Understanding Types of Honey

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When choosing your types of honey it’s always best to understand what you will be using your honey for.

Different Types of Honey

• Comb Honey: This is honey that is still packed in the bee honeycomb which is totally edible and totally delicious.
  
  
• Chunk Honey: This is found in jars of honey where chunks of honeycomb have been added before being sealed and sold.
  
  
• Crystallized Honey: This honey has a hard top layer, there is nothing wrong with this and if you place the jar in some hot water it will easily return to a runny state.
  
  
• Liquid Honey: This is what most of us expect to find when choosing our kind of honey and appears to be the type most of us buy. Certainly it is this form of honey that is more readily available.
  
  
• Creamed or Whipped Honey: This honey has been whipped on purpose to provide a substance that spreads easily like butter. It really means it is finely crystallized throughout.
  
  
• Flavoured Honey: Depending on the source of nectar collected to make honey the taste will vary considerably. You can flavour your own too. Try adding some grated ginger or chopped garlic and mix with cinnamon for a flavour to die for!

Types of Honey for Health

This type of honey will be very carefully harvested away from any kind of pollution and the beekeeping equipment will be spotlessly clean.

I always advise people to check the ingredients which you can find on the label on each jar. It should say the name of the honey and have absolutely nothing else added.

There are many varieties of organic honey some of which I have listed for you on my Kinds of Honey page.

Try treating yourself to a few jars of these and you will always be spoilt for choice.

Raw honey is what they swear by in beekeeping circles. This type of honey will in its beginning stages contain Propolis and the pollen grains from which the bees have collected their nectar to make their honey.

Quite possibly there will be a few bees wax cappings and a few dead bees. Please don’t be put off by this as the beekeeper will strain everything for you before you get to eat it.

Many people including beekeepers use this type of honey to keep themselves fit and well and often produce a different flavour each year.

The reason for this is that it depends very much on the plants the honey bees have pollinated for us and whichever flowers are growing in honeybee gardens they have visited to collect their nectar.

Types of Honey for Medical Use

Ulmo honey is a type of honey I only came across in October 2009. This honey is said to be even more effective than Manuka.

I am waiting to see a few more medical trials carried out on this honey. However, to date there is a pretty impressive amount of proof that Ulmo is very good as quite a few tests have already been conducted.

Maybe Ulmo will become the new Manuka in time but I think it will need a few more published medical research papers before it becomes as famous. It needs an expert like Dr Peter Molam to come out and prove this to us.

Types of Honey for Cooking and Baking

Darker honeys are brilliant as a substitute for dark treacle or molasses. Wonderful for heavier cakes such as rich dark fruit cake.

Lighter and runnier honeys are very versatile, perhaps for making:

• A delicious honey ice-cream
  
  
• Dribbling over food such as breakfast cereal and fruit
  
  
• Simply spreading on toast or adding to your tea
  
  
• Try adding to home-made soups, dips and marinades
  
  
• Or as a glaze over meat, vegetable and fish dishes

There are simply wonderful flavours to be found in all kinds of honey. Some of which you will prefer to others.

If you have a honey market near you this is one way of finding your favourite. There is always a honey tasting session but I promise you as you taste each one it becomes harder to choose a favourite!

Types of Honey for Beauty

She has two bee hives on the White House Garden Lawn. This is a first as it has never been known before.

Everyone has heard of Cleopatra who is famous for her milk and honey baths. It is said she had the most amazing complexion and I can believe that as it has certainly benefited me. However, I like the honey part but she is said to have used donkey milk and I really don’t fancy that too much!

Many famous beauties have used honey on their skin and hair because of what it does as soon as it is smeared on. If you have spots and skin infections any good types of honey will clear these for you fast.

Catharine Zeta Jones is a famous beauty in today’s modern world; I’d love to meet her as I have heard she is a honey lover, and ask her if she applies it as a facial treatment. I bet she does!

Please take a little time and care when choosing your types of honey, do not buy cheap nasty substitutes, these will give you no benefit whatsoever.

Back to a Taste of Honey

Would you like to see some other kinds of honey flavours?

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