Read The Healing Powers of Honey Online

Authors: Cal Orey

The Healing Powers of Honey (13 page)

UN-BEE-LIEVABLE HEALING HINTS TO CATCH
Cinnamon and honey are both chock-full of antioxidants—which can lower the risk of heart disease and cancer and increase longevity.
Pairing cinnamon and honey can give you a double dose of antioxidants and essential minerals and vitamins, too.
Cinnamon and honey provide real health benefits, including revving up your sex drive, boosting your immune system, soothing an upset stomach, and helping in weight loss . . .
. . . but note, cinnamon and honey cannot take credit on this planet for growing hair and making babies.
Using cinnamon and honey both inside and outside of your body for total health care can be good for your mind and spirit.
CHAPTER 9
Sweet Stuff: Honey Combos
If you have no honey in your Pot, have some in your Mouth.
—Benjamin Franklin
1
 
 
 
 
 
After I worked hard for the money in Oregon, like a worker bee transported to pollinate crops, my devoted dog, Stone Fox, and I fled back to the Golden State. We landed in Hollywood, Southern California. It is a region full of honey bees and warm weather where I ended my journey—for a while. We were given refuge by a communal-type group of like-minded artistic, fun-loving people, much like a bee colony.
My job was kitchen duty: cooking and baking. One day before a coastal picnic, I baked a batch of chocolate-chip cookies. I didn't have a gourmet kitchen in our Bohemian-type apartment. I was resourceful. There was no table sugar in the house, so I turned to honey as my main sweetener. I remember sipping iced tea laced with honey from our favorite health-food store
and
nibbling on semi-sweet chocolate chips during the baking process from beginning to end.
Teaming the sweet pair worked like a bee charmer. The cookies were savored by my friends, much like hungry worker bees feeding on nectar. I felt like a queen bee must feel (yes, I believe honey bees have emotions like dogs and cats do), content with a good colony and reaping rewards of good sweets.
THE SWEET THINGS
Move over, sugar; honey is the up-and-coming sweet thing on the block. The use of honey in foods is becoming more popular, thanks to the health wave of the 21st century. Think dark honey instead of white sugar—like dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate—that's making a big splash worldwide.
Credit goes to consumers for demanding honey-based products, according to Global Industry Analysts. A hike in the variety and assortment of honey-based food products, such as yogurts and drinks, is because we know honey is “an appealing ingredient as compared to artificial sweeteners.” What's more, honey is out of the closet and touted for its antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, and proteins, so it's getting well-deserved attention.
2
Each time I go to the grocery store, I notice that the word “honey” is put in big print on boxes, cartons, and packages of products such as breads, breakfast cereals, candy, honey drinks, ice cream, yogurt, and much more. Countless products touting honey's all-natural, wholesome image are available to the consumer, like you and me, every day. Here, meet some sweet honey combos that are making a buzz . . .
 
Breads and Baking Mixes:
Corn-bread mix, packaged wheat bread, and pancake and biscuit mixes are just some foods that boast that five letter word “h-o-n-e-y.” One time I grabbed a honey pancake mix and was as excited as a forager bee in spring, ready to try it with fresh blueberries. My excitement plummeted when I read the label: “powdered honey
.”
I thought,
I'd rather use a real, raw natural liquid honey to have control of my sweet honey pancakes.
And I made honey pancakes from scratch and monitored my honey addition.
Fresh-baked store-bought breads that include honey are a different species of honey foods, especially if the ingredient label lists “honey” without the word “powdered.” Honey helps baked goods last long, since it's a good preservative, and that works for me.
 
Breakfast Cereal:
As with breads and pancakes, I prefer to use liquid honey on oatmeal or granola, especially when I can control the honey type. Each bowl of cereal can be a new and exciting experience, unlike if you eat the prepackaged honey-sweetened cereals. But I've enjoyed natural honey granolas (with real honey) and Honey Nut Cheerios (with real honey).
 
Candy:
In candies, honey is used in different countries, in such products as nougat (a confection made from a honey paste and nuts) from France and halva (a confection of crushed sesame seed in a binder of honey) from Greece. It is believed that honey may not be the sweetener of choice for caramels because its nature to quickly absorb moisture will lessen the time before the expiration date and soften the candy, which may end up as one sticky blob.
But I didn't have that problem with Vosges milk chocolate caramels with tupelo honey and bee pollen. Nor did I have a sticky mess with Lake Champlain Caramel Five Star Bar (with fresh Vermont cream, butter, sugar, honey, and vanilla, slow-cooked in copper kettles, yielding creamy caramel; dark chocolate chunks and almonds are added and covered in milk chocolate). The Chocolate's Honey Caramels are 1 ¼-inch-in-diameter and ½-inch-thick round candy pieces boasting a beehive and wildflowers decorating dark chocolate, filled with caramel and laced with honey. Wrapped in embossed Italian gold foil, these honey caramels are the ultimate gift for honey lovers, like me, who often have honey and chocolate on the brain.
During my search for the ultimate honey candy, I quickly learned that many honey candies, such as honey salt water taffy and gourmet honey jelly beans, use honey flavoring—not real honey. But that wasn't always the case.
I was sent a box of Manuka Honey & Rainforest Lemon Delight that delighted me and probably would do the same for a honey bee. It is a fusion of New Zealand manuka honey and Australian lemon myrtle (plus sugar, glucose, and wheat starch). The rub is, the item is imported from New Zealand and it's not cost-effective for the product to be shipped to the United States. (If you go to or live in Karori Wellington, New Zealand, check out Loukoumi, Ltd.) The lemon delight's counterpart Honey & Hazel Delight was inspired by traditional Mediterranean recipes. Loukoumi blended roasted hazelnuts with honey from New Zealand. Note to self: Relocate to down under, where I can have a constant supply of these candies.
 
Honey Drinks:
Good-for-you honey drinks, much like healthful vinegar concoctions, are popular in Asian countries such as Japan. Honey drinks are often paired with lemon juice for a sweet and tart twist. To fruit juices, coffee, and tea honey is added as the primary and/or sole sweetener. And I prefer pure honey rather than honey-flavored syrups and artificial sweeteners with honey. It's a nature granola-girl thing. Honey is my preferred sweet thing in beverages and crunchy treats.
 
Honey Ice Cream:
Adding honey to calcium-rich ice creams sounds like a sweet idea, right? Not so much. It is believed that honey ice creams may melt faster than those made with sugar. As a lover of Häagen-Dazs ice cream and their Vanilla Honey Bee ice cream, I didn't have a meltdown issue. Out of curiosity, though, I put two premium vanilla ice creams to the test. Yes, the honey ice cream did melt a bit faster, but this is a moot point to me because when I dish up a scoop it is meant to be eaten, not a decoration to admire.
 
Honey Nuts:
Honey-glazed almonds, cashews, walnuts, and other nuts are easily found in grocery stores and online specialty shops, and you can make them, too. Nuts are a healthful food chock-full of monounsaturated fat and protein and play a role in the Mediterranean diet—like honey—if eaten in moderation. I tried Honey Roasted Cashews from Oh! Nuts, an online company. These honey-glazed cashews are all-natural sweet candy. The ingredients: cashews, sugar, cottonseed and/or canola oil, and honey. One serving is a mere 150 calories, with protein, iron, and calcium. The flavor was earthy, full flavored, and the sweetest thing with a crunch.
 
Snack Bars:
Honey is thick and sticky like “bee glue,” which certainly can help bind a bar—homemade or store-bought—and gives snack bars a sweet and healthful flavor. Good, crunchy honey and oats granola bars and chewy protein bars—many brands—provide a list of healthful, all-natural ingredients, and honey is one of them, which is a good thing. Speaking of health . . .
 
Yogurt:
Honey is used as a sweetener in Greek yogurt. This is better than yogurts that have been sweetened with artificial ingredients. Honey is the real thing. I prefer to use a spoonful of my own honey in a cup of yogurt, but sometimes for convenience, if you're not at home, a honey yogurt would be a perfect thing.
A Honey of a Tale
As the story goes, in a valley at the foot of the Rocky Mountains just east of Yellowstone National Park in northern Wyoming is a small farm where Clarence and Bessie Zeller raised their family of three sons and three daughters.
To support the family, they produced honey. This honey was made by bees they called Little Johnnies. The term originated from the wild bees Clarence's father took from the bee trees on the Shoshone River bottoms. Little Johnnies are mean, and they attack just for the fun of it. They just love to sting, but they gather the sweetest nectar, which makes this special honey.
Bessie began creating the honey candy more than 50 years ago thanks to an optometrist. He pointed out to her that her son Mitchel's vision would improve if sugar was not part of his diet. In a quest for a natural sugar, she turned to honey. “One year later, he didn't need glasses,” says the candy maker.
When the boys grew up, they left home. Time passed. The sting of the Little Johnnies was like the Pied Piper calling them back to the farm and their beloved bees.
In 1976, they decided to make use of an old family recipe from Bessie's ancestors in Scotland and make honey candy for sale. The boys had made taffy as kids and had lots of fun stretching it. They had all the necessary ingredients for delicious candy—that special honey, the recipe, and the desire. More recipes were developed, and in 1979 they started making honey pecan pralines, now known as Pecan Pearls. And then the chocolate and honey candies followed.
In the Queen Bee Gardens gourmet candy catalog, words tout the healing powers of both honey and chocolate. Researchers believe that chocolate's appeal, like that of honey, is a combo of its nutrients and chemical composition, as well as fat and sugar. Naturally, it's noted that “all chocolates are not created equal”—reminding you to look for chocolate containing no hydrogenated fat and oils. Chocolate is considered high quality if the only fat is cocoa butter. The best chocolate should be low in sugar. And, as with honey products, choose a chocolate with few added ingredients or fillings that are high in fat or sugar. But the stand-out honey candy doesn't stop there....
Queen Bee Gardens is on top of the benefits of pollen—“the natural food with enzymes, antioxidants and vitamins.” Queen Bee's Pollen Drops are unique among candies. Developed as a nutritional supplement, they not only taste great but also contain nutritious elements. Pollen Drops are made with fresh-from-the-hive honey, creamery butter, dry milk, algin, and vanilla. Stretched to give them a fine texture, Pollen Drops are a taffy. To preserve the nutrients in the pollen, it is stretched into the candy only after the candy has been cooled, giving it that golden color.
(
Source:
Queen Bee Gardens gourmet candy catalog.)
HONEY AND CHOCOLATE
Honey and chocolate are both superfoods that have been used since biblical times. The healing benefits of chocolate, like honey, were prized and noted 4,000 years ago.
Eating chocolate, like honey, can help enhance the immune system, lower the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes—even obesity—and boost longevity. Chocolate, like honey, is chock-full of antioxidants. What's more, both supersweets can relieve dozens of ailments, including depression and high blood pressure, and rev up energy for both work and play.
Honey and chocolate have a lot in common, especially if it's quality dark chocolate and raw, natural honey. Both forbidden foods—because they contain sugar—play a role in the heart-healthy Mediterranean diet (savored in moderation) and lifestyle and are an integral part of life in Italy and other countries. And when they are teamed together you get a double delight, not to forget antioxidants.
Okay, enough about sweet things and why they're sweet. How about a chocolate honey candy recipe? I tried this recipe one day when I was craving dark chocolate. Instead of using peppermint I used a potpourri of creamed honeys: apricot, blackberry, peach, and raspberry. Also, I used 60 percent cocoa content chocolate chips.
Honey Chocolate Mint Patties
1 cup (6 ounces) semi-sweet
chocolate chips, divided
½ cup whipped honey
½ teaspoon peppermint
extract
Powdered sugar for
dusting (optional)
Line baking sheet with waxed or parchment paper; set aside. Place half of chocolate in small, microwave-safe container. Microwave on “High” (100 percent), 1 to 2 minutes, until melted; stir until smooth. Drop a heaping ½ teaspoon of chocolate on paper. With back of spoon, spread chocolate on paper to 2 inches. Repeat to form 24 circles; chill until firm. In small bowl, blend honey with peppermint extract. Spoon a scant teaspoon of honey mixture onto each circle. Freeze until firm. Microwave remaining chocolate; using same procedure. Spread a heaping ½ teaspoon of chocolate on top of each candy, making sure honey is completely covered with chocolate; chill until firm. Patties may be stored in refrigerator. Dust with powered sugar before serving, if desired. Makes 24 servings.
(
Source:
National Honey Board.)
Speaking of sweet combos, in part 5: “Tea and Honey,” you'll learn that the world of teas with honeys is like a great place with an amazing must-do roller coaster in Honeyland. The wide range of teas and honeys is amazing. Teaming these two old-world superfoods with healing powers is one more secret to staying healthy, maintaining your weight, stalling age-related diseases, and living a longer, happier life.

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