Things You Didn't Know About Raw Honey
Honey is loaded with nutrients and antioxidants but is also a great natural sweetener. Many people use honey in their day to day lives, but what about raw honey? Raw honey is honey that is straight from the hive. It hasn’t been heated or pasteurized like most honey is today.
It’s super easy to determine the difference between raw honey and conventional honey. If the honey is transparent, like the clear yellow honey in the honey bear jars, then you know it has been heated and processed. Raw honey is whitish, opaque, thick, and creamy. There are many interesting facts about raw honey, and here are a few.
A looong shelf life
Typically, it’s good to avoid products with an unusually long shelf life because it's typically caused by chemicals and preservatives, but raw honey is different. Raw honey literally lasts forever. Archaeologists have found perfectly preserved pots of honey in thousand-year-old tombs, still fresh. Scientists credit honey’s immortality to its perfect chemical composition: it lacks water, is very acidic, and contains hydrogen peroxide. The key is to keep the honey jar closed- if left open and exposed to air or water, it will spoil.
Group effort
The spoonful of honey you add to your morning tea is the result of some very very busy bees. It takes twelve bees their entire lifetime to produce just one teaspoon of honey!
Heals wounds and infections
Honey was the original wound healing salve. It helps speed healing and prevent infection for all sorts of scrapes, cuts, and burns. If you use honey on an open wound it can minimize scarring, and can even help improve the appearance of old scars through topical application.
Seasonal allergy treatment
Do you suffer from allergies when everything starts to bloom? Well local raw honey that has been made within a few hundred miles of your home, may help reduce seasonal allergies by preparing your immune system to deal with pollen. Vaccines introduce a minute amount of a germ or pathogen into the body to create an immune response that allows you to more effectively fight that same pathogen when exposed to it later in larger amounts. Honey works the same way for your allergies.
One of the oldest farmed foods
Honey was prized in ancient Egypt as a luxury food and medicine, and records show they kept beehives as far back as 700 BC. It’s limited supply and high demand made it expensive, and therefore a food and sweetener enjoyed only by the wealthy. In fact, it was so revered it was used as a sacrifice to the gods.