How Honey Can Improve Your Health
By: Lauren M. Liff for Dabah Landscape Designs
When your child has a scraped knee, you wipe away their tears, clean the wound and apply Neosporin underneath the Band-Aid to sooth it and help with the healing process. Would you ever think to replace the Neosporin with all natural honey? Some people are aware of the benefits of honey but what most people don’t know is that honey does not only have healing properties, but it can also improve your overall health! There are a lot of sweeteners out there but honey is the only one that has life-giving qualities.
Native Americans figured out that honey had to be important if a bear was willing to continuously get stung by bees to retrieve it. Once they had retrieved the honey for themselves they realized that it not only had a great taste but that it was healing their bee stings, scrapes and cuts as well – they used it for colds, to sooth sore throats and to keep animal skin dry overnight. It was given to children to help them fall asleep and women used it as a facemask. Honey was used for just about everything, but its true potential had yet to be discovered.
No one likes having scabs and scars, but did you know that the antibiotic creams you apply to your scrapes end up killing some of the tissue surrounding your cut leaving you with scars? A clinical trial was done in Calabar, Nigeria where they used unprocessed honey to treat patients with wounds and external ulcers. During this study they found that, in 59 of the cases, honey was more effective than your average antibiotic creams and ointments – they even noticed that infected wounds treated with honey (as a topical application) became sterile within a week where as the regularly used applications applied to sterile wounds simply kept the wounds sterile until they were able to begin healing. It was also discovered that honey removed dead tissue from persistent wounds – this allows some patients to avoid skin grafts and amputations.
Aside from helping clear up infections and healing wounds without scars – honey also reduces inflammation and soothes the pain of patients with deep wounds and even burns! Dr. Peter Molan (of the Honey Research Unit in New Zealand) said, “It is a very effective means of quickly rendering heavily infected wounds sterile, without the side effects of antibiotics, and it is even effective against antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.”
As if those life-giving qualities weren’t enough, there’s so much more that honey can do! Certain honeys have shown to assist in the treatment of the Helicobacter pylori bacteria (H-Pylori as it’s more commonly known). Some have found that just a tablespoon of honey twice a day can help sooth the pain of stomach ulcers. Due to the fact that honey enzymes energize the digestive process, you can avoid indigestion! A daily intake of honey can also aid in fighting off fatigue as well as helping your body’s recuperative abilities. Beginning a daily regiment of local honey intake a month before pollen season can help to minimize the symptoms of pollen allergies and hay fever related symptoms – say goodbye to sniffling runny noses! Honey can also be used as a moisturizer to help improve your complexion and ease away those annoying wrinkles. Simply use it as a facemask: splash your face with warm water then apply a thin layer of honey to form the mask and when you’re done just wash it off with some cold water.
It’s remarkable that something that tastes so good has so many incredibly healing properties and can actually improve your overall health. Honey is full of beneficial nutrients such as: potassium, iron, magnesium, calcium and so many more! Honey simply makes everything easier; putting honey under a Band-Aid, for example, softens the skin and dampens the pain of the dreaded Band-Aid removal. Honey can heal your ailments both inside and out; there isn’t a single other sweetener around that can be placed in your kitchen as well as your first aid kit!
http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-health/health-benefits-of-honey-zmaz99fmzraw