Honey

HONEY HISTORY

The earliest illustration we have of honey being gathered is approx 15,000 years old and appears in a painting on the walls of a rock shelter in eastern Spain.

Honey was  used in most ancient Egyptian households as a sweetening agent as far back as 4000 BC.

Honey was valued highly by the Egyptians, it was used to feed sacred animals and as a tribute or payment.

Ancient Egyptian confectioners uses honey as a sweetener and mixed it with various fruits, herbs, nuts, and spices. The candy was then used as an offering to the Egyptian gods.

Honey was the most used medicine in ancient Egypt. Of the more than 900 medical remedies we know about for that time, more than 500 were honey based.

The ancient Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans all considered honey to be a gift of the gods. They hoped for magic, healing and life-enhancing properties from honey cake.

In Greek mythology, it is said that cupid dipped his arrows in honey to fill the lovers heart with sweetness.

The Ancient Greeks made little honey cakes from flour, honey and oil, sometimes baked with fresh flowers inside them, as supplications to their gods. They considered honey to be an important food as well as a healing medicine.

Democritus (460-370 BC), a Greek philosopher and physician, chose a diet rich in honey and lived until he was 109 years old.

The Teutonic peoples in pre-Christian Europe prized honey cake especially around the winter solstice as protection against evil spirits who were abroad during the twelve nights of Christmas.

In the Bible, honey was dubbed "the heavenly food."  When God gave the Israelite people their promised land, it was called a land flowing with milk and honey—a fertile agricultural area that could produce amazing foods—including bees with raw honey.

In biblical times, John the Baptist lived on a diet of wild locust and honey.

In the first century AD, Apicus, a wealthy Roman gourmet, wrote a series of books in which more than half the recipes included honey.

Physicians in ancient Rome used honey to help their patients fall asleep.

For thousands of years, honey and fruits were the only sweeteners in Europe.

People have been calling their sweeties “honey” since the 1350s

FUN HONEY FACTS

Honey is the only natural food that is made without destroying any kind of life.

Honey is the only food that does not go bad. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible.

There isn't enough water in honey for microorganisms to live on, which is why honey never goes bad.

The average worker bee makes just one twelfth of a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime.

It would take two tablespoons of honey to fuel a bee's flight around the world.

The Jewish New Year is welcomed with honey cake or apples dipped in honey, to insure a sweet life in the year ahead.

Manuka honey, which bees make from a New Zealand flower, is so good at killing bacteria that it can be used to heal wounds and burns.

There is in Nepal a honey called 'mad honey' which is produced by bees pollinating rhododendron plants. The honey is psychoactive and its effects can range from euphoria and lightheadedness to being similar to a full-blown acid trip with hallucinations. Honey hunters in Nepal make dangerous vertical climbs to harvest it since it sells for $60-80 a pound.

A group of bees in France produced green and blue honey by feasting on the discarded M&M candy shells from a nearby processing plant.

There have been no beehive losses in Cuba. Unable to import pesticides due to the embargo, the island now exports valuable organic honey.

The average person consumes 93 pounds of honey in their lifetime.

The reason infants can't eat honey is because it contains botulism spores which their digestive systems aren't developed enough to prevent from developing.

An African bird called the greater honeyguide is famous for leading people to honey. It will, untrained and uncoerced, lead humans to honeycombs that would be otherwise difficult for a human to locate without their help. This teamwork not only benefits the human but also the honeyguide bird who feasts on the grubs and beeswax that are left behind.

Sources Goldenblossomhoney.com, Daily Mail, Food For Thought by Ed Pearce