May 06, 2009
Honey is a bee product, made by bees which transform nectar pollen in that which we savor on bread mostly in the morning. Honey appeared in antiquity. Even then it ...
Other Names: 蜂蜜 (Chinese), عسل (Arabic), Mel (Portuguese), Miel (French), Miel (Spanish) All Translations
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Classically Kosher ©: “Perfect Honey Cake”
September 10, 2009
An article I wrote about the precise art and science of honey cake should be coming out later today or tomorrow, so I will link to that then, but here ...
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Wikipedia
Honey is a sweet food made by some insects using nectar from flowers. The variety produced by honey bees (the genus ''Apis'') is the one most commonly referred to and is the type of honey collected by beekeepers and consumed by humans. Honey produced by other bees and insects has distinctly different properties. Honey bees form nectar into honey by a process of regurgitation and store it as a food source in wax honeycombs inside the beehive. Beekeeping practices encourage overproduction of honey so that the excess can be taken without endangering the bee colony. Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose and has approximately the same relative sweetness as that of granulated sugar (74% of the sweetness of sucrose, a disaccharide).National Honey Board. "Carbohydrates and the Sweetness of Honey". Last accessed May 5, 2008. http://www.honey.com/downloads/carb.pdf Oregon State University. "Sugar Sweetness". Last accessed May 5, 2008. http://food.oregonstate.edu/sugar/sweet.html It has attractive chemical properties for baking, and a distinctive flavor which leads some people to prefer it over sugar and other sweeteners. Most micro-organisms do not grow in honey because of its low water activity of 0.6. However, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium ''Clostridium botulinum'', which can be dangerous to infants as the endospores can transform into toxin-producing bacteria in the infant's immature intestinal tract, leading to illness and even death (see Potential health hazards below). Honey has a long history as a comestible and is used in various foods and beverages as a sweetener and flavoring. It also has a role in religion and symbolism. Flavors of honey vary based on the nectar source, and various types and grades of honey are available. It is also used in various medicinal traditions to treat ailments. The study of pollens and spores in raw honey (melissopalynology) can determine floral sources of honey.Vaughn M. Bryant, Jr. "Pollen Contents of Honey". CAP Newsletter 24(1):10–24, 2001. Because bees carry an electrostatic charge, and can attract other particles, the same techniques of melissopalynology can be used in area environmental studies of radioactive particles, dust, or particulate pollution.
[edit] About Honey
Honey provides a good source of glucose and fructose, and is produced by bees from the nectar obtained from various flowers. Bees go from flower to flower collecting nectar which is a solution of water, sucrose, glucose and fructose. Enzymes in the bees' body convert the nectar into glucose and fructose.
The resulting, more diluted honey is then deposited in honeycombs to cure. The hive is kept at a temperature of about 100 degrees Fahrenheit and the bees flutter their wings to keep a constant airflow moving over the honey. It is then collected for processing and consumption by a beekeeper. Honey usually consists of 75% sugars, 20% water and approximately 5% of extracted flavor particular to the flower from which the nectar was obtained. A good amount of pollen can be found in honey collected by local honeybees, and eating such local honey can help reduce pollen allergies to local plants.
Honey can often be used as a substitute for Sugar and is available in liquid, granulated, comb, chunk, and whipped forms.
Want to know if this food is in season near you? Download the Locavore iPhone app for produce seasonality information!
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Honey
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Honey, Red Pepper
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red sea