Stay Young, Honey

November 7, 2008 | By JessieM In Natural Beauty |

Can taking honey promote anti-ageing? Well. At least one recent study seemed to say so.

A research carried out on small animals from the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand suggested that diets sweetened with honey may be beneficial in decreasing anxiety and improving memory during ageing. The beneficial effects may be due to the antioxidant properties of honey. So says the research funded by a honey sweetened yogurt company that honey-fed rats seemed to hold up better to the effects of aging.

When it comes to serious infections, manuka honey is particularly valuable because it has a much better anti-bacterial activity than other honey. “When I cut my finger with a chainsaw quite deeply, quite a wide cut, I just put honey straight on it, wrapped it up and kept on working for the rest of the day — there’s not a mark on it,” according to Professor Peter Molan, from the University Of Waikato says.

There has been some natural healing goodness about this natural sweetener. The fact is honey is 25 percent sweeter than ordinary table sugar. The sugar in honey is mainly fructose like fruit sugar.

But what is this honey goodness that can can help us to stay younger?

Firstly, honey is beneficial for a wide range of body structures and functions. For one thing, honey comes with lots of antioxidants and B vitamins. These include thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B-12, and biotin. Along with vitamins, there are minerals, minute amount of 18 amino acids and a number of live enzymes too.

Having said the health promoting goodness of honey, one should not rush to buy any honey that are on sale in our local stores. Not all honey are nutrionally pure as some may even contain added sugar. I have heard that some bees have been forced fed with High Fructose Corn Syrup to ensure that these little insects can produce honey all year round. The result is we get poor quality honey that are nutritionally lacking. There are honey that are pasteurized to kill germs so the honey produced are again enzyme lacking.

Honey very often is used as a natural sweetener to be added to food or consumed on its own, thus we have to be aware of the sugar effect on the insulin level in our body when eaten. In most recipes, one can use organic maple corn syrup or some stevia herb as an alternative.