While narcistically reading my own blog, I noticed a story about researchers finding honey to be a better sleep aid for children with colds than over-the-counter cough supressants. What I found to be notable about the article, aside from the fact that the researchers found the cough syrup to be about as effective as taking nothing, was that they didn't differentiate between pasteurized and unpasteurized honey.

There is an old Ayurvedic saying that says "raw honey is medicine, cooked honey is poison." At first glance this may look a little counterintuitive - how can honey go from medicine to poison just by cooking it? What this ancient Indian sage was talking about are the nutritional substances found in raw honey that are destroyed by heat. These include many antioxidants, vitamin C, B vitamins, minerals and enzymes, which help to digest our consumed food and give our pancreas a much needed rest.

Honey has been used as an antiseptic and antibacterial for thousands of years in human culture, used to dress external wounds and even internal injuries like ulcers. As an antimicrobial, honey can be used to heal many difficult-to-treat bacterial infections in humans.

Unfortunately, all these healing properties are only available in raw honey. Cooked or pasteurized honey is just sugar (which is likely why it is referred to as "poison" in Ayurveda, as we all know the dangers inherent in sugar consumption).

So it is definitely worth your while to get your honey from the health food store in the unpasteurized form. Using it as a sweetener instead of sugar will do wonders for your health. Remember, when you're adding honey to hot food, like porridge or tea, it's better to wait until the food has cooled to the temperature at which you'd want to consume it before adding the honey. If it's too hot to put in your mouth, it's too hot to preserve the nutrition of the honey.

Here's a link to a great article on honey that goes into a lot more detail than I have here. After reading it you'll know everything you need to know about honey, and then some. Impress your friends!