Honey as a Medicine #1 – Introduction to Honey and Types of Honey

Hello Steemians, I’m starting this new series on honey. Honey is considered to have lots of medicinal benefits. In this series I'm going to explore many information about Honey and how it is being used as a medicine. Those who are interested in Honey and those who think honey is Yummy!! can follow this series. :) Okay lets jump in.

Honey has been recognized as one of the best homemade medicine that cures lots of diseases. Not just curing but it also prevents a person from getting any infections or diseases. In India there is a belief. First nutrition for a person is obtained from mother’s milk. After mother’s milk all the other types of nutrition is obtained from Cow’s milk. That is the reason why cow is considered with high value in India. More than mother’s milk or cow’s milk, Honey is believed to be highly nutritious. When consumed properly honey can do wonders in human body to stay healthy.

Image Source: Pixabay.com

With high medicinal value in Honey, this has been in use as an important ingredient in preparing Ayurvedic and Siddha medicine in India. Of course honey is very popular all over the world. In countries like Germany and Australia, people are very much fond of bee keeping. According to ancient Indian scriptures each type of honey has its own significance with some minor differences in each type of honey. The honey types are differentiated based on the location from which they are obtained and the type/species of bees that accumulate the honey from the flowers and fruits. Based on the geographical location from where the honey is brought, the medicinal values also varies. Some types of honey are discussed below:

Honey from Mountains

This type of Honey is accumulated or collected from the top of the mountains. Sometimes the journey to collect this type of honey can be highly challenging. Nectar is not always very easy to get right? Mountain honey is very special in curing all the type of cough. In Tamil medicine there are 5 different types of cough described namely:

• Silethmagasam
• Suvasakaasam
• Eelai Irumal
• Allu Maandham
• Kakkirumal

All the above mentioned types of cough can be controlled with the help of mountain honey. Some people might have uncontrolled cough for a longer period of time which can be controlled with mountain honey. This type of honey is an expert in inducing hunger and taste. Mountain honey is used as an active ingredient in preparing many Ayurvedic medicines.

Honey from Tree Branches

This type of honey is usually found on tall tree branches. Not necessarily always but in most of the cases the trees that has such honey comb will be a fruit or flower bearing tree. This tree branch honey combs will usually be huge in size. For a person to catch honey from such comb, a high level of expertise might be required. Every human body is made of Air energy, Fire energy and Water energy (Vata, Pitta and Kapha). Consuming tree branch honey helps in balancing air energy and fire energy in the body. Diseases associated with air energy imbalance and fire energy imbalance can be easily cured. In Tamilnadu, India, this type of honey is called as Kombu Then.

Honey from Tree Holes

These type of honey combs can be found only in places where trees are abundant. It is not quite easy to search such type of honey combs. This type of honey helps in balancing fire energy in the body. It helps in reducing weight and unwanted fat in the body. Tree hole honey helps in increasing hunger and taste. Though the tree hole honey are quite similar to the tree branch honey, the bee species that collect these honey can vary.

Honey from Forests

Honey collected from forests can be usually from a tree hole or from tree branches. These forest honey can be a combination of honey collected by bees from different plants and flowers. Based on the location from which this honey is collected, the medicinal values differ. Forest honey is also used along with other ingredients to prepare Ayurvedic and Siddha medicines.

Honey from Rocks

This type of honey can be seen in between rocks in the forests or mountains. When I think about honey from Rocks, I am remembered of Baloo from Jungle Book. From his expression in the movie, we can clearly understand how tastier and nutritious this honey can be. Rock honey is also called as Kurunji Then in Tamilnadu, India. This honey is also very helpful in reducing weight and unwanted fat in the body (Interesting, something just opposite to what was showed in Jungle Book movie. Baloo doesn’t seem to look like he is losing his weight :) ). This honey is also very rich in taste.

Image Source

As you can see in the above image it is not very easy to gather honey from mountains and rocks. The above image is from a team gathering honey in one of the mountain rocks in Nepal.

Honey from House Garden

House Garden honey is usually referred as a man-made honey in one way. They are very good and medicinal in nature. There is a belief in India that a person should rely mostly on the food products that he can get in and around his habitat. The belief is that, such food items will be more suitable and will be able to provide all the necessary nutrition to live in that habitat. I do believe in this concept as my gene structure might have got used to consumption of food items available in my habitat for several generations. So, House Garden honey, prepared in the habitat that a person lives will be able to provide all the nutrition the person requires to live in that particular habitat as the bees and the honey collected by bees all belong to the same habitat.

Some people basically refrain from consuming honey saying that it’s a puke from bees. Usually these statements come from people who don't have proper understand about the value of Honey. Even though it is true in one way or the other, the medicinal qualities of honey cannot be completely ignored. Ancient Indian scriptures details the purity of honey in various ways. There are detailed information available about honey medicine. Bees that bring honey for us are also one of the mysterious species like the ants which build huge colonies systematically. Bees not only help us in providing tasty honey but they are also one of major contributors in keeping ecological balance by pollinating the flowers.

Hope you enjoyed the article. Meet you again with a new piece of information on this Honey medicine series. Thanks for Reading.

Disclaimer: This article details only a high level of information about honey and medicinal aspects of honey. Direct consumption of honey without knowing the quantity or effects is not recommended. Please consult a medical practitioner before you start using honey as a medicine.

In this series:
Honey as a Medicine #2 - Quality and Composition of a good Honey