What's in honey??
We will start with honey, just raw unpasteurized honey. Honey is simply amazing! So amazing it has been used since the beginning of time for more than just food purposes. There’s more than just honey in a jar, there’s also bits of propolis, beeswax, royal jelly, and bee pollen and each one is packed full of benefits with lots of scientific research to back it up.
Many compounds make up honey, such as carbs, traces of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, enzymes, and other acids. The Carbs found in honey are Fructose, Glucose, Sucrose, Maltose, Isomatose, Turanose, KojibZiose, and Oligosaccharides, these make up 82% of honey. Vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants make up 0.5% of honey the vitamins are: Riboflavin, Niacin, Folic Acid, Pantothenic Acid, B6, Ascorbic Acid (vitamin C). The minerals are Calcium, Iron, Zinc, Potassium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, Selenium, Chromium, Manganese. You also have other traces of acid compounds that are in honey, those are acetic, butanoic, formic, citric, succinic, lactic, malic, pyroglutamic, gluconic and many aromatic acids. Sounds like allot in honey but most of these acids and carbs are already in fruits and veggies that we eat daily that are good for us and our bodies need. Honey is a superfood and without us eating honey, bees die and without bees, we die as well, there is a reason why honey is referred to as liquid gold!
There are good enzymes in honey as well, those get destroyed once you heat the honey past 40ᴼC and becomes pure sugar. When you see the word pasteurized that means it has been heated past that temp and all the enzymes are gone, resulting in just another sweetener. Although we don’t usually want pasteurized honey it is good for any children under the age of one years old. Babies under the age of one have a high chance of getting botulism because they don’t have enough good gut bacteria to fight off the spores, were as anyone over the age of 1 is completely safe to consume honey. If you have any worries about honey and your baby consult a physician or pharmacist before giving them honey. Below is a list of the enzymes and what their benefits are.
Honey can be used in many many different ways, there’s in foods such as baking! I use honey when I make crepes instead of sugar, my son likes to do all sorts of baking and instead of sugar we use honey in everything we bake. Honey is great in beverages, coffee in the morning with honey is a great start to the day, honey is a great boost of energy to start the day with. When you come in from shoveling that dredge full snow, hot chocolate made with real cocoa and honey will make all that work worth it. Enjoying the sun on a hot summer day with a mojito in hand made from real honey is always a must around here. When it comes to children and veggies honey is a great way to get those nutrient-packed greens into them, honey on brussel's sprouts, carrots, asparagus, broccoli are to die for! If you eat meats they also go great on any of them, you truly can't go wrong when it comes to a good ol’ BBQ glazed meat.
When my little's get sick we live off honey in this house, it's our comfort drink and medicine on those dark days when we are ill. Honey coats the throat and makes it more moisturized and helps alleviate coughs. I also use it on our skin religiously, so much so we always have a tub on hand that’s NOT for cooking. Because of its healing properties we put them on our small cuts, burns, we use it for dry scalp, hives, and eczema. Honey is very sticky and although it comes out of anything with water very easy, cleanups aren’t fun, I will lather my kids with honey in the bath and once they come out they are silky smooth and moisturized, even with eczema we will either bath with honey on our skin or wrap the spot up for a hour or so and voila! Major improvement. Honey is great for fur babies as well, they are great for small cuts, wounds or other skin issues they suffer with. Although this isn’t the most extensive list of benefits honey may help with, here are a few:
- Lowering blood pressure
- Improve cholesterol
- Lower triglycerides
- Increase blood flow/reduce the risk of blood clot formation
- Promotes burn and wound healing
- Cough suppressant, especially in children
- Aids with weight loss
- Boosts immune system
- Supports development of good gut bacterial
- Reduces fatigue and boosts energy
- Helps restore vision (carrots and honey together)
- Relieves ulcers, gastritis, colitis
- Kills acne bacteria
- Purifies liver and colon from parasites
- It helps with anxiety, depression.
- Helps with dandruff, eczema, dermatitis
- Relieve tooth pain
- Helps bad breath
- Helps cure hangovers
- Helps to sleep better
- Arthritis
- Lowers duration of diarrhea
Honey Ezymes |
|
Diastase |
Turns starch into maltose |
Invertase |
Converts sucrose to glucose and fructose
|
Glucose oxidase |
Converts glucose to gluconactone in turn yields gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide |
Catalase |
Converts peroxide to water and oxygen
|
Acid Phosphotase |
Removes phosphates from organic phosphates |
Proteases (proteolytic enzymes) |
Hydrolyses proteins and polypeptides to yield peptides of lower molecular weight |
Esterase |
Breaks down ester bonds |
Β-Glucosidase |
Converts β-glucans to oligosaccharides and glucose (β bonds) |