BENGALURU: A treasure chest of nutritional and medicinal properties, a kitchen staple loaded with antibacterial and antifungal properties, honey is a complex mix of natural sugars, water and vital nutrients like mineral, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc that has been used since the early Egyptian days. Honey can be classified into two broad groups: honeydew and nectar honey. Nectar honey is further divided into polyfloral and monofloral.
Monofloral honey is primarily made from a single source, for instance, acacia, pine, orange blossom, lime, rosemary, thyme, sunflower, clover, leatherwood and eucalyptus. Studies indicate that monofloral honey contains the highest levels of minerals at 4060 mg/kg.
Raw honey is often monofloral and is widely considered to provide greater health benefits when compared to polyfloral honey. Though it takes longer to produce monofloral honey, it retains all the vitamins and minerals from the flower.
There are many market players when it comes to monofloral honey. Some of them are Lune De miel, Healthy Alternatives, QNET’S Nutriplus™ Busy Bee, and Fabindia Organic. Honey can be used to overcome liver, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems. Honey exhibits bactericidal activity against many organisms including Salmonella, Shigella, Escherichia coli, Helicobacter pylori, etc. Honey can act as both bacteriostatic and bactericidal. In the contrary, artificial honey (sugar solution which mimics the composition of honey) was bacteriostatic only (at 20-30 per cent) and not bactericidal. The author is HOD, Dept of Nutrition and Dietetics, Apollo Hospitals.