The main uses of honey are in
cooking, baking, spreading on bread or toast, and as an
addition to various beverages such as tea. Raw honey also
contains enzymes that help in its digestion, several
vitamins and antioxidants.
Honey is the main ingredient in the alcoholic
beverage mead, which is also known as "honey wine"
or "honey beer" (although it is not wine or beer), and
metheglin. It is also used as an adjunct in beer. Beer
brewed with greater than about 30% honey as a source of
sugar by weight, or mead brewed with malt (with or
without hops), is known as braggot.
Honey is used in traditional folk medicine and apitherapy,
and is an excellent natural preservative.
Some vegans consider honey to be an animal product and
avoid using it, instead choosing sweetening alternatives
such as agave nectar, rice syrup or stevia.
Without commercial beekeeping, large-scale fruit and
vegetable farming and some of the seed industry would be
incapable of sustaining themselves, since many crops are
pollinated by migratory beekeepers who contract their bees
for that purpose.
In ancient history, the Ancient Egyptian and Middle-Eastern
peoples also used honey for embalming the dead. However,
only rich and powerful people had the luxury of this type
of funeral. Scythians, and later the other Central Asian
nomadic people, for many months drove a wagon with a
deceased ruler around the country in their last rites
mourning procession, carrying the body in a casket filled
with honey.
The HWBKA has a recipe book for sale and we have provided a
link to the BBCs website in the recipes section of our website.
The information on this page has been
reproduced from www.wikipedia.com. Copyright
acknowledged.