Honey is amazing! I just had a tablespoon prior to publishing this post.
I chopped 2 cloves of garlic to mix with my second spoon. But I’m allowing the chopped garlic to be exposed to the air for about 10 – 15 minutes to get the maximum health benefits.
I’m learning more about nature’s gift of honey every day, God’s gift. This is yet another example of how I view Health as Spiritual. Most of the things that are healing for us, physically, mentally, and spiritually, are of God. Honey, Bees, and Garlic are directly from the Divine Spirit.
While doing research for this post, I found how incredible bees are in producing it. I’ll elaborate on that below.
I knew of many of honey’s health benefits. I consume it almost every day, but in different ways, and in different strengths, depending on the need.
I add it to warm water, and lemon juice, first thing in the morning as a daily detox, and to reduce digestive stomach acids.
I put it directly on cuts and abrasions.
I mix honey with freshly chopped garlic as a treatment for colds, flu, or just to boost immunity. This is highly recommended during the pandemic, and especially with the unknowns surrounding Omicron. When I mix it with freshly chopped garlic, I follow this as a regiment for 5 – 7 days.
Sometimes I take honey in a teaspoon with essential oils like clove, lavender, and peppermint.
Otherwise, I use it as a food and sweetener. Most of the time, I just swirl it on fresh fruit for breakfast or I just take it raw.
I love honey. It is a part of my regular health regiment.
Honey is good to me, and good for me, as you may agree after reading this post.
I believe that honey is one of those natural medicines that’s clearly created by God, along with garlic, turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, as a gift to us. As I became more of a believer in natural healing, I simultaneously was becoming closer to spirit, self, and creativity. Now I see all these dimensions as connected.
It is easy for me to see God’s grace in the blessing of honey given its incredible properties.
Please appreciate that it is my deep belief that alternative treatments will not work if you do not believe in them. This applies to most things in life, including in using western medicines. That’s why it makes me apprehensive when providing health recommendations or propagating alternative therapies, in spite of them working for me.
I cannot train a person how to believe. I can’t give them Spirituality either, which is also another important element in holistic healing, along with Sleep, Exercise, Nutrition, Stress Management, Water Consumption, etc.
The point is that alternative healing is not a one-off approach. It is multifaceted, 3 dimensional, and takes belief, discipline, and patience over time to be most effective.
Please read our medical disclaimer statement.
5 Things You Didn’t Know About Honey – By Dr. Mercola – October 20, 2014 – 1,750,308 views
Story at-a-glance
- Honey is a blend of sugar, trace enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and amino acids that has antibacterial, anti-fungal, and antioxidant properties
- Honey works as well as dextromethorphan, a common ingredient in over-the-counter cough medications, to soothe cough and related sleeping difficulties
- Unprocessed honey can help treat skin infections, helps wounds heal, and improve dandruff and itchy scalp
- It takes about 60,000 bees, collectively traveling up to 55,000 miles and visiting more than 2 million flowers, to gather enough nectar to make one pound of honey
- Choose raw, unfiltered honey for medicinal properties; most honey on the market is highly processed and may even contain additives like corn syrup
Honey has been valued as a natural sweetener long before sugar became widely available in the 16th century. Honey production flourished in ancient Greece and Sicily, for instance, while animals other than humans – bears, badgers, and more – have long raided honeybee hives, risking stings for the sweet reward.1
Honey is truly a remarkable substance, made even more extraordinary by the process with which it is made. This blend of sugar, trace enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and amino acids is quite unlike any other sweetener on the planet.
And while honey is high in fructose, it has many health benefits when used in moderation (assuming you’re healthy). Before I delve into those, here’s a brief “lesson” on how honey is made…
How Honey Is Made (Fascinating!)
It takes about 60,000 bees, collectively traveling up to 55,000 miles and visiting more than 2 million flowers, to gather enough nectar to make one pound of honey.2
Once the nectar is gathered, the bee stores it in its extra stomach where it mixes with enzymes, and then passes it (via regurgitation) to another bee’s mouth. This process is repeated until the nectar becomes partially digested and is then deposited into a honeycomb.
Once there, the honeybees fan the liquid nectar with their wings, helping the water to evaporate and create the thick substance you know as “honey.” This honeycomb is then sealed with a liquid secretion from the bee’s abdomen, which hardens into beeswax. As Live Science reported:3
“Away from air and water, honey can be stored indefinitely, providing bees with the perfect food source for cold winter months.”
There are more than 300 kinds of honey in the US, each with a unique color and flavor that is dependent upon the nectar source. Lighter-colored honey, such as those made from orange blossoms, tend to be milder in flavor while darker-colored honey, like those made from wildflowers, tends to have a more robust flavor.4
5 Honey Facts You Might Not Know
Honey, particularly in its raw form, offers unique health benefits that you might not be aware of. Among them…
1. Honey Makes Excellent Cough “Medicine”
The World Health Organization (WHO) lists honey as a demulcent, which is a substance that relieves irritation in your mouth or throat by forming a protective film.5
Research shows honey works as well as dextromethorphan, a common ingredient in over-the-counter cough medications, to soothe cough and related sleeping difficulties due to upper respiratory tract infections in children.6
2. Honey Can Treat Wounds
Honey was a conventional therapy in fighting infection up until the early 20th century, at which time its use slowly vanished with the advent of penicillin. Now the use of honey in wound care is regaining popularity, as researchers are determining exactly how honey can help fight serious skin infections.
Honey has antibacterial, antifungal, and antioxidants activities that make it ideal for treating wounds. In the US, Derma Sciences uses Manuka honey for their Medihoney wound and burn dressings.
Manuka honey is made with pollen gathered from the flowers of the Manuka bush (a medicinal plant), and clinical trials have found this type of honey can effectively eradicate more than 250 clinical strains of bacteria, including resistant varieties such as:
- MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)
- MSSA (methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus)
- VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci)
Compared to other types of honey, Manuka has an extra ingredient with antimicrobial qualities, called the Unique Manuka Factor (UMF). It is so-called because no one has yet been able to discover the unique substance involved that gives it its extraordinary antibacterial activity.
Honey releases hydrogen peroxide through an enzymatic process, which explains its general antiseptic qualities, but active Manuka honey contains “something else” that makes it far superior to other types of honey when it comes to killing off bacteria.7
That being said, research shows that any type of unprocessed honey helped wounds and ulcers heal. In one study, 58 of 59 wounds showed “remarkable improvement following topical application of honey.”8
3. Honey Improves Your Scalp
Honey diluted with a bit of warm water was shown to significantly improve seborrheic dermatitis, which is a scalp condition that causes dandruff and itching. After applying the solution every other day for four weeks, “all of the patients responded markedly.” According to the researchers:9
“Itching was relieved and scaling was disappeared within one week. Skin lesions were healed and disappeared completely within 2 weeks. In addition, patients showed subjective improvement in hair loss.”
4. Help Boost Your Energy
A healthy, whole-food diet and proper sleep is the best recipe for boundless energy, but if you’re looking for a quick energy boost, such as before or after a workout, honey can suffice. This is particularly true for athletes looking for a “time-released fuel” to provide energy over a longer duration.10
5. Reduce Allergy Symptoms
Locally produced honey, which will contain pollen spores picked up by the bees from local plants, introduces a small amount of allergen into your system. Theoretically, this can activate your immune system and over time can build up your natural immunity against it.
The typical recommendation is to take about a teaspoon-full of locally produced honey per day, starting a few months PRIOR to the pollen season, to allow your system to build up immunity. And the key here is local.
This approach only works because it has pollen of local plants you may be allergic to. Honey from other parts of the country simply won’t work. While research on this has yielded conflicting results, one study found that, during birch pollen season, compared to the control group, the patients using birch pollen honey experienced:11
- 60 percent reduction in symptoms
- Twice as many asymptomatic days
- 70 percent fewer days with severe symptoms
- 50 percent decrease in usage of antihistamines
Interestingly enough, there were few differences between the two honey groups (those who took regular honey, versus those who took honey that contained birch pollen.) However, the birch pollen honey group used less histamines than those who used regular honey. The authors concluded:
“Patients who pre-seasonally used birch pollen honey had significantly better control of their symptoms than did those on conventional medication only, and they had marginally better control compared to those on regular honey. The results should be regarded as preliminary, but they indicate that birch pollen honey could serve as a complementary therapy for birch pollen allergy.”
Please visit Dr. Mercola’s video library.
You will be very enlightened. Check his and my claims against other reputable sources for your comfort.
Benefits of Manuka Honey – 343,192 views – Dr. Josh Axe – Published on Jun 9, 2015
Honey vs Coronavirus (COVID19). Does it work? Malaysian beekeeper reveals the answer – Mar 13, 2020
Boost Your Immune System with Garlic Infused Honey (recipe) – 1,045,175 views – Natural Cures – Published on Oct 23, 2016
When one experiences Transformation, as I have, they will experience the virtues of Inspiration, Hopefulness, Spirituality, Determination, Patience, Creativity, Healing, Prayer & Meditation, Self-Love, Communion With Nature, and Courage. – Kevy Michaels