What is Honey? Honey is a sweet, dense sugary compound made by bees. This compound of honey consists of properties in varying proportions of glucose, water, fructose, oil, and unique enzymes produced by bees. (Fructose and Glucose are one types of sugar).
The initial step in building honey begins when field bees fly from flower to flower gathering the sweet fluids or nectar that a flower provides.
The field bees suck out the nectar with their tongues and store it in bags enclosed by their bodies. After filling their bags with these sweet juices, the field bees fly back to their beehive and disgorge the stored nectar into the mouths of house bees.
These house bees have apportioned the job of appending enzymes from their bodies to the nectar. The enzymes function which causes the water in the nectar to evaporate-thereby transforming the nectar into honey. Finally, the nectar is stored in a cell of a honeycomb. Over time, the nectar develops and becomes honey.
Honey Health Benefits In Ayurveda
Ayurveda is an ancient Hindu method of medicine that has existed and practiced for thousands of years. Nowadays, days it is becoming more favorite worldwide due to its natural, holistic curative approach.
There are four types of honey according to Charaka Samhita they are,
- Makshika: It is considered to the best type of honey which is produced by a reddish variety of honey bee and look like Tila Taila (like sesame oil).
- Bhramara: It is produced by the Bhramara type of bee, its guru (heavy) and its color is white.
- Kshaudra: It is produced by a small type of honey bee and its color is brown.
- Paittaka: It is produced by a large type of bee and it looks like a color of ghee.
In the Ayurvedic health care technique, it is believed that lifestyle and diet changes play an important role in putting forward each disease and health situation under control.
Top 10 Benefit Of Honey
For many centuries, honey has been used as the necessary alternative medicine of Ayurveda. It is blended with a species of herbs and spices and manufactured into a compound for healing various sicknesses.
The daily use of honey is also advised in Ayurvedic instruction to upgrade good health. Below are some of the uses of honey which can benefit you in daily life.
1. Burns Treatment
Applying honey on burns may improve the wound restore faster, a review suggests. It has also been in the ancient Egyptian surgical texts recommended applying honey on wounds and burns. Some animal analyses and experiments recommend the sweet solution may speed up healing.
When honey was applied in gentle to the moderate surface and discriminatory thickness burns, which damage blood vessels and nerves. It was found that the wounds healed up to four days faster than other medications.
2. Skin Treatment
There are numerous allegories and a lot of propaganda about acne, the same can be expressed about honey. It is well familiar that honey has strong anti-inflammatory and antibacterial drug properties. Honey has been used as a healing for wounds and other skin difficulties for thousands of years.
The initial mention used on honey for the skin was found on a Sumerian clay tablet dating about 2500BC. It was popularly used for a very long time to dress wounds and burns in hospitals and the home, but it became out of date when antibiotics were developed in the mid-1900s.
3. Heart Disease
Make a paste of honey with cinnamon powder, you can eat it regularly by spreading it on bread or chapatti instead of jelly and jam. This combination of honey can help to reduce the cholesterol in the arteries.
It may also lower the possibility of a heart patient suffering from a heart attack. Patients, who have got attacks, are also advised to consume the honey with the cinnamon mixture to ward off further attacks. Regular use of the mixture comfort’s loss of breath and reinforces the heartbeat.
In a study, various nursing homes in the USA and Canada have found that the patients successfully and have found that the clogged were revitalized, which were due to increasing age, the arteries, and veins, which lose their flexibility.
4. Arthritis Treatment
Take honey with lukewarm water in a ratio of 1:2 and add a little teaspoon of cinnamon powder. Massage this paste slowly onto the itching region of the body. It has been found that the pain had a decrease within half an hour or two.
Arthritic patients can also benefit by daily intake of honey in morning and evening, with a ratio of one cup of hot water, two spoons of honey.
Take honey mix with one small teaspoon of cinnamon powder and consume it. A recent study program conducted at Copenhagen University, the patient was given a mixture of one tablespoon honey and half a teaspoon cinnamon powder before breakfast.
The result was found that within a week, the patients who underwent the treatment, were alleviated of pain, and in less than a month most of the patients who could not walk or who had immovability due to their arthritis, began walking without pain.
5. Infertility
It has been seen Ayurvedic medicine have been using honey for thousands of years to strengthen the ejaculation of men and better impotency. Regular intake of two tablespoons of honey and earlier to sleep, impotency can be very much reduced.
In China, Japan, and Far-Eastern countries, cinnamon powder has been used for centuries by the women who do not conceive and need to strengthen the uterus.
Women, who are incapable of conceiving, may take a pinch of cinnamon powder with a half teaspoon of honey and apply it on the gums. Repeat it throughout the day, so that it slowly mixes with the saliva and can enter the body. There is a famous story about a couple in Maryland, the USA who had no children for 14 years and had lost hope of having a child.
When told about the honey cinnamon mixture of both the husband and wife started consuming the mixture, and the wife conceived after a few months, giving birth to healthy twins.
6. Cholesterol-Lowering
The combination of honey and cinnamon have been benefited in lowering cholesterol. One can take two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of cinnamon powder mixed into two cups of tea water.
This mixture can help in the lowering of cholesterol levels in the blood by 10% within a two-hour period. As I spoke of above for arthritic patients, if this combination is ingested three-time day, chronic cholesterol can be lowered.
Pure honey can also be ingested daily without cinnamon, by taking together with food. It can also help in lowering cholesterol levels.
7. Immune System
Daily use of honey and cinnamon powder strengthens the immune system and guards the body against germs and viral attacks. Researchers have found that honey has different vitamins and iron in great amounts. Daily use of honey strengthens the white blood atoms to fight against bacteria and viral diseases.
8. Honey For Fatigue
Recent reports have indicated that the sugar content of honey is more helpful rather than being harmful to the strength of the body.
Older people, who take honey and cinnamon powder in equal parts, are additionally alert and flexible. Taking a half tablespoon of honey in a glass of water with little cinnamon powder, taken daily in the morning will increase the vitality of the body within a week.
Honey has primarily properties of fructose and glucose, as a result it’s quickly absorbed by the digestive system. Honey is a unique and natural stabilizer it is also mentioned in history that it was used by Ancient Greek athletes for stamina before challenging and as a reviver after competition.
9. Pimples And Scars
Honey is rich in natural acids and other ingredients, which are very useful for moisturizing skin and help to break down scar tissue from acne scars. Honey is also remarkably antiseptic.
It can help to cut down on future breakouts. You can use it by gently rubbing a small amount of honey directly onto the infected areas and let it soak into your skin for a few minutes. Then rinse with warm water.
10. Cough Treatment
The best way to smooth a sore though is by drinking tea or warm lemon water mixed with honey. However, honey may be an effective cough appetite suppressant also.
In one study on children, age 2 and below have a problem with upper respiratory tract infections was given up to two teaspoons about 10 milliliters of honey at bedtime.
The honey performed to decrease nighttime coughing and better sleep. In fact, in the study, honey appeared to be as productive as the cough appetite dextromethorphan in typical to nonprescription doses.