Honey

I'll start this week with a post about honey. Honey is a sweet and viscous fluid produced by honeybees from the nectar of flowers. Honey contains different sugars (fructose, glucose, sucrose, maltose and meletizose), water and about 0,17 of ash.
It has been used for food, drinks (for example mead), medicine, gifts for gods, barter, cosmetics, cooking, food preservation etc. It has been used in religion, art, mythology, legends and literature as well as studied by scientists.
The oldest written reference to the use of honey is thought to be Egyptian, of about 5500BC. At that time Lower Egypt was called Bee Land while Upper Egypt was Reed Land. In Ancient Egypt honey was the most popular medicament. It is mentioned some 500 times in the 900 remedies that were known then.
The Old Testament mentions honey as as a symbol for all that is pleasant and desirable. For example, the book of Exodus describes the Promised Land as a 'land flowing with milk and honey' (33:3). In Islam, the Qur’an mentions rivers of honey in Paradise (Qur’an 47:15).
Honey is important in Buddhist festival of Modhu Purnima, which is celebrated in India and Bangladesh. The day commemorates Buddha's making peace among his disciples by retreating into the wilderness. The story goes that while he was there, a monkey brought him honey to eat. On Modhu Purnima, Buddhists remember this act by giving honey to monks.
Honey if treated and stored properly can stay in good condition for hundreds of years. Some archaelogists working in Egypt found a large jar of honey. They opened it and found that it tasted perfect even though it was thousands of years old. In the Agricultural museum at Dokki in Egypt there are two honey pots from New Kingdom tombs (c. 1400BC) which still have honey inside.
Not every honey is good for us. There are certain types of honey which are toxic. There is one known as Mad Honey which is produced from the flowers of rhododendrons, mountain laurels and azaleas. The nectar of these plants may contain grayanotoxin, a substance which is poisonous to people but can not harm bees.
Honey and other natural sweeteners are a potential and acute threat to infants. Botulinum spores are among the few bacteria that can survive in honey. It is harmless to adults because of a mature person's stomach acidity.
Well, this post has been kind of sweet...I hope that your week will also be nice, „sweet“. Bye!!