Rape honey - beneficial properties and contraindications

Rape is a great source for honey. This plant of high agricultural value, they sow large fields that are used part-time to collect nectar. Honey from rapeseed, the resulting, has high medicinal and nutritional characteristics. No wonder it is still called live.

Rape crops belong to the family of crucifers. The origin of this plant is truly unknown, but it is certain that it is not wildly tall. Scientists believe that rape as an independent culture appeared more than four thousand years ago. It has extremely high productivity and is therefore widely distributed.

Rape blooms during the month, from mid-May to late June.It has many inflorescences, consisting of four-petal, bright yellow color. Its root system has a core type of structure, and it is a good sideratom.

Its cultivation often has a feed purpose. It contains essential oils in very large quantities and therefore rapeseed is often used in the preparation of biodiesel fuel. In the largest quantities, it has recently been grown for precisely this purpose. It goes without saying that the open spaces dotted with raw materials are a great place for owners of the bee apiary. For bees, rapeseed has a very high productivity and allows you to get about 50 kilograms of honey from one hectare.

The composition and properties of rape honey

High nutritional characteristics of rapeseed honey distinguish this product from other utilities of bee production.

1. Appearance and smell. The color is pale - yellow, light. The smell is sweet, floral, slightly bitter.
2. Taste characteristics. Delicate taste with pronounced sweetness and some bitterness.
3. Structure. Candied honey becomes more pale in color, has a fine-grained structure.Thick consistency significantly increases the time of honey pumping out of honeycombs. Sometimes it is more than 24 hours. Experienced apiary owners prefer to pump honey from fully sealed honeycombs.
4. Features Natural rape honey is poorly diluted with water.

The composition of rape honey deserves special attention. It contains moisture, up to 20%. Sugar - more than 80 percent: glucose, fructose, dextrin. It is the content of dextrins in this grade of honey is the highest and it is 7 percent more than in other varieties. The composition of rape honey still includes a lot of organic acids, minerals, vitamins, biologically active substances.

How to check the quality (naturalness) of rape honey?

Honey, especially rapeseed, is a product that is valuable and beneficial to human health and is lovingly created by mother nature. But in order to benefit from it, and not harm, it must be natural. Various falsifications of dishonest sellers are fraught with not only wasted money, but also often can cause problems regarding the health of the consumer.

Unfortunately, honey from rape is not so popular, but fakes for it are found quite often. To buy high-quality honey, you need to be careful with the choice of the seller, as well as carefully examine the characteristics of the proposed product even before you give money for it.

1. The correct natural honey from rape quickly crystallizes, so it is better to buy it in crystallized form. Often, the buyer wants to get the most fresh product. Unscrupulous sellers diligently use this and, in order to get the honey of the desired consistency, dilute it and melt it. This leads to the fact that the product not only loses its beneficial properties, but also gets into the composition of toxic substances for health.
2. In the presence of impurities, honey from rapeseeds gets a heterogeneous consistency and sediment. Beekeepers often feed bees with antibiotics. If it was during how striped workers worked diligently in collecting honey, then they certainly fall into the finished product.

It happens that the owners of the apiary practice feeding bees with sugar. This increases the amount of honey produced.This honey does not carry much benefit to the consumer.

The benefits of rapeseed honey

The benefits of "live" honey is difficult to dispute. He is credited with simply unique and extraordinary healing characteristics. Why is it so useful?

1. Removes toxicosis in pregnant women.
2. Helps restore the balance of hormones in the body.
3. It is used externally to treat wounds or ulcers. It has a hemostatic, disinfecting effect. Contributes to the removal of inflammation and healing.
4. Increases the body's defenses and removes toxins.
5. Helps to normalize the work of the liver and the secretion of liver enzymes.
6. Improves the regeneration of bone tissue.
7. Contributes to the normalization of metabolism in the body.
8. Positive effect in case of diseases: atherosclerosis, anemia, obesity.
9. Positive effect on the blood.

The positive effect on the balance of hormones, the ability to activate metabolic processes are those special features that give it a number of advantages compared to honey of other types.

Contraindications and precautions

It is worth noting that rape honey is useful only to those who do not suffer from individual intolerance to this product. Having previously allergic reactions to honey from rape, you should not use it at all. And those who once received unpleasant consequences, due to the use of honey of other varieties in food, you must first determine whether the product will cause undesirable manifestations in the end.

To get good quality from honey, you must use it correctly, having familiarized yourself with the precautionary measures in advance:

1. Do not use honey after heating to a temperature above 60 degrees. It can not only lose its beneficial properties, but also harm.
2. If one day another type of honey caused an allergic reaction, then its other varieties should be treated with caution.
3. Consumption of honey can harm the health of your teeth. Therefore, you need to drink it with water or just rinse your mouth after drinking.
4. It is not recommended to give honey to children before they reach the age of two.
5. With the excessive use of honey in food, you can easily get those extra pounds.
6. Honey stored for over a year loses its valuable healing properties and is a simple delicacy.
7. It happens when poisonous pollen from some plant species gets into honey collected by bees. Thus, it turns out "drunk" honey, the use of which can lead to a deterioration of health.
8. For allergy sufferers, having in the past an individual reaction to pollen (pollinosis), the consumption of honey in food is not recommended.
9. Care should be taken to honey for people suffering from diabetes and overweight.

When mixing honey with liquid, milk, tea or water, their temperature should not exceed 60 degrees. The maximum allowable rate of honey per day is approximately 120 g. To get the maximum benefit from the product, it is better to eat it on an empty stomach.

Recipes of traditional medicine

Most often, honey is used to treat colds. Moreover, it is used not only in an independent form, but also as part of recipes intended for treatment.

1. For colds. Compositions based on honey and aloe are very popular.To prepare such a medicine, you need to take aloe juice and honey in a ratio of 1: 5 (for 5 parts of juice, 1 part of honey), combine in one container. Drink a teaspoon 3-5 times a day until recovery. Keep refrigerated.
2. With kidney disease. For 2 parts of honey, you need to take 3 parts of black radish, ground on a grater. Mix it up. Take a teaspoonful before bedtime and 30 minutes before meals.
3. In cardiovascular diseases. Take 100 g of honey, juice of half a lemon, 50 g of raisins and 50 g of dried apricots. Dried apricots and raisins well washed and chopped. Mix all the ingredients. Take a tablespoon 2-5 times a day for a month.
4. With lung diseases. Take half a cup of honey, fresh pork fat 100 g, butter 100 g, a tablespoon of cocoa, a tablespoon of aloe. In the cooled melted lard and butter, add cocoa, honey and juice. Mix thoroughly until smooth. Store in a refrigerator in a jar with the lid tightly closed. Apply 2 times a day. In warm, up to 60 degrees milk, add a tablespoon of medicine and drink instead of tea until recovery.
5. With gastric ulcer and duodenal ulcer. Mix 20 g of honey with a glass of cabbage juice. Cook immediately before use. Drink in the morning, after waking up, before the first meal.

How to store honey?

Rape honey should be stored in a dry, dark and cool room, but not in the refrigerator. Capacity can be made of glass, ceramics or clay. In order for honey not to turn sour, do not absorb foreign aromas, it must be stored with a tightly closed lid for storage.

Rapeseed honey is widely distributed and available in European countries. In Canada, about 50% of all beekeepers in the country produce rapeseed honey. In the countries of the former Soviet Union, this variety is not very popular. Therefore, if it is somewhere on sale, it is necessarily high-quality, you just need to try it in order to evaluate its useful properties.

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