Health Benefits of Raw Honey
Raw honey is unfiltered, unprocessed pure honey that is produced from bees using nectar from flowers. It is a natural alkaline food with major nutrition, while containing all the enzymes, vitamins, minerals and water to sustain life. These properties make raw honey the perfect natural medicine in defending against sickness and allergies. It contains B vitamins, vitamin c, amino acids and minerals such as magnesium, calcium, zinc, potassium and phosphate. Raw honey is naturally anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and anti-allergenic. Out of all the natural sweeteners out there, raw honey may have the longest history in proving itself to be an incredible super food. It’s been used from healing to refined sugar baking to natural beauty remedies. Raw honey may be one of our favorite natural sweeteners!
Benefits of Raw Honey
Honey can help aid in neutralizing toxins in the body. It also has cancer fighting properties and helps build the immune system. Raw honey can soothe coughs and sore throats and can help reduce fevers. It is often used topically to help heal skin rashes, acne or eczema. When honey is mixed with ginger or cinnamon it can help calm upset stomachs, constipation, and nausea. Honey and cinnamon are a particularly powerful combo in helping to regulate blood sugar levels and digestion.
During the winter, honey is one of our best defenses. We eat it often throughout the day if we feel any signs of illness coming on. And it’s a delicious remedy to speed up healing if a cold has already begun. When we eat honey raw, we’ve also noticed an improvement in digestion, energy and a lack of unhealthy cravings!
Perhaps the most convincing element of raw honey is that it has an incredibly sweet, floral flavor that’s perfect for sugar free baking! It’s sweet enough to substitute sugar in almost any recipe. Even if you don’t prefer the taste of raw honey, when baked in certain desserts, you won’t be able to taste any honey flavor. It’s a great sugar substitute!
Where to get Raw Honey
One of the best ways to buy raw honey is from a local beekeeper. With a little research, you’ll find beekeepers are all around and you can get amazing deals buying this way. Better yet, it will be local and you can find beekeepers that treat their bees well. Local will allow you to reap the most benefits out of it for defending your body against sickness and allergies in your climate and environment. If you can’t buy this way, you can always buy raw honey at natural health food stores, most groceries stores and online.
Raw honey can be found in a variety of forms.
Honey comb is a great form of raw honey. It contains wax that has many nutritional benefits when chewed.
Thicker pastes of raw honey make it easy to eat a spoonful for sore throats, allergies or coughs.
The most popular form and most convenient for in the kitchen is that soft, golden liquid. Use it in place of sugar as a naturally sweet sugar substitute. Try these raw honey recipes!
Healthy Raw Honey Recipes
Raw Dark Chocolate Coconut Truffles
Healthy Blueberry Lemon Buttermilk Pancakes
Healthy Honey Mustard Dressing
Healthy “sugar-free” Sugar Cookies
When you need a quick dose of raw honey but don’t have time to bake, try these delicious fast honey fixes!
- Spread it on toast or bagels
- Add it to teas or other favorite hot drinks
- Add it to smoothies
- Drizzle it over yogurt and/or granola
- Mix it with butter for extra delicious honey butter
- Add it to peanut butter sandwiches
- Mix it with applesauce and cinnamon
- Replace maple syrup with it on pancakes or waffles
Lemon Meringue Tartlets
Blueberry Muffins
Healthy Teriyaki Pasta Salad
Vitamin Sea Princess Smoothie
Naturally Sweet Floral Recipes
Allison says
I love this! Will make soon!
Jo says
Great post and very informative. I like the recipes too.
Erin says
Hi, I just found your website and I am so excited to try some of your recipes! I recently discovered that I am severely intolerant to processed sugars (so white sugar and “regular” honey found in the grocery, and even liquid stevia (which is somehow still processed)). Since then, I have been using primarily raw honey as my sweetener, and just being careful when I go out.
I am curious, however, if you can substitute raw honey for sugar anytime equally. What would the ratios be for honey:sugar? Would it change the texture/consistency? Or does having a crystallized sugar (like coconut sugar) work better than honey?
I’m preparing to move to Papua New Guinea (third world country) as a missionary, and am trying to practice with natural sugars (I know I can get raw sugar/honey there easily).
I’ll be exploring your website frequently! Thank you so much!!
Chelsea says
Hi Erin,
Sorry for the late response! Unfortunately, we have not figured out how to use raw honey in place of sugar without adding another sweetener with it. It’s tricky because honey is a liquid and bakes differently than sugar. The texture would be different and you would need to alter the dry ingredients significantly in any given recipe. Powdered honey is the closest compromise we have found to raw honey that bakes similarly to sugar (though even that is a little different!). Ad yes- coconut sugar is amazing and bakes more like sugar. If you can get some of that, it’s the best for caramelization. We are currently experimenting with more recipes just using honey, so please check up on the blog in the next months! I hope that helps. Good for you for your mission! Best of luck with everything! :)
Julie says
Hi, I just found your site and I’m so excited to try your recipes! I only stopped using refined sugar a couple of months ago and am now exploring natural sweeteners. I love using honey and definitely see the health benefits to raw honey, but when you are baking does it matter if the honey is raw or pasteurized? From what I’ve seen online honey is pasteurized by heating it to 150-170 degrees or so. Since it usually gets much hotter than that when we’re baking would there be any benefit to using raw honey versus pasteurized? I’m trying to feed my family as healthfully as possible while still staying on a budget. :) Thank you for any advice you can give!
Annie says
Hi Julie!
Raw honey will always be healthier than pasteurized honey, but we feel whichever is used, it’s going to be healthier than white sugar. :) Raw honey does contain many vitamins and minerals that pasteurized honey often lacks, so even when it is baked, it is still nutritionally beneficial. It just won’t have those “live enzymes” that are prevalent in it’s raw form. However, we understand trying to eat healthy on a budget and regular honey will always work fine in our recipes. What we typically do for raw is save it for our raw desserts, smoothies, teas, etc. to fully reap the benefits. If we have raw honey stocked up, we’ll bake and cook with it, but we are not adamant about using only raw. Going “sugar-free” in a healthy way is difficult on it’s own! Any changes away from refined sugar will be beneficial. :) One tip is to find a local beekeeper and go in on the price with a friend for a bulk deal. My sisters and I do this very frequently with natural sweeteners and it really helps save money! I hope that helped answer your questions. Please let us know if we can help in any other way! Thank you for the comment and we’re happy you found us!
Annie
Julie says
Thanks so much, Annie! That was a question that I had since giving up refined sugar and your answer helps a lot. I love your tip about going in with a friend for a bulk deal. I’ll have to start looking for a local beekeeper. I’m so happy I found your site too. Tomorrow is my son’s second birthday and I made your chocolate cupcakes with coconut sugar. Of course I had to taste-test one already… yum! :)
Annie says
Oh so glad you like them! :) And happy birthday to your son!