10 types of Honey and How to Use Them

10 types of Honey and How to Use Them

10 Types of Honey and How to Use Them

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Honey is one of the most remarkable foods on Earth, and the only food eaten by us made from an insect. It is also one of the oldest foods we have had traditionally as both a food, medicine, and symbol in many human cultures. Did you know that there are 10 common types of it though? With the plethora of information on and varieties of honey out there, it helps to have a few basic facts before deciding which kind you would like to use or want to try.

So, let’s look at 10 types of honey and how to use them; but first!

A bit about the bee…

The bee exists in many variations in the wild; however, the European honeybee is the one primarily used in apiculture, or honey production.

A healthy colony of bees will consist of a queen, 20,000-60,000 workers, and a relatively small number of drones (the only male bees) and maiden queens depending on the season. Although the queen bee can live up to five years, the smaller female worker bees only live for about six weeks and do a huge amount of work in that time period. From raising the young, taking care of the hive, and guarding it from attack or pillaging, these females are the workforce of the colony’s world. They are the ones that forage for honey, and make complex calculations on distance and locations for efficient foraging.

Although each worker bee performs many duties around the hive, the main one that concerns us is foraging for nectar and turning it into honey. A honeybee must gather nectar from around two million flowers to make one pound of honey. The average bee, though, will only make about 1/12^th of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime. Their strength in numbers is what makes producing honey on the scale that we do possible.

Honeybees are famous for communicating with each other using a “dance” to give information about where nectar sources have been found, how much, quality, and even associative learning with color for navigating. An example of a bee dance is here.

A bit about honey…

Honey bees have been producing honey in the same way for about 150 million years, and we as human beings have certainly learned to capitalize on it. With beekeeping records starting back up to 15,000 years ago, honey has been used as a food, sweetener, medicine, beauty treatment, and even religious offering in so many cultures.

Since ancient times, honey has been highly regarded as a medicine. It is thought to help with everything from sore throats, asthma, diabetic ulcers, and digestive disorders to skin problems and hay fever. Having antiseptic properties, it was historically used as a dressing for wounds and a first aid treatment for burns and cuts.

As an energy food, the natural fruit sugars in honey – fructose and glucose – are quickly digested by the body, making it ideal for sportsmen and athletes in giving them a natural energy boost.

Honey’s ability to attract and retain moisture means that it has long been used as a beauty treatment. Whether as a facial mask, moisturizer, ingredient in a body scrub, or an exfoliant, honey can be quite the tool in the daily regimen of keeping oneself looking prim. Historically, it was a major arsenal of Cleopatra’s daily beauty ritual.

As a food, honey, especially in its raw form, is incredibly healthy and includes enzymes, vitamins, and minerals all good for the human body. It’s the only food that contains “pinocembrin”, an antioxidant associated with improved brain functioning.

On a side note~

I have found a pretty nice handbook that goes over how three simple ingredients (one of which is honey) ingratiated into a person’s life can really impact almost every aspect of their health. It’s called The Honey, Garlic, and Vinegar Miracle, and have included a link here for anyone who wants to check it out. I highly encourage it! I myself use these three foods to keep myself from catching colds and flu’s frequently to continuing an active metabolism. Every morning I mix about two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water to drink, raw garlic cloves to get rid of sore throats, and use honey in all my homemade breads instead of sugar. For those who love following yoga’s sattvic diet or Paleo, honey can be a really good ingredient to include in cooking in many ways!

Honey also lasts an incredibly long time. An explorer who found a 2000 year old jar of honey in an Egyptian tomb said it tasted delicious! With these amazing properties, it is no wonder we have developed so many varieties and ways to enjoy this tasty treat.

Varieties of honey:

So many out there, and so much to choose from! Here is a breakdown of honey in 10 types or forms and how you can use each:

Honey in the jar can be used in cooking, baking, as a spread on bread, and a sweetener in drinks such as tea. Two major varieties you can find in stores are monofloral and polyfloral honeys. Monofloral comes from primarily one plant, such as Starthistle or Orange blossom, and may have a distinctive taste and aroma. Polyfloral comes from a variety of flowers and is usually labeled as “Wildflower” honey because of this diversity.

Honeydew honey is honey that has been derived from the sweet secretions (or honeydew) of aphids and other plant-sap feeding insects by bees rather than pollen. It is typically very dark brown in color, and beekeepers raising bees that produce this way must be wary. The honey coming largely from these honeydew producing insects can be indigestible and cause dysentery among the bees.

Crystallized or “candied” honey is honey that has been solidified into its crystal-like state. It can be returned to its liquid form by warming it.

Pasteurized honey is honey that has gone through the pasteurization process. This requires high temperatures to destroy yeast cells, and delays the onset of crystallization. However, this also causes deterioration of the quality of the product as the molecular structures of helpful enzymes is also broken down.

Raw honey is honey as it exists in the beehive as it is obtained by extraction without adding heat. This is honey at its most healthful state, and tastiest from my experience.

Creamed or “whipped” honey is honey that has been processed in a way that controls crystallization by forming many small crystals within. This makes it very easy to spread on breads and crackers.

Ultrasonicated honey has gone through the ultrasonication process. The honey is exposed to a non-thermal procedure that kills off most yeast cells and delays the crystallization process. It is an alternative to pasteurization in providing mostly yeast free honey while not breaking down nutrients simultaneously.

Comb honey is honey sold still found in its original bee hive combs. It is usually another version of raw honey.

So, which is best?

Well, honestly, it depends on what you want to use it for. Although I personally recommend raw honey over pasteurized versions, honey in all its different forms can be useful. If you want to eat it as a treat, comb honey is great! As a replacement for sugar in baking, out of the jar. As a spread on bread, creamed is much easier.

In addition to these, here are a couple of especially neat versions I would like to touch on:

Royal Jelly – Royal jelly honey is honey that is secreted by workers and given to all bees during their development, but given in much larger amounts to the developing new queens. The protein royalactin is what has been noticed to be the determining difference between if a bee develops into a worker or a queen.

Those developing into queens get much more of it. Because of this, royal jelly has been used as a dietary supplement by people for its various health benefits, namely B-complex vitamins. It is also a supplement for beauty regimens due to its anti-aging properties attributed to the amino acids and broad spectrum of vitamins and minerals it contains. Give it a try! I personally enjoy royal jelly a lot. It takes effort to find, but I think it is well worth it.

Mānuka honey – honey produced from introduced European bees collecting nectar from the tea trees of New Zealand and Australia is known as Manuka honey. The honey is distinctively different from the more common kinds found throughout Europe and the Americas due to its high viscosity, darker brown color, and very earthy or herbaceous flavor. Manuka has also been demonstrated in clinical studies to have antibacterial properties. Although other honeys have these similar properties as well according to these similar tests, manuka does come from at least 70% of the tea tree plant, whose medicinal properties are also quite well known. It is not certain whether this does or does not make it a better medicinal honey, but it certainly does give it its unique taste and aroma. Wedderspoon Premium Manuka is the supplier I would recommend trying for this speciality. Again, I would be happy to hear comments from anyone who wants to share with me on how they feel about the flavor and the effects.

In conclusion, honey is a remarkable food with many relevant and quite honestly amazing properties associated to it. It is used currently and has been used for a long time in the past as a food, medicine, cultural symbol, and beauty product whose popularity is tellingly only on the rise. Nonetheless, for all those who may remember hearing on the news, honeybees around the world (primarily North America) has been in decline due to the combined affects of pesticide prevalence, monoculture agricultural practices, and a weakening of the beehive causing the greatly feared Colony Collapse Disorder (CDC) that has been going on since 2006.

If you wish to provide a helping hand to our beloved bees by providing a stable supply of food throughout the year, there is a way that anyone who has a garden or even a balcony can help. It’s easy – grow flowers that bloom at different times of the year specifically good for feeding bees. An easy way to do this is to pick up a packet of wildflower seed mix (non-GMO and non-invasive is what I prefer) that can aid honeybees as well as look good in a pot or garden. Here is a perennial pack I use to stock our garden (note I specifically use perennial wildflowers so that I do not have to replant each year and wildflowers are usually good at taking care of themselves):

If we give back to the bees, they certainly will give plenty to us.

Well, I hope that was tastily informative. Share with me what you like to do with honey!

~Charlene

Original article and pictures take www.eupterrafoundation.com site