HONEY: It's more magic than any spit, ever.

So, firstly, sorry it's been so long. I don't know what I've thought was so damned important that I've forgot about you, and how sick you are, and how tired of it you are, and about how much better you want to be. I'll make no promises that I can't keep, but I will try harder. Deal?

Secondly, I thought about having Alicia take a cute picture of me holding one of those adorable bears that have honey in them, or something of the like, and then I remembered that Alice has tons of drawings of bees that I could just use, and btw, go check out her drawings, they're awesome 10 DOLLAR DRAWINGS.

Thirdly, I have vegan friends. I used to be vegan myself, and for the first four of my eight years vegan, I didn't eat honey. Then I moved to Portland and, at the time, Portland had three amazing, local, sustainable, and wonderful bakeries, all of which used honey as their only non-vegan ingredient. I happily ran down the road of not giving a shit, and ate honey. And I quickly started putting it in my tea, and in things I was baking at home, and I never regretted it. But my vegan friends, who I still adore, who are so anti-honey, well, calling it bee spit is in no way going to get me to not realize all of the amazing health benefits, or make me think that your sugar and corn-syrup is something I should be eating. Sorry.

Also, I am mostly talking about good, local, raw honey here. Will processed honey be also good for you? Sure. As good for you? Not at all. Farmer's markets are a great place to get local honey, it's worth it, make the trip. One hundred percent pure, and from organic sources is your way to get the best health benefits from honey. Benefits like...



i. IMMUNE SYSTEM BOOSTING! I generally start with this, because, c'mon, no more sick friends is easier achieved if friends have the ability to fight off the sickness in the first place. Antioxident, anti-bacterial, anti-viral, and anti-fungal, honey is pretty much anti most of the things you are also anti, so feel free to be negative together.

ii. VITAMINS: my favorites for not being sick, and feeling awesome: B1,2,3,5,&6 plus C, all that are needed for having energy and staying sickness free.

iii. FIGHT ALLERGIES: I have allergies. It's okay, I can admit it. They're not just for nerds anymore (or maybe they are, my comic book collection and passion for food is pretty nerdy), and while I do find myself with a daily pill to help manage them all, especially the one to my girlfriend's cat, honey is a good way to go if you are allergic to the local flora. Honey is made, by bees, from the local flowers, and therefore has the ability to help inoculate you from their effects, by giving you a small, processed version of the thing you are allergic to. For the record, if they make cat honey, I will NOT be buying it.

iv. FIGHT CANCER: We've of course already beaten cancer, but assuming you can't stomach any of the other things I've posted about on this blog, feel free to add honey to your diet: early studies show that there are phytonutrients in raw honey that fight colon cancer. As stated above, processing honey does some damage to the healing abilities, and it's possible that even the heat from adding honey to tea might take away some of the effectiveness of the phytonutrients, so if yer trying to fight off cancer, just eat some straight from the jar, or in a sandwich or something.

v. TOPICAL MAGICS: Alright, so I feel weird about this. I really do. But there have been multiple studies that show that the best thing to help treat a burn, and to minimize the possibilities of infection in that wound, is honey. It's been a common "folk" remedy for years, but the big boys at "We know everything, we're scientists, inc." have been looking into it, and have found that honey is better on burns than anything modern science can come up with. Again, I feel weird about it. It seems strange to me to go get a little plastic bear after someone gets burned. But the results are out there. If someone has any personal experience with this, let me know, okay?

vi. DIABETES: I really can't tell how much of this help is based on people removing sugar, and adding honey, and how much of it is based on the claim that honey increases insulin bio-availability, but either way, eating honey instead of any other sweetener seems to lead to better blood sugar levels.

vii. STOP THE COUGHING, IT'S MAKING IT HARD FOR ME TO SLEEP: No one sits around and dreams about having (or dating someone with) a brutal hacking cough. It's never attractive or a desired result. Well have no fear! Have some honey! Research has shown that honey works better, once again, than anything modern medicine has to offer. You won't get the sleepyness that comes from some DM products, which you might want if yer up with a respiratory infection late at night, but it might be better if you're having issues in the daytime. ***The most extensive study that was done was done using buckwheat honey, and I personally don't know if there's any reason to believe that buckwheat honey would be better than any other type of honey, but if you're really worried about it, maybe have a bottle of buckwheat in the medicine cabinet. I've used other kinds with similar results, so I don't think it's that big of an issue.

WHAT TO DO WITH HONEY:

While I type this, I'm drinking some delicious Numi Puerh tea, with some honey, which tastes amazing, health benefits or no health benefits. But some studies have shown that the hot water I use to make my tea might actually damage some of those health benefits. Spoonfulls of honey are a good way to go, and I like a good honey peanut butter sandwich any day of the week. Also recommended are honey + lemon juice in some luke warm water, good for what ails you. Honey can also be used in most recipes that call for sugar, baking wise, though I'm sure there's gonna be some angry bakers out there that disagree with me.

For those of you that enjoy a good drink, my favorite "it's cold out side, and I kinda feel sick, and I want something to help me relax and feel better and get to sleep" drink this winter was the following: a glass of hot water, two table spoons of honey, lemon juice, an ounce or two of Tuaca, and some cayenne powder sprinkled on top. It's pretty much my favorite drink ever, and makes you feel warm and ready for bed. And yes I just recommended booze on my nutrition blog. This is the awkward way I roll.

WHO SHOULD NOT EAT HONEY:

DO NOT FEED HONEY TO KIDS UNDER ONE YEAR OLD. I know botulism sounds cool and metal and all, but it's not really that cool at all (I guess it's still metal). Kids under one year old are able to get botulism from some honey, possibly. Not worth the risk. After one year, it's a-ok.

Alright, so there's a new post. Really hoping there will be more soon, and more regularly as well.