Honey - The Magical Substance

I was reading a new book that I borrowed from the Quinte Beekeepers Association called A Beeman's Journey. It is different from a regular book in that it chronicles the life and bee keeping times of Charles Sauriol It is over 40 years of experiences that he brings to the subject and discusses the changes he saw in the Don Valley in Toronto. Here is a biking site that goes right past the Charles Sauriol Conservation Park - obviously named in his honour.

I loved this book as it related to an area that I am familiar with (along with Millions of others from Southern Ontario) and it also held many side notes about life as a bee man that echos what this site is all about. Part of the book takes place in his cottage that he bought near Tweed Ontario - a place that is close to me here. He relates the problems that he had with bears attacking a yard of his. We have seen a bear on our property many times and it must be a female as we have seen it with cubs.

What I really wanted to talk about was the innate goodness in honey that no other sweetener can provide. I will quote from his book and he was quoting from another research paper posted in the American Bee Journal titled "Honey has a greater nutritional value than Sugar" by Eduardo Mario Bianchi, Doctor of Biochemistry, Argentine Republic. The section I chose was titled "Honey versus White Sugar"

Here is a condensed version of the article. 'Common table sugar, a refined food substance is made up of sucrose only. All of the vital elements have been destroyed or eliminated.'

To quote from the article. The refining process of raw cane sugar removes 93% of the ash, and with it the trace elements which are necessary for the breaking down of sugar-93% of the chronium, 61% of the manganese, 92% of the cobalt, 76% of the copper, 67% of the zinc, and 98% of the magnesium. All these essential elements remain in the residual molasses. Also, sugar is not assimilated by the human body. It requires a complicated digestive process to be broken down into the simple sugars, glucose and fructose.

Honey on the other hand is a food that possesses all of the vital properties. It is made with nectar extracted by bees, modified and changed by them, concentrated and deposited in the cells of the honeycomb.

It is important to remember that honey is made up almost entirely of glucose and fructose, sugars that are passed directly into the blood without requiring any transformation or work by the body. Along with these two sugars honey also contains in lesser quantities sucrose, maltose, and a variety of substances indispensable to all living things. Also found in honey are important enzymes, such as amylase, invertase, catalese, perodidase, lipase. Because of this high content of enzymes which aid digestion, honey occupies one of the principal places among food products.

Also found in the composition of honey are calcium salts, sodium, potassium, magnesium, iron, chlorine, phosphorus, sulfur iodine. The average quantity of certain mineral salts existing in honey is almost equal to those contained in the blood serum of man.

Along with the foregoing, honey contains a series of organic acids, proteins, various vitamins, hormones, growth factors, inhibine (antibiotic activity) and vegetable pigments.

In conclusion, sugar is I refined food in which a series of principles nutrients have been removed. Honey is a natural food retaining all of its vital components.
Sauriol, Charles, A Beemans Journey, pp71,72, Natural Heritage Natural History Inc, 1984

Well that is about all I can say! Really it is a remarkable food.

On another front my wife and personal trainer, Rachel has been killing me with her timed workouts. I did one yesterday and my chest and neck are killing me today! Her web site is Edge Personal Training. We have been working on it and it was launched and she got a lot of good feedback!

I will comment more on my reflections on Charles thoughts shortly.

Bee Stoic