Honey has been used for thousands of years both as an instant energy booster and for its medicinal properties.

The raw Manuka honey, being 4 times more powerful than ordinary honey, not only boosts your energy, but your immune system too. Incorporating it into your diet will not only ensure tasty meals, but it will also improve health and boost the immune system.

Honey in Your Diet

Everyone can use honey, unless they are allergic to it.  So, start with a teaspoonful and gradually increase it to two spoonfuls a day. You should not give honey to babies under 1 year of age.

Honey can be incorporated into your diet in many ways:

• Use it instead of sugar

• Use it instead of jam on toast, or instead of syrup on pancakes or waffles

• Take it before going to bed for restful sleep

• Take a spoonful of raw honey in a glass of water first thing in the morning if you’re constipated

• It helps fight obesity and loose that extra weight if you take it everyday in the morning on an empty stomach with water and lemon.

Cooking with Honey

Despite many mouthwatering recipes, honey should not be used in cooking. Heating honey destroys enzymes and considerably dilutes a lot of its medicinal value. Only raw, ie unheated and unfiltered honey has incredible anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties.

Even according to Ayurveda, honey should never be used heated as it becomes not only useless, but toxic when heated.

This means you should NEVER put honey in hot tea or use it in baking. The reason raw honey is so healthy is because it has not been heated, a process that destroys most of its healing properties.

One of the features of a beehive is that bees maintain a constant temperature inside the hive of about 36 degrees Celsius. Therefore, that is the ideal temperature at which honey should be used.

Different Ways Raw Manuka Honey Can Be Used

There are many ways of including honey in your diet, without exposing it to high temperatures:

• Use it to sweeten your dressings or marinades

• Stir it into warm tea, coffee, milk, lemonade, milkshake, latte or water

• Drizzle honey on top of toast or pancakes

• Mix honey into yogurt, cereal or oatmeal

• Spread raw honey over toast or over peanut butter

• Drizzle honey over ice cream or fruit salad

• Dip grilled fruit kebabs in honey

• Drizzle honey over roasted vegetables (this goes well with sweetish-tasting vegetables such as carrots, pumpkin and sweet potatoes)

• Add a little bit of honey into pumpkin soup

• Drizzle honey over roasted apples or grilled squash

• Add it to melted cocoa powder and butter to make a Honey Chocolate Sauce

• Make honey butter spread by adding orange rind and honey to warm butter

• Mix sour cream, cocoa powder and honey to make a chocolate honey dip (for fruit kebabs or fresh fruit)

• Use it as fruit preservative

• Make honey wine (mead)