Though mostly sugar, honey has some real health benefits

Most of us know that bees make it, and it’s super sweet… but HOW do they make it? And is it really good for us? Can it actually help us cure a cold?! Beyond old wives’ tales, honey actually has some real health benefits.

What is Honey Made of?

This sweet, sappy nectar is made mostly of sugar and water. While it does contain vitamins, minerals, and all sorts of pollen, honey is still about 95-99% sugar (more specifically, fructose and glucose ). Wow! But as far as a sweetener goes it’s not all bad. Honey has some probiotic properties that are known to help with your gut health and gut bacteria. Additionally, honey is also rich in vitamins, minerals, and enzymes that help you digest food… which is why we’re talking about it.

How is Honey Made?

Believe it or not, and like it or not, natural-made beehive honey (the good stuff), actually comes from bee vomit (gross, right?!).

Bees have a second stomach they use as storage when extracting and storing the delicious flower nectar they collect along the way. From there, bees transfer the nectar to their bee friends, who pass it to their bee friends, until someone finally deposits it in the beehive. This area is known as the “honeycomb” and the bees cool the honey here by beating their wings. This cooling effect helps dry the honey and makes it thicker.

Is There a Risk in Eating Honey?

There is no huge risk in eating pasteurized honey as a healthy adult, but the National Institutes of Health reports that raw honey can cause food poisoning, particularly if you are already immune-compromised. It’s especially dangerous to give raw honey to infants under the age of one which may cause infant botulism, a rare but serious gastrointestinal sickness caused by exposure to bacterial spores. Infant botulism can be life-threatening.

Can Honey Help Cure Your Allergies?

Unfortunately, experts show that while honey can have small doses of pollen mixed in, there is no hard evidence that ingesting pollen can teach your body to not react to it during allergy season. One reason may be that flower pollen isn’t usually the big culprit during allergy season, which is what the bees are after. More likely it is the trees, grass, and weeds to blame those nasty allergies on.

Honey Can Help Heal a Wound

The ancient Greeks and Romans used to dress their war wounds with honey, as did Russians and Germans in World War I. The thinking behind this is it prevents important moisture from escaping while keeping dirt and bacteria out. It also prevents the bandages from sticking to the wound. These days we have a plethora of modern remedies ranging from Vaseline to intensive antibiotic ointments but knowing how honey has been used throughout the ages is fascinating.

Other Benefits of Honey

On top of healing and dressing wounds, honey can help with a variety of ailments, including pink eye, diarrhea, and athlete’s foot. Since it’s packed with vitamins, minerals and antioxidants that are considered anti-inflammatory, it can also help reduce bacteria in the body, while fighting off some pretty nasty things. Albeit a little messy, in a pinch, it does the trick.

How Much Effort Goes into Making Honey?

On top of transferring the honey and keeping it cool in the beehive, honey bees need to visit about two million flowers to make one pound of honey. Luckily, bees work together to fill their hives collectively. Sounds like a lot of work, especially since they’re pretty tiny creatures. The color and flavor of honey are dependent upon the type of flowers the bees visited… it's always fun to choose a particular flavor based upon favorite flowers. Lucky for us we don't need to visit two million flowers to enjoy honey; just check out the many varieties of flavors in your food store or at Farmer’s markets. Both the Portland Farmer’s Market and the Santa Monica Farmer’s Markets have great varieties of flower flavored kinds of honey.

While honey may be a minor food on the scale of what we eat, and of course like any sugar overconsumption can contribute to weight gain, it is packed with some great benefits. Used as an occasional sweetener honey can provide adults and children over the age of one with a variety of health benefits.

What's the Sticky on Honey?