Honey is great alternative for sweetening tea or coffee, a smoothie or English Muffins, but did you know there are health benefits in your honey?
Raw honey has many healthy qualities and can be used in several other ways then just sweetening your drinks and goodies.
Why Raw?
Raw honey is honey fresh from the comb. It’s not pasteurized and therefore is still full of healthy enzymes. It is said that store-bought pasteurized honey is no better than white sugar. The heat from pasteurization kills the beneficial enzymes rendering them useless to the body.
After I first became a label reader, I remember taking my grandmother shopping. She asked me to grab her honey, you know the kind, in the cute little bear shaped container. It actually said “Honey flavored product” on the back of it. It wasn’t even real honey! I was shocked.
This was pivotal for me, I mean you can’t even pick up honey anymore and just get honey. I couldn’t find her a better alternative at that store so she was stuck with her “honey product.”
I started using raw honey about two years ago and could not believe the taste difference as compared to store-bought. Where I shop they sell a variety of raw honeys each with a slightly different taste. Our favorite is wild flower honey with clover honey being a close second.
My Top 10
As I researched honey I was surprised to find so many benefits beyond sweetening. Here are 1o things I found beneficial to my family.
1. Wound treatment
Because of its antibacterial properties honey has been used for centuries to treat wounds and help prevent infection.
2. Soothing a Sore Throat
Honey is an excellent natural alternative to cough medicine as it can reduce cough and sooth that sore throat.
3. Preventing Allergies
Taking a few teaspoons of local, raw honey per day before and during allergy season can prevent your allergy symptoms. This works on the basis of “like cures like” and the reason that your honey should be local. Local honey has a higher likelihood to contain triggers for your allergy symptoms.
I have had the “best” allergy season this past spring, taking OTC meds only once as compared to years past when I took them as often as daily. I’ve also had little flair up of my Oral Allergy Syndrome this season as well.
4. Sunburn
If you get sunburn, you can apply a thin layer of honey to help the skin heal.
5. Acne
Applied as a spot treatment at night, honey will improve your skin’s appearance in little time.
6. Fight Indigestion
Take a teaspoon or two to help fight indigestion.
7. Mineral Benefits
Raw honey contains several minerals that the body needs including Potassium, Magnesium, Zinc and Iron.
8. Vitamins
Honey naturally contains vitamins B2, B3, B5, B6 and vitamin C.
9 Constipation
When mixed with apple cider vinegar raw honey can help relieve constipation naturally.
10. Antiseptic
Raw honey is antiseptic which means it prevents the growth of disease-causing microorganisms. Used topically, unlike other antiseptics it won’t damage your skin.
**This post has been entered in Frugal Days and Sustainable Ways.**
What ways other than sweetening have you used honey? Share your uses below!
Until Next Time,
Be Blessed
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TESTING!
I LOVE that I’m able to find raw honey locally…. my favorite breakfast is ezekiel toast with butter, honey, and cinnamon, and I love that it has so many health benefits!
We use it for allergies. It’s the bomb-diggity!
“Bomb-diggity!” Love that!! LOL
Love honey! we use it daily! yummm…
I love honey I use it for allergies mixed with a little raw organic apple cider vinegar. I have recently made an allergy, flu, and other bacterial/viral medication with it that really works. My husband recently got sick and I have been taking it and didn’t get his cold which used to never happen. I would always get sick! http://ablossominglife.blogspot.com/2012/06/natural-remedy-for-allergies-flu-asthma.html
I haven’t been able to find a source for local honey, so I’ve mostly just skimmed all the advice about it being useful for allergies, but your mention of your oral allergy symptoms caught my attention because this is the first year I’ve suffered from them, and it’s making me CRAZY — all day, every day, itchy mouth. I may just try the raw honey I have for a week or so — local or not — to see if it helps!
It can be really hard for people to find raw honey as the word raw is interpreted by beekeepers differently. If you want the rawest honey look and ask for unheated, unpasteurized, and unfiltered, raw honey. There are many local beekeepers that will take the extra time and effort to keep it raw.
I’m so lucky raw honey is available around my home area. It is delicious and with the benefits I have read on this page it is extra good for me also. Which reminds me to buy another bottle at our Farmer’s Market. Thanks for the 10 great tips.
Excellent for stings. Scrape the stinger out and apply a thin coat of raw honey. Kills the pain almost instantly.
Try washing your face with raw honey! Put about 1 tablespoon in your palm, add about 1 to 2 teaspoons of baking soda then scrub your face.
I have never needed lotion on my face since I started doing this.
Wow really!? I’ll have to give that a try. Thanks for the tip.
If Raw honey is full of enzymes because they have not been exposed to high heat – does that mean you can not use it in bake goods. Does baking destroy the enzymes?
You *can* use it for baking, but yes, it will destroy the enzymes. Some research has shown it is harmful to consume heated honey, so I try not to do this.
I have the same question. I’ve bought raw honey in the past because I’ve heard how much better it is for you, but then I realized that most of the ways I use it (hot tea, baked good ingredient, etc;) were _hot_ applications…which means that I’m killing off the enzymes, even if I went to the expense to get them to my house. Does it make sense to buy cheaper pasturized honey for tea, but use raw/local honey for toast and such? Or is there still some benefit to using the raw even in heated applications?
The major benefit is that it is pure honey. Grocery store honey may be adulterated or ultra-filtered which is not so good. If you find less expensive good honey that isn’t raw that is fine — some farms offer both.
I LOVE HONEY
My daughter, who hates toothpaste, uses Manuka honey to brush her teeth and it has been working great.
For honey to be effective against allergies, it MUST be local to you! Honey produced in another area will help if you go to that area, but if there’s something to which you’re allergic that isn’t in the other area, it won’t help.
Not to be crude, but raw honey applied topically to the nether regions in the event of a yeast infection or other infection of the mucous membranes is more effective than ANY miconazole-type treatment.
We use raw honey in place of Neosporin-type antibiotics on our bandaids… from cut to healed in DAYS!