Getty
Boosting your health and well-being is easier than you think – just add a little organic raw honey to your shopping list.
In fact, the health benefits of raw honey are plentiful. Unlike pasteurised honey, raw organic honey retains all the beneficial enzymes, nutrients and antioxidants found in bee pollen that can help support your immune system. The result? This delicious gold liquid is an excellent source of antioxidants, and has antibacterial and antifungal properties. It can aid in healing wounds, is a great immunity booster, can help with digestive issues and improve your gut health with its natural prebiotics.
Here’s the buzz on simple ways organic raw honey can help you live a healthier life.
1. Get more antioxidants in your diet
By switching from regular honey to raw organic you increase the natural health benefits it provides. Regular honey is heat treated and pasteurised to kill the yeast and bacteria, which increases its shelf-life and makes it look more transparent. However, this processing also results in the loss of beneficial nutrients and goodness from the original nectar and pollen.
Raw organic honey is collected straight from the beehive, is cold extracted and lightly filtered before it’s bottled to retain most of the beneficial nutrients, enzymes and antioxidants naturally found in honey. It’s completely safe to eat – unless you have a bee pollen allergy – and is more flavourful than regular honey.
2. Kickstart your day with a spoonful
You can eat raw honey directly from the jar as part of a normal, balanced diet. Including one teaspoon of honey per day is a beneficial addition to your everyday health regimen.
Try drinking a mixture of honey and warm water as soon as you wake up to start the day feeling energised. Honey can lose its enzymes when mixed with boiling water or heated above 40 degrees, but with warm water you’ll preserve the naturally occurring nutrients within the honey.
Raw organic honey is also delicious in smoothies, energy balls and breakfast recipes such as Fig Chia Seed Breakfast Puddings as well as lots of other great recipe ideas.
TIP: If you’re cooking with raw organic honey, avoid recipes that contain alcohol, high sugar content, highly processed and artificial ingredients such as MSG and food dyes. And remember, raw honey should not be heat treated above 40 degrees celsius as this will kill the beneficial enzymes.
Fig Chia Seed Breakfast Puddings.
(Credit: Meluka Australia)3. Soothe a cold
As winter approaches, raw organic honey makes a great sore throat remedy. Simply add a spoonful to a glass of lukewarm (below 40 degree Celsius) water with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. It’s also recommended as a cough suppressant. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been recommending honey as a cough and cold remedy since 2001. Just take one or two teaspoonfuls, straight.
4. Help your body heal
Pasteurisation of honey destroys the natural beneficial enzymes and bacteria. After pasteurisation, the honey undergoes further filtering to make it look cleaner and smoother in texture, removing bee pollen which has been shown in studies to have anti-inflammatory effects, antibacterial and antifungal action and pain-relieving properties.
The antibacterial properties of raw organic honey mean it can help ease acid reflux, stomach ulcers and diarrhoea, while some studies show it can be effective when treating candida infections, both topically and taken orally to increase healthy gut microbes.
5. Improve your mental health
Raw organic honey contains polyphenols, which have antidepressant and anti-anxiety properties and help keep your brain healthier as you age.
As an added bonus, you’ll feel great about helping to protect bees. At Meluka Australia, the well-being of the bees is prioritised when collecting the honey, along with better and more sustainable beekeeping practices.
Meluka is nestled in the NSW Bungawalbin Valley rainforest, filled with Australian tea trees (Melaleuca alternifolia), along with a wide variety of native Australian botanical species, eucalyptus and other seasonal wildflowers. As a result, its bees forage from some of the cleanest and greenest bush in the world. The benefits of harvesting from bees that forage in some of the cleanest bush in Australia, keeping them healthy and producing superior honey, means healthier, superior quality honey.
The best way to know if you are buying good quality honey is to look at the ingredients list to make sure it states that it is 100 per cent organic raw honey, with no added ingredients or additives.
Brought to you by Meluka Australia
