Shabby blogs

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Raw Honey

We have added raw honey to our product line - not just any raw honey, but the best honey we have ever tasted. I would never have dreamed of licking the honey spoon in the past - ugh. But, things have changed. Until we moved here, we'd never tasted anything like it. Everyone who tries it agrees. Not only is it delicious, but there are many health benefits to raw honey. It contains a complex assortment of enzymes, organic acids, trace minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, and antimicrobial compounds, vitamin C, vitamin A, beta carotene, the complete complex of B vitamins, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin K, magnesium, sulfur, chlorine, potassium, iodine, sodium, copper, manganese, high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide, and formic acid (to name a few!). Honey contains more than 75 different compounds! Many of the remaining substances in honey are so complex (4-7 percent of the honey) that they have yet to be identified.

Because of the high sugar content, honey absorbs moisture in wounds, making it hard for bacteria to survive. Honey can contain large amounts of hydrogen peroxide which is regularly used to disinfect cuts and scrapes. In laboratory tests, raw honey applied to seven types of bacteria killed all seven.

About a year ago, Josiah (a.k.a. Adventure Boy), was riding his bike with a wrench in his pocket (who knows – don’t ask!). He crashed and got a cut where the wrench broke through his pants. A few days after the crash, he came to me and told me that his cut was hurting. I found a red, inflamed, angry looking wound. I immediately covered it in goldenseal and bandaged it up. It felt and looked much better the next day, but one evening a few days later (I should have been more attentive to it), it was back to its painful, swollen status, except this time, the redness was growing and there were small bumps further down the leg; tell-tale signs of a developing staph infection. First, I freaked out, then I slathered the cut with raw honey and bandaged it up. By the next morning it looked totally different: the redness was gone, it was no longer swollen, and the bumps had disappeared. It had begun healing and we didn’t have to attend to it again. I have also taken raw honey in a bit of warm water for food poisoning with dramatic results. Raw honey is amazing. And it is nice when it tastes unbelievable on your biscuits too! ;)

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