Why Honey is a Must this Winter

Honey is nutritious and delicious. Apart from that, it has numerous benefits which can be reaped this winter season. The consumption of honey has a very long history among human beings. It has been used in innumerable foods and beverages as a sweetening and flavoring agent. Since ancient times, honey has been known for its nutritive and therapeutic values. Honey is produced all over the world. The global production of honey is approximately 1.20 million tons per annum (1^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Honey for Nutrition and Health: A Review

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The health promoting characteristics of bee are mainly due to the presence of multiple metabolites including folic acid, thiamine, biotin, niacin, tocopherol, polyphenols, phytosterols besides enzymes and co-enzymes. The favorable facts on the anti-oxidant, anti-bacterial, anti-fungicidal, hepato-protective (liver protective) are available in the scientific literature.

Some benefits of this super-food are:

Honey and Cough:

Honey can be used as a safe cough remedy. It has also proven to be safe for small children with upper respiratory infection.

Studies have shown that honey has an excellent safety profile and beneficial effects on the cough prevention (2^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Effect of honey on nocturnal cough and sleep quality: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study

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Honey for Wound Healing:

The healing property of honey is mainly due to its anti-bacterial activity, maintaining a moist wound condition and its high viscosity help provide a protective barrier to prevent the infection. It is also considered to enhance circulation and healing growth especially for burns (3^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Honey: its medicinal property and antibacterial activity

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Honey for Skin:

Due to its moisturizing properties, honey has been used in various home remedies and commercial products for skin, hair and nails. It prevents dryness by forming a barrier and protects water loss from the skin.

Honey’s Antimicrobial Properties:

The practice of honey in wound dressing is gaining popularity in modern medicine as an outcome of its antimicrobial function (4^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Identification of volatile compounds in solvent extracts of honeys produced in South Africa

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Tualang honey has higher phenolic content and greater radical scavenging activity compared with other honey sources

Go to source). The anti-bacterial action was mainly due to the hydrogen peroxide formed by the bee-derived enzyme glucose oxidase. Anti-bacterial activity of honey is mostly reliant on its peroxide activity and non-peroxide mechanisms.

Honey as a Source of Energy:

Along with being absolutely delicious, honey is an excellent source of energy to start your day this winter season since honey contains 95-97% carbohydrates mainly in the form of fructose and glucose (6^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Recent advances in topical wound healing products with special reference to honey: A review

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Honey Could Protect Against Cancer, Aging:

Anti-oxidant is an element that can inhibit the oxidation of other molecules. Oxidation is a biochemical reaction that generates free radicals to chain reaction that may harm the cells, tissues and ultimately the physiological functions. Anti-oxidants terminate the chain reactions to protect the body from free radicals. To balance the oxidative state, human body maintain complex systems of overlapping anti-oxidants. The food containing anti-oxidants have been shown to improve health. As an anti-oxidant, honey has numerous preemptive properties against many clinical conditions, such as inflammatory disorders, coronary artery diseases, neurological worsening, aging, and cancer (7^✔ ✔Trusted Source
The unusual antibacterial activity of medical-grade Leptospermum honey: antibacterial spectrum, resistance and transcriptome analysis

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Honey for diabetics:

Although honey’s role in diabetic control has been controversial, a recent study shows that raw, unprocessed honey has been linked to improved glycemic control and lipid controls, when consumed in a healthy dietary pattern (8^✔ ✔Trusted Source
Effect of honey on cardiometabolic risk factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis

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There are negligible side effects to the consumption and use of honey, so fret not and make it a point to include it this winter season.

References:

1. Honey for Nutrition and Health: A Review - (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23803275_Honey_for_Nutrition_and_Health_A_Review)
2. Effect of honey on nocturnal cough and sleep quality: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22869830/)
3. Honey: its medicinal property and antibacterial activity - (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3609166/)
4. Identification of volatile compounds in solvent extracts of honeys produced in South Africa - (https://academicjournals.org/article/article1380814766_Mnayi-Loh%20et%20al.pdf)
5. Tualang honey has higher phenolic content and greater radical scavenging activity compared with other honey sources - (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S027153171100039X)
6. Recent advances in topical wound healing products with special reference to honey: A review - (https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Recent-advances-in-topical-wound-healing-products-A-Ismail-Alshehabat/dd0c2c820c0b34fd46bb01be57a472d54abb4e4e)
7. The unusual antibacterial activity of medical-grade Leptospermum honey: antibacterial spectrum, resistance and transcriptome analysis - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19513768/)
8. Effect of honey on cardiometabolic risk factors: a systematic review and meta-analysis - (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36379223/)

Source-Medindia