Its main properties are anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, antibacterial, and providing relaxing support:
- Helps people that suffer from peptic ulcers by taking one teaspoon of it on an empty stomach and not eating for 1 hour.
- Combined with lemon, it can improve throat irritation, reduce fevers, and lessen coughing.
- Consuming a teaspoon of honey during the first meal of the day can provide more energy for the rest of the day.
- Burns and wounds can be healed with honey.This is due to the antiseptics that are inside it. They heal it and prevent against infections, and also accelerate the skin’s recovery. It is also an excellent disinfectant for minor skin cuts.
- It improves the functioning of the digestive system and is recommended for constipation.
- It helps prevent infections, thanks to its antiseptic qualities.
- It is capable of improving the absorption of nutrients like iron and calcium. It also maintains bone mass in the skeleton. Thus, they recommend eating it with other foods that contain calcium.
- It is considered to be a prebiotic food due to its oligosaccharides (chain sugars).
- It has antioxidant elements that prevent diseases like cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, aging (by reducing cellular damage that free radicals cause), inflammatory diseases, and brain and heart diseases.
Contradictions of Honey
Some contradictions about honey do exist. You should keep this in mind when you eat honey and the amount of it. Even though, it’s a natural sweetener with many benefits, honey should not be given to babies. Mothers will often try to calm children with a little bit of honey. But, this only causes clostridium botulinum spores to develop (due to the acidity it contains).
Even though, these spores (which are bacterial) don’t cause harm in adults most of the time, they can cause problem for children. This is because adults have the necessary stomach acid, which the children do not. As a result, children can suffer from infant botulism. It is also recommended, not sweetening the baby’s food with any kind of artificial sweetener if they are younger than 18 months old.
Furthermore, consuming honey can increase antioxidants found in blood plasma, which can be a problem because the majority of honey sold is pasteurized. Industrial processes to fight crystallization in honey, prevent pollen particles, and extend the leavening in honey cause the benefit of the antioxidants to reduce by 30%.