Health Benefits of Honey and Bee Pollen: Flower power!

For over two years I have been eating 1.2KG of honey on a monthly basis – I’m a huge fan of tea. One day I decided to cut my sugar consumption and replace it with something organic. The first and only substitute that came to my mind was honey. I decided to give it a go, and ever since then I could never switch back to sugar. I was able to taste the artificialness more than ever and was disgusted by it. I was unable to drink the tea and simply poured it down the sink!

Health Benefits of Honey

Once I started to consume this ‘organic tea’ I decided to do some research whether this substitute is worth the extra financial costs. And yes, it really is! Best of all the effects are instant, which start from the delicious sweet taste, following improvement in personal mood, and endless long term health benefits. Not to mention it can be combined with bee pollen to improve its effects. The primary health benefits of honey are:

• Body – younghens the skin, slows aging, improves wounds healing, and reduces weight.
• Diet – Antioxidants, Amino acids, carbohydrates, sugars, minerals, and vitamins.
• Energy – 4 large tea spoons and a pill of vitamin E equals one Red Bull. Can provide you with energy for nearly 4 hours without damaging your liver. How cool is that?

Bee pollen

What? I said the same thing when my good friend from Greece first told me about this. It turns out that bee pollen is extremely healthy and that many athletes use it to improve their performance. Adults are advised to consume 30-40grams of bee pollen on a daily basis, which equals to 6-8 teaspoons per day. The best time for such therapy would be autumn and spring. It should last between 1-3 months.

• Autumn – prevents flu, catarrh, and colds.
• Spring – strengths up the organism, restores vitamins and micro-elements.

I noticed that health shops offer bee pollen mixed (10-30%) with tea, so I decided to do the same except on my own. I got myself some bee pollen from the same honey farm where I bought my honey and blended it turning it into powder like state. After mixing it with 1KG of honey I must say that I’m really disappointed with its taste. The bee pollen consisted of 30% (the golden honey turned visually into a brown mustard like texture) of the honey and I guess that was too much, but then I tried to lower the dose the results were still disappointing. I will continue to experiment and let you guys know how to improve the taste of such drink. Some say adding ginger will improve the taste.

Despite its taste bee pollen carries many health benefits

• Allergies – fights catarrh, asthma, and lowers their impact
• Diet – great supplement for amino acids and vitamins. Improves appetite, metabolism, and overall health. Increases the amount of red blood cells and the levels of iron.
• Eyes – due to high levels of vitamin B12 it improves and sharpens eye sight.
• Stress – Improves self esteem and resistance towards stress, relaxes, those who take antidepressants can decrease their usage.
• Cleansing – protects and regenerates the liver and eases removal of toxins. Fights harmful bacteria in the digestive system. It’s great for people who take a lot of medicine and increases resistance towards diseases.

If you guys want to try something really delicious and healthy try making black tea with honey and raspberry. I can guarantee that your mouth will turn into heaven!

Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by land_camera