What is there to know about honey other than it’s made by bees and sticky? You’d be surprised!
Honey creates hydrogen peroxide when the water from the honey combines with the salt from the skin – it is still used all over the world for medicinal purposes.
Cleopatra took regular honey baths to maintain her complexion!
Its the only food that contains “pinocembrin”, an antioxidant associated to improving brain functioning.
I had no idea!!!
As customers strolled through the Marietta Farmer’s Market on the Square, on a spring morning, with a chill in the air and lots of sunshine, I met up with Brian Higgins, owner of Home Town Honey and talked honey.
The first thing I noticed was his passion and enjoyment of the topic. Some years back, Brian and his wife moved out of the “city” ( suburb of Atlanta) to Kennesaw, which at the time had no town square or major interstate. It now has both and is one of the larger suburbs of Atlanta! With farming in his family history, Brian planted a garden now that they were in the country. In addition to the standard vegetables, the garden included fruit trees – plums, olives and pomegranates. But Brian soon realized he had a problem. The fruit trees would bloom but no fruit would be produced. Assuming it was due to the red Georgia clay, since it was very different from the black dirt he grew up farming in the Mid-West, Brian called the department of agriculture to come out and help him correct it. Lo and behold, they told him it wasn’t the dirt, but the lack of honey bees to properly pollenate the trees! So, he ordered a box of bees! Yes, honey bees are delivered in the mail, in a 3 lb box with 1 queen. The next year he had blooms and fruit!
The success started his bee and honey passion. He started getting involved in different associations, attending conferences and learning from the experts. Today, Brian has much more than a box of bees, it is his full time vocation! Home Town Honey is made mainly from blackberries, tulips, privet, wild persimmon, star thistle, locus, and clover. Along with his family and 4 part time employees, they collect, bottle and distribute their honey products to nearly 50 stores, local farmer’s markets and via their online store.
http://www.honeytown.com
You can also visit the website to learn about the in-school field trips he provides by bringing a hive to a class.
As we talked more about his operation, I learned some fun facts about honey and pollen:
Honey:
-It is the nectar that is harvested by the bees directly from the plant
-Bees store it in separate parts of hive, organized by the flower
-Bees keep the hive at a constant temperature of 92 and half degrees by flapping their wings. This heats up the nectar and dehydrates it to less
than 18% moisture
Pollen:
-Is collected from the flowers by bees as well but is separate from the nectar but organized like nectar by flowers
-It contains protein, amino acids, antioxidants and vitamins.
-It is what bees feed to their babies.
-It gets mixed in the with nectar/honey in the hive has part of the movement and drying process that occurs in the hive
We’ve heard for a while that honey is good for allergies, but we’ve been hearing more and more about honey being good for you in other ways but why and how? Well, Brian had some great insight into that honey related topic as well!
Honey is filled with antioxidants and has antibacterial properties. It has as no additive and contains live enzymes. There is actually some research showing that its more about the live enzymes helping allergies than the pollen.
It is great for your for skin. Create a honey mask to hydrate and repair or take a honey milk bath, as Cleopatra did! Add 1/4 cup of honey to a warm bath. Or mix 2 tablespoons honey with 2 tablespoons mils, smooth over face, leave on for 10 minutes and rinse off with warm water.
It can be used as a cure for sinus infections, ear infections and UTIs. And, it can be used like the antibiotic Cipro to combat anthrax!
Outside of the US it is being used to treat burns, scars and other traumas. Honey keeps the skin moist but not so much to allow bacteria growth. It allows bandages to be changed with reduced pain and creates its own hydrogen peroxide when the water from the honey combines with the salt from the skin! Brian told the story of a guy who had a vat of hot wax blow up on him. The guy immediately jumped in a 55 gallon container of honey for 10-15 minutes and he suffered no infection or scaring!
Honey can be consumed plain, in baking, cooking or via honey sticks. Honey sticks are used by athletes for the energy boost needed in events, similar to sports goo and shot blocks. Because honey contain glucose and fructose, not the sucrose of white sugar, the body breaks it down slower and stuides have found better results from athletes who consume honey water instead of sports drinks. http://everydayroots.com/homemade-energy-drink
Brian has students at the local colleges who buy honey sticks to use before exams as they say it wakes up their brain to perform better. Brian’s favorite use of honey is in his BBQ sauce! Each year, he and his family return to Kansas over the 4th of July holiday and do a big BBQ. It’s one of the only holidays when they get away due to the schedule of owning their business. They boil the ribs, then place on a smoker with hickory chips. They coat the ribs with a mixture of equal parts bbq sauce and honey and then add a few spices such as ginger and hot sauce! Check out this great salad dressing http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/honey-dressing-50400000133826/ that can double as a marinate.
Popular ways to consume pollen are in fruit drinks or smoothies. You should start slowly, with 6 pellets, and gradually increase by 2 additional pellets a day to reach 1 teaspoon. Be careful when consuming as it can cause a reaction, similar to the allergic reaction some experience with the yellow dust each spring. Pollen also contains such a high concentration of b vitamins it can cause substantial increase in energy and cause lack of sleep. Pollen can be bitter or sweet depending on the types of flowers it comes from.
With all these great uses and benefits, let’s load up, right? Brian offered a some insights to consider when buying honey.
Be very careful when purchasing honey that is from outside the US. In the US, honey is considered a food and is regulated by USDA standards and requires a license. Outside the US, especially in China and India, it doesn’t. Most honey imported from these countries is 49% honey and declared in customs to be honey syrup as the remaining % is sugar, water and additives. Once in the US, they add enough honey to make it over 50% allowing it to be sold as honey and still circumvent import taxes.
Brain recommends buying honey labeled “100% pure honey” which means it doesn’t have any water or sugar added. Some labels will misdirect you by using the term “pure honey”, but that can really mean it only has 1 drop of honey with the rest being water, sugar and additives. While there is currently no legal definition of honey, even in the US, Brian defines it as ” nectar from the flowers, collected by the honey bees and dried by the bees to be contain less than 18% moisture.”
In order to receive the full benefit of honey, you want to purchase honey that is raw or that has not been pasteurized. Pasteurization is when honey has been heated to 180 degrees for several hours. This kills the enzymes and antioxidant/antibacterial properties contained in honey. Most of the honey available for purchase in your local grocery has been pasteurized. You can usually find raw honey at local markets or health food stores.
And, I know you’ve read to the end to get the answer to the question, “Don’t you get stung all the time?” and “Doesn’t it hurt?”.
Not to Brian! He equates a bee sting to mosquito bites. He explained that honey bees leave their stinger when they bite you and that continues to emit the poison. But if you flick it out, it doesn’t continue to hurt. Bees are unlike wasp or yellow jackets who don’t leave their stinger in you but inject the poison directly into you and there is no way to get it out.
Now you know the low down on honey and how easy it is to make it a part of your life to enjoy the many wonders of it!
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