Honey: The Elixir of Life

Honey is recognized as a delicious food supplement that is used on the dining table for eating with porridge or cereals and as an ingredient to make the tea taste nice. Not many people are aware of the benefits of honey; not only as a food ingredient but as a healthcare product. Eyebrows are raised when there are suggestions to use honey on our hair or skin. People are ignorant and detached on the benefits provided by honey through the ages towards maintenance of healthy skin and hair. Amazing Ingredients of Honey Honey has never been dependent on additives to prevent it from getting spoilt. This must have been a real blessing during the ages where there was no refrigerator. Modern scientists have discovered at a later stage that honey had powerful antioxidant properties, giving us a strong source of enzymes, minerals, amino acids and vitamins. These ingredients help us in reducing the inflammation in cells and in promoting cellular regeneration. This is the secret behind keeping the skin fresh and youthful. Today, honey has become a frequent ingredient in several cosmetic products and thousands of commercial beauty products are being made with honey and its ingredients. Properties of Honey It contains high quantities of monosaccharide, fructose and glucose. Its sweet taste comes from its sugar content of almost seventy per cent. Minerals and water build up the remaining part of its composition. Honey also has antibacterial and antiseptic properties, as we learn from http://honeyfanatic.com. Modern science has taught us the benefits of honey in its useful applications in wound management. It may come as a surprise to the modern scientists that honey was used to treat wounds as far back as pre-ancient Egyptian days. Honey and its usefulness through the Ages Historical records point out to Cleopatra, hailed as one of the most beautiful women in the world, applying a honey mask to her face each morning. She is also known to have taken honey and milk baths to keep her skin smooth and healthy. Honey is also the secret behind a youthful look even in middle age. In the Ming Dynasty too in China, women at the court of the emperor applied honey with ground orange to keep their hair and skin beautiful and renewed. More than four thousand years ago, honey was used as a conventional Ayurvedic medicine in India and it was thought to be useful to treat imbalances in our body. Ancient Greeks thought that eating honey would help them live longer. There is not a civilization that has not praised the qualities of honey. In the Arabian world, it was considered as a great healing food. The benefits of honey have even been lauded in the Holy Quran which mentions in one of its chapters on how the Almighty Creator taught the bee to build its cells in hills, in trees and in the habitations of men. It talks about how men have been guided to drink the product from within the bodies of the bees to be healed. This is a food for thought.