Gourmet Hampers with Honey

Honey Facts & Benefits

Did You Know?

■Honey is a sweet, thick material produced by bees from the nectar of flowers. Honey is created by bees after removing water and adding enzymes that change the character of the sugars in the nectar.
■Honey contains vitamins and antioxidants, but is fat free, cholesterol free and sodium free!
■An antioxidant called "pinocembrin" is only found in honey.
■Honey is the only food that includes all the substances necessary to sustain life, including water.
■Honey speeds the healing of open wounds and also combats infection.
■Honey has an anti-microbial agent, which means it deters the growth of certain types of bacteria, yeast and molds.
■Honey is an excellent energy booster! It provides a concentrated energy source that helps prevent fatigue and can boost athletic performance.
■Studies have proven that athletes who took some honey before and after competing recovered more quickly than those who did not.
■Honey supplies 2 stages of energy. The glucose in honey is absorbed by the body quickly and gives an immediate energy boost. The fructose is absorbed more slowly providing sustained energy.
■Honey never spoils. There's no need to refrigerate it. Honey can be stored unopened, indefinitely, at room temperature in a dry cupboard.
■Due to the high level of fructose, honey is 25% sweeter than table sugar.
■For years, opera singers have used honey to boost their energy and soothe their throats before performances.
■Ancient Egyptian and Middle-Eastern peoples used honey for embalming the dead.
■Honey is the only food produced by insects that is eaten by man!
■Honey has a healthy Glycemic Index (GI), meaning that its sugars can be gradually absorbed into the bloodstream to result in better digestion.
■Honey is not considered an allergen and does not contain wheat, crustacea, eggs, fish, peanuts, milk, tree nuts, soybeans, monosodium glutamate (MSG), sulfites, lactose or tartrazine.
■Honey does not contain glutens because glutens are protein from wheat flour. Gluten-free Gifts.
Honey - A Natural Energy Boost?

Honey is a great natural source of carbohydrates which provides strength and energy to our bodies. It is well known that honey is extremely effective in instantly boosting the performance, endurance and reduce muscle fatigue of athletes. Its natural fruit sugars play an important role in preventing fatigue during exercise.

The body quickly absorbs the glucose in honey and gives an immediate energy boost, while the fructose is absorbed more slowly providing sustained energy. It is known that honey has also been found to keep levels of blood sugar fairly constant compared to other types of sugar.

Build Your Immunity with Honey

The benefits of honey seem to never end and here is one more great benefit. Honey can be a powerful immune system booster. The antioxidant and anti-bacterial properties present in honey can help improve the digestive system and help you stay healthy and fight disease.

Try this daily cleansing tonic if you want to experience the health benefit of honey: before breakfast, mix a HoneyStix (or a Honey Drop) with lemon juice from half a lemon into a cup of warm water and drink it.

What's In Honey?

■Honey is composed of 38.5% Fructose, 31.0% Glucose, 17.1% Water, 7.2% Maltose, 4.2% Trisaccharides, 1.5% Sucrose, and 0.5% is made up of minerals, vitamins, and enzymes.
■The less water content the honey has, the better the quality of honey.
■The trace amounts of vitamins present in honey are B6, thiamin, niacin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid, folic acid and certain amino acids.
■The minerals found in honey include calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, sodium, selenium and zinc.
■Honey contains eighteen free amino acids, of which the most abundant is proline.
■The main group of antioxidants in honey are the flavonoids, of which one, pinocembrin, is unique to honey and bee propolis.
■Honey also contains organic acids such as acetic, butanoic, formic, citric, succinic, lactic, malic, pyroglutamic and gluconic acids, and a number of aromatic acids.

Types of Honey
■Raw Honey - Raw honey is honey that is taken directly from the hive.
■Strained Honey - Strained honey has been passed through a mesh material to remove particles such as pieces of wax, propolis and other defects without removing pollen.
■Filtered Honey - Filtered honey is processed by filtration to remove extraneous solids and pollen grains and other fine particles.
■Organic Honey - Organic honey is regulated by a strict set of guidelines that covers not only the origin of the bees but also the siting of the apiaries. Standards for organic honey differ from country to country with differences based on cultural, topographic, climatic and geographic factors.
■Comb Honey - Honey which is meant to be consumed still in the honeybees' wax comb.
■Chunk Honey - Honey packed in widemouth containers consisting of one or more pieces of comb honey immersed in extracted liquid honey.
■Pasteurised Honey - Honey that has been heated in a pasteurisation process.
■Whipped Honey - Also called creamed honey, spun honey, churned honey, candied honey, and honey fondant, is honey that has been processed to control crystallisation. Whipped honey contains a large number of small crystals in the honey. The small crystals prevent the formation of larger crystals that can occur in unprocessed honey. The processing also produces a honey with a smooth spreadable consistency.
Honey and Religion

■In Hinduism, honey is one of the five elixirs of immortality.
■In Jewish tradition, honey is a symbol for the new year, Rosh Hashana. At the traditional meal for that holiday, apple slices are dipped in honey and eaten to bring a sweet new year.
■The Book of Exodus famously describes the Promised Land as a "land flowing with milk and honey"
■In Buddhism, honey plays an important role in the festival of Madhu Purnima, celebrated in India and Bangladesh.
■In the Christian New Testament, Matthew 3:4, John the Baptist is said to have lived for a long period of time in the wilderness on a diet consisting of locusts and wild honey.
■In Islam, there is an entire Surah in the Qur'an called al-Nahl (the Honey Bee). Gift Baskets.