Tea with honey is a superb different to sugar. Greek honey has been identified for its medicinal and therapeutic properties since antiquity. Ikaria Greek honey is a legendary Blue Zone honey.
Greek honey with honeycomb
The traditional Greeks have been utilizing honey for hundreds of years, and it holds a particular place of their tradition and traditions. Its quite a few well being advantages typically function a treatment for a lot of illnesses.
Throughout our go to to Arachova, I stumbled upon a pleasant discover – Greek honey. The village outlets had many connoisseur meals merchandise produced by the native folks. We tasted well-known Greek honey, olive oil, and mountain tea.
I used to be pleasantly shocked to be taught that the longstanding historical past of beekeeping continues to today. Greek honey has been collected for its scrumptious, candy style and therapeutic, nutritious properties for 1000’s of years.
Serendipitously, Netflix launched a brand new Dan Beuttner documentary, Reside to 100: Secrets and techniques of Blue Zones. One of many Blue Zones is Ikaria, Greece – an remoted island well-known for its honey and different culinary delights.
Conventional western medication treats illness with prescribed drugs and surgical procedures. Over time, I’ve realized that prevention is best than remedy. Well being cannot be purchased; you have to dwell it. Typically, prescribed drugs are nice for acute issues however aren’t sustainable for long-term well being.
An ideal instance is the Greek-American Stamatis Moraitis, portrayed in Blue Zones, who was identified with terminal lung most cancers. He decides to return house to Ikaria to die. Unexpectedly, his new way of life in his ancestral house allowed him to dwell one other thirty years cancer-free.
His new weight-reduction plan was possible excessive in quercetin, an considerable, potent antioxidant in tea, wine, honey, fruits, and greens. Research present quercetin has an inhibitory impact on most cancers cells.
How Bees Make Honey
Do you bear in mind consuming honeysuckle as a baby?
Consuming the nectar out of honeysuckle flowers was a longstanding summer season custom after I was younger. To get to the nectar, you pull on the stem on the backside of the flower and contact the candy bead of nectar to your tongue.
Nectar is the primary ingredient of honey. Bees suck up nectar droplets from flowers and return them to the hive, changing them to honey.
The bees use their wings to dry out the nectar, which turns it into honey. As soon as the honey has dried, the bees pack it away in hexagon-shaped honey cells and canopy it with beeswax for later use.
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Well being Advantages of Honey
People have valued honey for its medicinal properties and dietary advantages for hundreds of years. Greek honey is a fancy combination containing roughly 180 compounds with antimicrobial and antioxidant properties.
Honey accommodates 38-55 p.c fructose and 31 p.c glucose. The remaining sugars are maltose, sucrose, and different complicated carbohydrates. It’s a naturally occurring sugar requiring metabolic breakdown earlier than the physique makes use of it as gasoline.
From a dietary perspective, one of the best honey is recent, unheated, and minimally processed. As such, it accommodates the very best focus of antioxidants, which assist enhance adiponectin ranges. Adiponectin is an anti-inflammatory hormone additionally identified for regulating glucose ranges.
Greeks and Egyptians have used honey for its potent antibacterial and anti inflammatory therapeutic results when topically utilized to wounds and burns. When added to tea, honey can also be used for treating respiratory illnesses like coughs and congestion.
Quercetin is essentially the most broadly distributed flavonoid in honey. Research present that quercetin lowers blood stress by restoring the endothelium lining of the blood vessels.
How Greek Honey Is Harvested
Bees make honey from unadulterated crops native to the excessive elevations of the Greek mountains. Not like sugar, honey affords quite a few well being advantages acknowledged since historic instances.
Greek honey has lengthy been thought-about the greatest on this planet, even throughout historic instances, as a result of it’s pure, pure, unheated, and unpasteurized. This is because of its pure, candy style and confirmed dietary advantages.
Greek honey is exclusive due to the nation’s biodiversity and temperate local weather. The wide range of timber and flowers discovered all through Greece makes the nation a playground for bees.
With out bees, life wouldn’t exist on our planet.
Completely different Kinds of Honey
There are lots of methods to sweeten your tea when you prefer it candy, and honey is likely one of the greatest sweeteners. Nevertheless, not all honey is processed equally.
Ikaria is a Greek island within the japanese Aegean Sea, identified in historic instances because the “therapeutic island.” It is a well-known Blue Zone identified for its longevity, partly attributed to its pure uncooked honey and bee pollen.
This uncommon Ikarian honey is 100% pure, pure, unheated, and unpasteurized. Its particular traits are a operate of the distinctive surroundings the place indigenous Ikarian bees collect pollen.
The beekeepers transfer their hives round to comply with the pure pollinating cycles so the bees might forage among the many blooming flowers of the seasons. On Ikaria, there are 4 distinct varieties of honey: Anama (heather), Pine and Wildflower, Thyme and Anama and Pine.
The supply of honey has a major impression on potential dietary advantages. Its particular traits consequence from the distinctive surroundings the place indigenous bees collect pollen. The beekeepers of Ikaria harvest their honey from bees that get their nectar from pesticide-free indigenous crops.
Ikaria isn’t the one beekeeping island in Greece. All through the Greek Islands and mountains, there are beekeepers. In Arachova, we had pine, heather, and lavender honey.
Greatest Pure Honey For Tea
On the remoted island of Ikaria, locals imagine their uncommon Ikarian honey is likely one of the secrets and techniques to a protracted life. Individuals on the island have been consuming honey for generations to remain wholesome and vigorous into previous age.
Jonathan Vigliotti reviews the locals take a teaspoon of honey as their day by day medication. The older males have rumored its nature’s viagra, though no research exist. Based on the College of Athens, Ikarians are twice as more likely to attain their 90s, typically in higher well being than People.
In Ikarai, the honey differs from that discovered on most grocery store cabinets. Ikarian honey is exclusive as a result of there isn’t a industrial farming on the island. There are only a few industrial undertakings, so nature is fairly pure. The pollen and nectar the bees accumulate are freed from chemical substances and pesticides sometimes present in industrial farming.
Not like most honey in america, Ikarian honey is bought unheated, unfiltered, and unpasteurized. These processes can destroy the pure nutritional vitamins and minerals.
A Cup of Tea With Honey
Honey is a pure sweetener and combines completely with a cup of tea. Natural tea in Ikaria is used within the kitchen, and within the teapot as medication. The dietary knowledge is inherent within the elements and recipes which have stored Ikarians wholesome for generations.
I now drink Greek Mountain Tea with Ikaria honey each evening. After listening to me go on about all of the well being advantages of mountain tea and honey, my husband has dubbed it “Killer Mom Earth” tea — which means it is positively highly effective in a great way.
References:
Greece Is: The Candy Well being Advantages of Bee Merchandise
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