All about honey, usage, benefits and best brands available

Honey –

Honey is a popular pronoun given to someone you love. Just kidding ???? although that is also true. Honey is a gooey liquid produced by honeybees. It is the only thing produced by an insect which humans consume. Since it comes from bees it is not vegan. More on how bees produce honey, later in this article.

History of honey is as old as honey itself. In India honey has been in use since ages as medicine or medicine carrier. Ayurveda – the ancient Indian text about medicine mentions honey as a very potent medicine in various health problems. There are multiple types of honey which is mentioned in Ayurveda based on type of its producer bees and the food they eat. Few old rock-paintings depict the collection of from honey from the nest of the wild bees. These paintings are considered as old as 11000 BCE. So, we can say that honey has been in human use since time immemorial.

In this article we will delve into what is honey, how it is made, its types, usage, and benefits. We will also take a look at the popular questions about honey and also, we will see some of the best brands of honey available in India.

Disclaimer: This article is not sponsored by any brands. The information published is combination of my own research from various sources and my personal opinions.

Health Benefits –

Honey is said to have a numerous health benefit. Honey is a good source of antioxidants, good source of micronutrients, amino acids, and enzymes. It has, antiseptic, antibacterial, and antifungal properties. Due to all the reasons above plus various others honey is considered to be very good for Healing wounds, reducing inflammation, giving protective effect for respiratory, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular and nervous system. It is considered helpful for digestive issues and sore throat or cough problems too.

Ayurveda lists its health benefits as good for eyes, aids digestion, good for throat whether it is for some infections or for people who uses their throat a lot like singers, professors etc. Ayurveda also says it is very good for all kinds for skin problems, bleeding problems whether internal or external. Ayurveda also notes honey’s effectiveness for initial stages of diabetes, weight loss, worm treatment, respiratory problems and digestive issue.

Usage –

Honey can be used as the carrier for many herbal medicines. But in your day to day use you can use it with water or as sweetener. But always be careful that honey should never be used with anything hot. Neither it should be heated, nor it should be used before or after anything hot. Ayurveda tells us that heating up honey makes it a poison. Science today also says that when honey is heated it produces a chemical named HMF which can be poisonous for health. Also heating destroys all the enzymes and nutrients and hence the defeat the purpose of taking honey in the first place.

So, never cook honey or mix it with anything hot nor take anything hot before or after taking honey. Also, take it in the small quantity. Ayurveda says honey is good when taken in small quantity only. So, a teaspoon a day should be sufficient for us unless suggested otherwise by your health practitioner.

Before getting to know the best honey and their brands lets take a look at some doubts surrounding honey –

Can honey go off? Does honey have any expiry date?

No, raw and unfiltered honey doesn’t expire, in fact older is better. Provided it is stored well. Honey should be stored in an airtight container and should be used with dry spoons only. It should not be stored in any plastic container.

When honey turns into sugar? When honey goes hard?

Since honey is primarily sugar, it starts crystalizing over a period of time. The amount of time it takes to crystalize will depend a lot on the environment condition in which it is stored. It also depends on the nectar used by honeybees to make the honey.  In most part of India, it may take around 6 moths for the crystallization of honey.

Why honey crystalizes?

There are two kind of sugars which are primarily found in honey, glucose and fructose. It is natural process that sugar can come out of such solutions over time and honey is no exception. Also, low water content present in honey and presence of bits of pollen in raw honey make it a lot easier for the sugar in honey to crystalize. Hence a filtered honey takes a lot longer to crystalise than the non-filtered ones.

So, it is a good sign that your honey is crystalizing because it indicates that it is pure and unfiltered.

Can you still eat honey after crystallization?

Yes, crystalized honey is still honey you can still use just like you were using it earlier. But if you must have your honey in the liquid honey, maybe you can place your jar of honey in the warm water. Please do not make the water too hot, as honey should not be heated.

Now let’s look at the process by which honey as knowing the process let us help chose the best brands too.

Also read: everything you need to know about ghee, usage, benefits and best brands available.

How is honey made?

As we know that honey is made by honeybees. People make bee farms where they keep bees in boxes. They make arrangement in a wooden structures in which honeybees make their comb. Honeybees collect nectar from different flowers and plant and take it to their comb where they make honey with that.

Once honey is made in the comb, beekeepers take the comb out of the box one by one. These combs are usually sealed by bees with bee-wax. These combs are then scraped either manually or with machine to remove the wax.

Fun fact – this scrapped wax is also used in many medicines and cosmetics too.

Combs are now open with lots of honey stored in the mini hexagonal holes of the comb. These combs are now placed inside another machine called honey extractor, which rotates them. Rotation causes honey to spill out of the combs and then it is collected in a storage tank.

At this stage honey is raw and unfiltered. If you see the label raw and unfiltered in your honey jar it means honey was bottled at this stage. From here honey goes through a series of filtration and pasteurization process. Some filters just use gravity and others use pressure too. Filtration removes all the pollen available in the unfiltered honey which is the powerhouse of phytochemicals in honey. These pollens make honey anti-bacterial and anti-microbial. Then pasteurization involves heating up the honey and then rapidly cooling it down. This process is done to give it a smooth consistency and increased shelf life. But this process also destroys enzymes and micronutrients present in the honey. Hence the honey you get after this process is not the honey you are looking for health benefits.

What does the term ‘organic’ signifies in honey –

Organic honey means the plants and the flowers from where honeybees take their nectar are grown organically.

Types of honey –

There are different types of honey available in the market. We have already looked into two different kinds i.e., organic vs nonorganic and raw and unfiltered vs processed and pasteurized. The other difference comes from the variety of things on which honeybees are fed such as Manuka honey – For farming this honey, honeybees are fed on manuka flowers. Similarly, there are Jamun Honey, eucalyptus honey, firewood honey, acacia honey and there are many more. On one hand, all these different honeys are similar, but they have their distinct use as well. Some are more beneficial than others for some particular problems. We will not get into the details of the each and every single one. But there are following type which are more popular, and we should know what they are –

Wild Honey or forest honey or wild forest honey –

This honey is made when honeybees pick their nectar from wildflowers or from the honeydew of forest trees such as oak trees. Many times, they are prepared by nomadic bees which are not part of controlled population. If you are looking for healthier and easily available honey, I think this is the one you should go for. These honeys come with the label as ‘Wild Honey’, ‘Forest Honey’ or sometimes with ‘Wild Forest Honey’. Although these are slightly different but mostly these names are used interchangeably.

Multi Floral Honey –

This means bees in this farm pick their nectar from not one but multiple types of flowers. This is also a good option and among the easily available ones.

Mono Floral Honey –

This means the that bees are fed on only one type of flower while making their honey. One of the best honey in this category is Manuka honey which is made with Manuka flowers.

Also read: everything you need to now about coconut oil, usage, benefits and best brands.

Best available brands in India

So, the honey you are looking for to buy is organic raw and unfiltered and possibly forest honey or at least multifloral. Also, NMR tested is good standard of pure quality in India. Best brands for these honeys are as follows –

Extra Nuggets about honey

Is honey good for weight loss.

As mentioned earlier, honey is good for weight loss, but there is this current trend that people uses honey with warm water and lemon which is not good. As emphasized that honey should never be mixed with anything hot. If you want to try this combination, then the ideal way that you heat the water up and then cool it down then mix honey with that.

Honey vs Maple syrup –

There is this growing trend of cutting down on sugar, so people tend to look for the alternatives of the same and many times people turn to maple syrup or honey as alternative sweetener to their drinks and smoothies. So, which one should you use?

I believe one should go for maple syrup as sugar’s alternative. Although there are various comparison available as to which has more calorie and nutrients, but my personal take is that one should treat honey as medicine not as sugar alternative. You cannot keep pouring honey in everything just like sugar just because you found out that it is healthier than sugar.

How honeybees make honey

It is an interesting process to know. Honeybees eat/drink the nectar and store that inside their ‘Honey Stomach’. There begins the process of breaking the complex sugar of nectar into the simpler ones by adding the digestive enzymes. One this process completes honeybee then vomit it into another honeybee’s ‘Honey Stomach’. Same process happens there and then gets repeated several times over. Once complete, Bees finally vomit it into the comb’s special hexagonal structure. Then bees fan this honey with their wings so that water content evaporates and all we are left with pure honey. So, yeah honey is basically honeybee’s puke. Isn’t it interesting?

Also Read : GHEE, Everything you need to know, doubts and best available brands.