Next week is National Honey Week - one of the UK’s sweetest celebrations! It runs from 4 to 10 May 2009 and is your opportunity to experience the culinary delights and health benefits of honey.

I have a particular passion for honey; believing it to be a true superfood. Every year, from September, I give Little Miss Green a teaspoon or so of manuka honey with breakfast to boost her immune system. It keeps her healthy during the winter months when her soul and skin are yearning for some sunlight.

A true superfood

In addition, Little Miss Green can’t eat refined sugar, so I do a lot of experimenting with honey and agave syrup in the kitchen. We use honey to soothe sore throats, to boost the immune system, on the skin as a wound healer  and to nourish dry skin.  If it’s good enough for Cleopatra; it’s good enough for me!

During the autumn months, we have it on porrage for breakfast, spread onto

toast or crackers or whizzed into smoothies. Although Little Miss green will just spoon it out of a jar into her mouth!

All honey is not the same

In order to get the highest nutritional and health benefits, you need to look for active manuka honey from New Zealand.

Manuka honey has a high antibacterial potency which heals a range of conditions, from external skin infections to throat infections. When eaten regularly manuka honey can aid memory, increase energy levels, improve well-being and reduce feelings of anxiety. It is helpful in cases of IBS and stomach ulcers.  Manuka honey has even been shown to be effective in discouraging MRSA.

Green Bay

Green Bay is run by Jo Glass and is a family run business. A mother of four, Jo

knows the importance of a diet rich in unprocessed, whole foods.  A woman after my own heart, Jo knows that nature provides us with the most amazing health-giving foods.

Her passion is sourcing organic, high quality manuka honey and other functional foods to sell to people who want to take responsibility for their health.  She has an amazing certified organic, 15+ Active manuka honey which she sent me to review. It is a deep, rich colour and the taste is unbelievable - it’s so rich and creamy. The 15+ means that its potency as an anti-bacterial remedy is equivalent to a 15% solution of phenol - the power of mother nature, eh?

Manuka honey

Jo’s manuka honey is produced using traditional approaches to nurturing, harvesting and packing the honey. It is unpasteurised, minimally filtered  and harvested sustainably.

Jo says “Our aim at Green Bay is simple; to produce the healthiest manuka honey one can buy. To achieve this we focus on the quality and provenance of the

honey we buy and ensure minimal alteration of the raw product from its natural state.”

Nature’s healers

In addition to jars of manuka honey, Jo combines it with other natural and healing ingredients such as blackcurrant, cider vinegar and echinacea, to stock a handy range of throat lozenges called honeysuckers. If you’re fed up with most ‘over-the-counter’ remedies including everything but healthy ingredients then these are for you! Not only do they taste delicious, but they contain no harmful ingredients; delivering health in a convenient form.

Purchasing Green bay products

Green Bay Manuka Honey can be purchased at branches of Waitrose nationally, in over 650 independent health food shops, farm shops and delis and on-line  from the Green Bay Website

Recipes

In honour of national honey week, why not try one of the delicious recipes from the honey association website?

What about you - do you have any amazing stories to tell us about honey? Or a favourite honey recipe to share?