If anyone had told me as a child that later in life, I’d become a honey snob I’d have looked at them in astonishment and total disbelief! I loathed honey back then.
In the research period of Beefayre my journey took me to Romania with my son Sam. I met a group of lay priests, all beekeepers producing the most beautiful honey I had ever tasted. My favourite lunch of all time, and I’ve had some pretty swanky lunches over the years, was sitting at a table in a forest apiary with some cheese biscuits, bread, local wine and a comb of fresh honey, taken from the nearest hive to us! It was like being on a magical film set, the soporific hum of hundreds of thousands of bees flying in and out of their hives, in a circular motion, in the forest on a very steep hill!
Our honey is raw, unpasteurised and beautiful the way nature intended it to be. It has a taste only real honey has and it’s delicious. I use over a jar a week, I don’t use processed sugar at all, I never buy it. The other great use I have for my honey is as a face mask, literally apply it liberally to your face, get in the bath and relax. Simply wash it off about twenty minutes later. Your face might go pink, that’s all those wonderful flavonoids in the honey doing wonderful things to your skin. Raw honey is rich in flavonoid compounds and its full of natural antioxidants, which have beneficial health effects both internally and externally on our health and bodies!
Much of the honey sold around the world has been adulterated with other compounds, particularly honey sold in the States. Elsewhere honey is pasteurised making it little more than a fructose syrup. Honey should be raw, and you always need to know the source of your honey – that’s essential these days. But don’t buy it in supermarkets. Try your local farmers market. I do worry in the UK about the level of neonicotonoids (bee killing pesticides) in the honey here, that’s why we have ours delivered directly from the apiaries in an area of pristine beauty; vast areas of meadows, where they’ve never heard of neonicotonoids. It’s like stepping back in time, going to the Carpathian foothills in Transylvania (near where Prince Charles has his estates).
I’m going again this May, I need my fix of forest aparies and wild flower meadows. Oh, and that’s my favourite honey, our wildflower honey, diverse pollen from many species of flowers I haven’t seen since childhood in this country, creating a perfectly balanced, nutritionally rich honey.
Simply delicious.
To find out more about Beefayre and its products please visit www.beefayre.com