For many decades humans have continued to extract honeycombs from the nest of honeybees.
Honey serves as an essential ingredient in daily food consumption and some processed drugs.
The honeybees play a major role in pollination of flowers, They use the proboscis like a straw (their tongue) to slurp the nectar from the depth of the blossom. The hive consists of only one Queen bee, a few hundred drones and thousands of workers.
The result of all their toil is that sweet and healthy thing we consume as food and sometimes used in place of sugar. It could be spread on muffins and bread and many more.
According to nutritionists and other health practitioners, honey consumption is beneficial to human health as it boosts the brain and helps it to function properly. This is because honey is the only food that contains ‘pinocembrin’, a great antioxidant and antibacterial agent.
Honey also works as a great remedy for flu and sore throat; this can be done by adding some quantity inside hot water with some lemon, it gives fast relieve for flu.
In summary, honey benefits include serving as antioxidant, ingredient for skin care product; soaps, face scrubs, healing balm for wounds, natural hair treatment and it is used by some mothers with shea butter as body moisturizer for babies.
All the above benefits can be derived from the raw and undiluted honey.
The dangerous thing, however, is that people most often buy and consume sugar thinking they are consuming honey.
This is dangerous for many people, especially for diabetic patients, who in the process of avoiding sugar and opting for honey, only end up buying and consuming diluted and pasteurised sugar sold in the place of honey in many stores and business outlets.
It is really sad for someone, whether diabetic or not, who thought eating honey instead of sugar has been a safe play, to ironically end up consuming more sugar through diluted honey.
What is pure honey?
This refers to unpasteurized honey straight from apiculturist apiary which can be filtered and unfiltered. This type of honey is pure extract that contains honeycomb particles in it and some honeybees present in it.
Some researchers also say that the color of pure honey varies depending on the flower nectar the bees gathered because there are species of flower plant that gives best honey.
My discovery in search of pure honey
My last effort to purchase pure honey gave me the opportunity to ask some questions on how to differentiate pure honey from diluted and pasteurised one.
The honey seller I want to buy from, a 60-year-old woman, she had been in the business of honey selling since she was 13 years.
With ‘fake’ honey everywhere, I was in serious doubt, so I interrogated to know if her honey was raw because I wanted to gift it out to elderly people.
The seller brought out two different gallons filled with honey. She poured them in two different small cups, placing them side by side it is my turn to tell which is pure and diluted.
I saw that they are both honey, I tasted both and they both have sweet taste but their end taste was quite different.
Often you hear people say that ‘to know pure honey from the diluted one, get a match and strike it”. I did that and they both got lit up.
Except your very familiar with honey, getting to buy pure honey from a seller who has both diluted and undiluted is not easy. Even if you are able to differentiate from the two, a seller who wants to sell the diluted one still has a way to convince you to believe the diluted one is pure honey.
But I was lucky, the old honey seller was not ready to deceive me.
She explained to me what makes honey not pure. She said some people dilute honey with pasteurised sugar.
On how that is done, she said that some people heat sugar until it turned brown. According to her, while some will mix the heated brown sugar with raw honey to increase the amount for the sole of making more gains, others do not; they sell the raw brown sugar whole as honey.
Summary, when next you are getting honey for home use, make sure you are on the lookout for raw honey to save you and your household from consuming diluted or pasteurised sugar.
Meanwhile, planting of flowers should be encouraged in our world. Remember Albert Einstein quote, “If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to liv