5 Benefits of Honey

While traveling to Manila last Sunday, my nephew who was driving the car stopped at a gasoline station along South Luzon Expressway or SLEX. He was sleepy already so we decided to stay for a while. I went to Starbucks so I could sit comfortably while waiting.

I ordered Hibiscus blend which is my favorite flavor of hot tea at Starbucks. The guy at the counter asked me if I want to have honey for my tea. I normally do not put honey -- nor sugar -- in my tea but I said yes. He gave me two packs. After a couple of hours we left for Manila -- with the two packs of honey in my bag.

This photo of Winnie the Pooh is from pixshark.com. Thanks.

Anyway, seeing those packs of honey last night made me recall the benefits of honey that I've heard from my parents and relatives while I was growing up. Here are 5 that I can recall.

5 Benefits of Honey

1. Honey is a good remedy for cough and colds. Whenever I would have cough and colds, my mom would always make me have her honey-calamnsi mix. She pours honey on a teaspoon then she squeezes a few drops of calamnsi on top. I always get better with her TLC (which includes the honey-calamansi mix) so I suppose it really works. There are also researches now that says honey has antibacterial properties.

2. Honey gives you energy or as my dad would say, honey is "pampalakas". I can't recall any specific incident when he made me have honey for it's energy giving capability but I know he did that a number of times when I was in high school. I think saying honey is "pampalakas" actually makes sense. Honey is sugar. Don't raise your eyebrows -- I didn't mean sugar as in processed sugar but the unprocessed kind. I think it's glucose. Or perhaps fructose. But whatever it is, honey is sugar so it considered as energy-giving food.

3. Honey can cure wounds. This one I haven't tried but my aunt said it does. She told me that when she and my other aunts were young, they had to stay in the mountains because of the Japanese occupation. She said whenever any of them would have wounds, they'd apply honey on it. I remember this because I told her they shouldn't have done that because honey is expensive. She laughed because she said they actually get honey for free. She didn't say how but I believed her. Good thing she didn't say they used honey to help treat wounded Japanese soldier because that would make me think this whole thing is just fairy tale. Anyway, this can is also probably because as said above, honey has antibacterial properties.

4. Honey helps relive constipation and indigestion. When I was young, my mom would make me take two tablespoons of honey whenever I would get constipated or whenever I would eat too much and have indigestion. As far as I can remember, it worked.

5. Lastly, honey can make your skin look beautiful. That's according to the same I aunt I mentioned above. And this is I think is really true because she and my other aunts were beautiful.

Now, I did not write these benefits to encourage you ask for honey at Starbucks or other coffee shops. If they find out, I might be banned from entering. I wrote this because it just feels good to recall the things I learned from my loved ones. Hey! Today is Thursday. Consider this as my #throwbackthursday or #tbt post.

I hope you learned something, honeys!