Honey

By Kerstin Rosenberg and Oliver Becker

Loved, hated, feared - honey is more controversial in Ayurveda than almost any other food. Even in classical Ayurvedic medicine, the golden bee elixir had both supporters and opponents. The predominantly surgically oriented Sushruta tradition praised honey for its aphrodisiac, wound-healing and fat-burning effects. The Charaka tradition, which was more concerned with internal medicine, was stricter in its assessment of honey: it was aware of the dangers of the formation of ama, i.e. indigestion and toxins, if honey was handled incorrectly.

Local medicine has also dealt intensively with honey: it recognizes that honey has a healing effect on external wounds. Manuka honey is particularly suitable here. This type of honey is obtained from the flower nectar of a tea tree plant in New Zealand and is particularly rich in anti-inflammatory substances. Indian honey, which is highly valued by Ayurvedic writings, does not have the exceptionally high concentration of antibacterial and antifungal healing substances of Manuka honey, just like our local forest or blossom honey on the breakfast roll. On the other hand, "normal" honey can do many other things according to the Ayurvedic classification!

Unique active ingredients and complex healing qualities

Ayurvedic nutritional science values honey as a natural sweetener that harmonizes all doshas. In particular, it reduces Kapha and stimulates the digestive system. A daily portion of honey is particularly beneficial for people who want to balance stress and lose weight. Fascinating is the complex composition with often contradictory qualities that characterizes honey and makes it unique:

Honey

• Tastes sweet (rasa), but is digested in a spicy way (katu vipaka). It is therefore good for the psyche and reduces fatty tissue at the same time.

• Despite its heavy, dry and cold properties, it has an activating, invigorating and cleansing effect on the body.

• Stimulates Agni (dipana quality) and scrapes out (lekhana quality). Both are exceptions for foods with a sweet and astringent taste.

• It is one of the rare foods that can be used as an enhancer or catalyst (yogavahi) for the effects of food supplements and remedies. It is therefore part of almost every Ayurvedic healing diet and is also used as a carrier substance (anupana) for Ayurvedic remedies.

Which honey is recommended?

Germany is a honey country. On average, we Germans consume over 1 kg of honey per year. However, only about 20% of the honey available on the market comes from domestic sources: Foreign, e.g. South American products, cover the majority of the demand. Here it is important to remember the importance that Ayurveda attaches to geographical factors with the appreciation of "desha": desha means home. According to the desha principle, regional foods are particularly beneficial and well tolerated. We should therefore prefer local honey to exported products whenever possible.

The range of local honeys is diverse and fascinating: We can choose from nine types of honey such as blossom honey or comb honey and umpteen varieties of honey. There are light and dark, mild and strong types of honey made from the blossoms of various plants such as sunflower and chestnut, eucalyptus and thyme. This variety is not found in Ayurvedic literature, which only differentiates between four or eight types of honey. Ayurveda differentiates these less on the basis of the blossom and more on the basis of the type of bee, the qualities and the effect on the doshas.

Basically, it can be said that the darker and stronger a type of honey, the more digestible, digestible and nourishing it is and the stronger its Kapha-balancing and scraping quality. Light and mild honeys, on the other hand, primarily harmonize Vata and Pitta. However, if you suffer from too much heat - for example if you have a fever - you should avoid honey so as not to further stimulate the catabolic metabolism. Honey varieties made from several plants, such as blossom or forest honey, are particularly inadvisable in hot conditions.

In general, heat turns honey into poison! Like modern nutritional science, Ayurveda also warns against heated honey: above 40°C, valuable enzymes are lost, among other things. Heated honey promotes ama, i.e. undigested and pathogenic metabolic intermediates, in the body. This makes honey unsuitable for cooking or baking. Even when drinking tea, the hot liquid should first cool down to a drinkable temperature before honey can be added without hesitation. If we do not take this into account, the health-promoting source of vitality becomes a disease factor for the digestive tract and the immune system.

Be careful with the mixture

The second basic rule of Ayurvedic dietetics for the healthy use of honey says: honey must be combined appropriately. In combination with some substances (viruddhahara) it is incompatible and poisonous. Ayurvedic scriptures describe the mixture of ghee and honey in equal parts as particularly harmful. Although both foods are rejuvenating, cleansing and detoxifying on their own and are among the best carriers (anupana) for remedies, they should never be mixed 1:1 and taken together. However, if one of the substances clearly outweighs the other, it is safe to consume.

Age makes all the difference

It is not only the place of origin, variety and form of use that have a significant influence on the tolerance of honey. Ayurveda generally recommends storing honey in a closed jar in a darkened place for at least a year to improve its digestibility. The longer the honey stands, the more the sugar content crystallizes and the enzymatic composition improves.

However, if you want to include honey in your daily diet as an energizing source of energy, you should use honey that is as "young" as possible and has a creamy consistency. The older the honey gets, the firmer and more concentrated its Kapha-reducing and fat-burning effect becomes. With some types of honey, however, such as acacia, chestnut or fir, the consistency is not a reliable indicator of age. They remain liquid for longer and their age can only be determined by the date of bottling and the concentration of flavor.

The age-related change in honey should always be taken into account and used depending on the situation: To reduce stress and boost the immune system, a morning milk with honey and rejuvenating, calming herbs such as ashvagandha is recommended. Shatavari with fresh clover or rapeseed honey also has a healing effect. However, to reduce weight with honey as part of a cleansing anti-Kapha diet, an older dark fir or chestnut honey is more suitable, which is enjoyed in the morning with pippali (long pepper) and warm water.