful golden color. But don’t we want to know more about honey?

Did you know that most of the honey that we see in stores is not real honey?  It is generally diluted, pasteurized, and sometimes even completely replaced with high fructose corn syrup! Yuck! 

Even when the honey does come from bees, many times the pasteurization kills all the wonderful benefits it provides.  That is why it is important to get raw honey.

So what is raw honey?  Raw honey is honey that comes straight from the beehive without any heating or pasteurization.  

Raw honey is from the honeycomb of a beehive and has been strained thru a mesh cloth to remove any beeswax or dead bees.  From here is it put straight into a bottle to be enjoyed.

Raw honey contains many health benefits for your body as well.  In fact, it makes an excellent natural alternative for refined sugar, which is a known contributor to diabetes, heart disease and even certain types of cancer.

HEALTH BENEFITS OF RAW HONEY

Honey has been used in medicine and food since long, long ago.  Stone age paintings were traced back to 8,000 years ago depicting the use of honey.  

Honey has a plethora of benefits, which include getting rid of coughs, healing wounds, promoting digestion, fighting diabetes, and warding off seasonal allergies.

Most of the health benefits of honey can be attributed to the antioxidants and enzymes it contains.  Flavonoids and phenolic acids (which act as antioxidants) are found in honey. The type and amount of these compounds depends mostly on the flower source.

Bees collect nectar from flowers and mix it with a special enzyme in their stomachs known as glucose oxidase.  Glucose oxidase breaks the nectar down into two separate compounds called gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide.

Hydrogen peroxide is well known for preventing infections and killing pathogens including mold, fungus, and harmful bacterias. Many hospitals worldwide currently use honey infused bandages to boost wound healing.

Raw honey is loaded with many antioxidants and nutrients for your body.  It is an excellent additive to your diet to get your daily dose of vitamins and minerals naturally.  

According to the National Institute of Health, there are at least 31 vitamins and minerals found in honey including vitamin C, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium, and calcium.  

If you would like to know more about the benefits of honey click here.

RAW HONEY AND HEALTH

Raw honey can be enjoyed by older children and adults.  Honey should never be giving to an infant under 1 year old as their immune systems are not developed enough to handle spores of a bacterium called Clostridium botulinum.  

These spores can germinate in a baby’s immature digestive system and cause infant botulism, a rare but potentially fatal illness.  They are hard to kill even with heat from pasteurization, therefore it is best to avoid honey for infants under 1 year old.

Raw honey is a perfect food.  It can be kept in raw form almost indefinitely.  I prefer to have organic, raw honey to gain the maximum nutrients from honey as well as avoid the pesticides.  I switched to using organic, raw honey when I was fighting to heal from Hashimoto’s disease.

Honey can bee (Get it?!) a health enhancing sweetener in your diet while trying to avoid the health dangers of refined sugar.   

How about you?  Do you use honey and is it raw?