Our honey is raw, unprocessed which provides the most health benefits. Our bees are well-cared for. We grow lots of plants and crops to help supply them with their honey-making materials. They have year-round access to 2 creeks on the farm and they use lots of water. We do not use any herbicides on our farm which can harm the bees and infiltrate the honey.
Honey vs Sugar
Honey is a healthier option. Honey has a glycemic index (GI) of 58 and sugar has a GI of 68. Honey therefore has a medium effect on blood sugar levels. However, honey does have more calories per tablespoon, 64 calories compared to 48 calories in sugar. But since honey taste sweeter you can use less-approximately 2/3 to 3/4 of what you would with sugar. To truly settle this argument, there are no vitamin or minerals in sugar but you will see that is not true of honey! Caution, honey is still a sugar and any sugar needs to be mindfully consumed especially for those managing their sugar intake. Extra caution-infants under one year old should not consume honey as it can cause botulism. It’s a very sticky substance so it’s just as well that they don’t get their fingers into honey and spread it to everything they touch!
Health Benefits
Store-bought honey is often pasteurized using high heat to extend the shelf life but it destroys many of the beneficial nutrients. Getting your honey from a local source is the best option especially when it comes to helping with allergy symptoms. Local honey exposes your body (over time) to minute allergens in a way that allows your immune system to desensitize allergic reactions. It beats getting regular allergy shots if your allergic to something in the plant kingdom. Honey can help fight bacteria and other germs. It has long been used as a form of medicine for all sorts of ailments. It can also be used for its antiseptic properties on wounds and burns to prevent infection if you cannot get medical attention right away. It naturally contains the antiseptic, hydrogen peroxide. Eating honey could alleviate diarrhea, which is often caused by bacterial build-up in the digestive system. Your body is trying to get rid of this bacteria. Honey helps by decreasing the bacteria and increasing your fluid intake. It can be an effective treatment for H. pylori bacteria, a common cause of stomach ulcers. Honey contains healthful compounds-antioxidants, polyphenols, amino acids, vitamins, enzymes, minerals including niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, calcium, magnesium, manganese, potassium, phosphorous, and zinc. Your body gets assistance from honey by repairing cells that are damaged by free radicals. A sore throat can be treated with honey. It’s antibacterial qualities can help fight the bacteria that is causing your sore throat in the first place. Honey is a potent prebiotic in that it nourishes your good bacteria in your gut which is crucial for digestion and overall health. It has other little known health properties, such as improving your sleep, getting rid of bad breath, lowering triglycerides, blood pressure, blood glucose , and cholesterol, as well as losing weight.
Using Honey in Your Kitchen
You can use as much or as little honey as you want! Of course it’s an excellent way to sweeten your coffee and tea. You can swap it for sugar in many of your recipes. Use it in your baked goodies, desserts, sauces, marinades, glazes. Instead of jelly, use honey on your next peanut butter sandwich, toast, or biscuit. Sweeten your yogurt or add it to your morning cereal. For an evening sleep potion, try adding some honey to some warm, decaffeinated tea or add it to a warm glass of milk.
Before substituting it for sugar, be mindful that it is sweeter than sugar so use less than you normally would with sugar. The general rule of thumb is 3/4 cup honey for every cup of sugar. So 3/4 teaspoon honey for every spoon of sugar. Also, honey is about 1/5 water and retains more moisture than sugar. So you will need to reduce the amount of liquid ingredients, such as water or milk, listed in the recipe. Honey is also naturally acidic, and too much acid prevents baked goods from rising. To avoid this issue, add a small amount of baking soda to your mixture. Lastly, be sure to turn down the oven temperature by about 25 degrees from what is recommended in the recipe. This is because sugars in honey caramelize quickly and burn faster than sugar. The color of honey ranges from light golden to dark brown. The lighter tones typically have a much milder, sweeter taste. The darker tones will have a bit more tangier and pungent flavor. This is due to what blooms were available to the bees at the time they made their honey. You may want different flavors of honey depending on your recipes.
How to Store Your Honey
It is best to store honey in a tightly sealed jar. Keeping it at room temperature and in a dark cabinet preserves its color and flavor. If your container does not seal, the honey may draw in moisture which will increase its water content. Do not put honey in the refrigerator. It will not make it last any longer or keep it any fresher. Refrigerating it will cause it to become gritty and hard. You can freeze honey but be sure to place it in a container that will allow for expansion. It can be frozen for several years. When you are ready to use, thaw at room temperature in a sealed container. If your honey has a piece of honeycomb inside, it will crystallize. There is nothing wrong with crystallized honey as I will explain in another section.
The Making of Honey
Honey is a sweet, golden liquid made by honeybees. They make it to feed on especially during the winter months when most flowering plants are dormant. Honey contains flower nectar, pollen, beeswax, and bee proposlis (a sticky glue-like substance bees use to hold their hive together). The bees collect the nectar from flowers. Nectar is the sweet liquid that entices the bees to the flower. The bees climb into the flower and suck up the nectar with their straw-like mouth and collect into a special sac just for holding the nectar (honey stomach). They also collect pollen on their legs. As they move from flower to flower, they leave a little of that pollen on each new flower they visit. This is called pollination and that’s how flowers reproduce. Bees then take the pollen and nectar back to the hive and place it in their honeycomb, six-sided cells they have built out with wax. The pollen which is mostly a protein is used to feed their young but residual amounts get into the honey. It is primarily the nectar that gets turned into honey.
The bees store their honey in small, hexagon cups called a honeycomb. We collect the honey and strain it to remove parts of the honeycomb and wax. Sometimes the honeycomb is included in the jar with the honey.
The Make-Up of Honey
Honey is a highly concentrated sugar solution. It contains 70% sugars (fructose and glucose) and less than 20% water. The water in honey contains more sugar than it should naturally hold. The over abundance of sugar makes it naturally crystallize over time and especially with exposure to air.
Definitions
Raw honey-comes straight from the beehive. It is packaged without adding any heat.
Crystallized honey-honey that is cloudy and forms solid, granular, sugar-like crystals. Air exposure causes this and the honey is still good. It’s nature’s way of preserving its finest sweetener. Adding heat will turn it to liquid again. It can be easier to spread on bread or toast in this state. The taste may be richer since it takes longer to melt on your tongue.
Creamed, whipped, spun, or set honey-honey that has blended the crystals (from air exposure) into a smoother texture. By blending the honey, it promotes the formation of small sugar crystals and prevents larger crystals from forming. In this way, the honey remains creamy and easy to spread.
Crazy but True Bee Facts
A typical honeybee colony has about 50,000 bees. Most are infertile females (worker bees) with the exception of the one female queen. Worker bees live 4 weeks in the warm weather months and 6 months in the winter. A few hundred male bees (drones) make up the remainder. The drones die after mating and have no other role than mating. They also cannot sting and they do not have a father. Drones come from underutilized eggs and get all of their genetics from their mother and grandfather.
The queen bee only mates once in her 1 to 4-year life span. It is usually when she is 10 days old and she will mate with 15-20 male drones in mid air. She will store about 100 million sperm in her body for her entire life.
A queen can lay about 2,000 eggs each day which is twice her normal body weight.
Bees have 4 wings, 6 legs (which classifies then as insects), and 5 eyes. They see blue best and cannot see red well at all. They can see ultraviolet colors too. Male bees have bigger eyes to help them find the queen bee.
Bees use the sun as a compass and on cloudy days they navigate by polorized light.
Honeybees leave their stinger in you once they sting. It also causes them to die.
Bees fly 55,000 miles to make one pound of honey. They fly around 15-20 miles per hour. It takes 10 pounds of nectar to make one pound of honey. Bees need to visit 2 million flowers (an average of 50-100 flowers per day) to gather the materials for one pound of honey.
Bees are very efficient with their resources. Their use of hexagon cells are the perfect 120 degree angle in the beehive which is excellent at minimizing their need for beeswax.
Bees are like serial killers in a way. They commit their crimes close to home but far enough away that the neighbors do not get suspicious. Bees collect pollen and nectar near their hive but far enough away that predators cannot find the hive.
Honeybees have been here about 30 million years!
The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that honeybees pollinate up to 80% of our crops. They pollinate approximately 130 agricultural crops, including fruit, fiber, nut, and vegetable crops. This is over $15 billion worth of crops each year.
Honey bees are the only insect that produces food eaten by humans. Honey is the only food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and water.
Fermented honey, known as mead, is the most ancient fermented beverage. The term “honeymoon” originated from the Norse practice of consuming large quantities of mead during the first month of marriage.
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