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Garlic and honey are two wonderful ingredients from nature. Both of these have strong anti-inflammatory properties and are great as a home remedy for fighting both colds and the flu.

Besides having strong anti-inflammatory properties, honey and garlic are also good for your immune system. So, at the first sign of flu, grab this garlic-infused honey, or even garlic clove, and suppress those viruses that are trying to make you ill. Garlic is filled with allicin, a compound known to have anti-microbial and even anti-cancer properties.

Homemade Fermented Honey GarlicThe antibiotic quantities of garlic appear to be a direct result of allicin. The allicin is very sensitive, however, and cooking or heat treatment may destroy its benefits. The best way to get that allicin is by consuming the raw garlic, but many people cannot stand the smell or taste of it.

Although it has been shown through clinical studies that garlic can reduce the number of colds by 63% and reduce the length of cold symptoms by 70%, the overpowering flavor of garlic is just a deal breaker for some.

Luckily, honey is something almost everyone enjoys. As stated above, honey has strong anti-inflammatory properties but is also anti-viral and anti-fungal. Of course, as we all know, honey has a great flavor, and this natural delicacy can make even garlic taste better.

 

The combo of honey and garlic makes the garlic more palatable and easier for us to use. Besides, when infused with honey, the garlic properties become even more potent while at the same time improving the benefits of the honey.

The recipe for this remedy is very simple, and over time, the mixture will taste better. The garlic is ready to eat after a few days, but as time passes, it will develop complex flavors. In no time, you will not only love this flavor but also enjoy it as an addition to your pasta or pizza or smeared over warm toast.

Fermented Honey Garlic Recipe

Preparation time: 15 minutes + inactive time

Serving size: 2 ½ cups

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup garlic cloves, peeled;
  • 1 ½ cups honey (I used acacia.).

Instructions:

#1. Gather your ingredients.Homemade Fermented Honey Garlic

#2. Peel the garlic and place it into a clean jar.

Homemade Fermented Honey Garlic

 

#3. Drizzle the honey over the garlic. You can pour the honey directly over the garlic or drizzle in by using the wooden honey spoon. Do not use a metal spoon as the honey has an acidic pH and reacts with metallic surfaces. This reaction may damage the honey.*

Homemade Fermented Honey Garlic

#4. Once the garlic is covered with the honey, place a lid on the jar.

Homemade Fermented Honey Garlic

#5. Make sure the cloves are covered in honey. You can flip the closed jar upside down and place it in a dark place.

 

Homemade Fermented Honey Garlic

#6. Within a few days, the fermentation will begin. Bubbles will appear.** This is the first sign your garlic is ready to consume. (Of course, you can wait a few days more or even weeks, until the honey is thinned down and garlic drops to the bottom of the jar).

Homemade Fermented Honey Garlic

#7. At this point, you can store your fermented garlic in a dark place (not the fridge) and let it age.

Homemade Fermented Honey Garlic

NOTE:

*Although you are only touching the honey with a metal spoon for a short time, you still do not want to risk any honey spoilage or destroying its natural healing properties.

**If your fermentation does not begin, you may have too much honey. In that case, add a splash of water (about a tablespoon) and close the lid again.

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Garlic and honey are two wonderful ingredients from nature. Both of these have strong anti-inflammatory properties and are great as a home remedy for fighting both colds and the flu. Besides

Honey contains a treasure chest of hidden nutritional and medicinal value for centuries. The sweet golden liquid from the beehive is a popular kitchen staple loaded with antibacterial and antifungal properties that has been used since the early days of Egyptian tombs.

Honey’s scientific super powers contribute to its vastly touted health benefits for the whole body. The healthy natural sweetener offers many nutritional benefits depending on its variety. Ready for a natural sweetened life?

RAW HONEY

There are various types of honey. The best for overall use that is, for eating and for medicinal purposes, is raw honey. Raw honey is honey that has not been processed by man, it is the same honey that is found in the beehive and is not pasteurized with heat; it may however be strained or altered.

Raw honey contains many spores and pieces of wax from the honeycomb as well as bee parts, etc. Raw honey has the benefit of helping people who are suffering with allergies to local plants and many times is used by patients to treat their allergies.

If this is done, it has to be raw local honey, which is usually made from either a blend of local hives honey or comes from a single source hive that has collected nectar from local sources and has not been treated with heat to pasteurize it.

Raw honey also has the highest antioxidant properties of all honeys. For our purposes as preppers, raw honey is the type of honey that we should use; it has its enzymes still intact.

Heating above 125 degrees F for a half hour usually destroys the enzyme content of most foods. Enzymes are very beneficial to your health and will aid both in digestion and overall health.

Most farm stand and farmer’s markets and local beekeepers honeys will be raw and unpasteurized. If you have any doubts, ask the person selling it, but as a general rule they are not pasteurizing their honey.

PASTEURIZED HONEY

Pasteurized honey is like pasteurized milk, it has been heat treated, usually at 161 degrees F or higher. Pasteurization is done to kill the yeast spores that are present in honey and responsible for its fermentation if the water content of the honey reaches 25 percent or higher.

That is the reason why you keep your honey covered, to prevent it from drawing in water vapor from the surrounding air and diluting the honey until it reaches that critical 25 percent when the yeast spores will reactivate and begin fermentation.

Commercially produced honeys are often pasteurized because this also dissolves any sugar crystals that frequently develop in honey, giving it a granular appearance. People often see crystallized honey and think it has spoiled, but this is not the case, and simply heating it in a pan of water will melt the crystals back into solution. The reheating of crystallized honey is done simply by placing a jar of honey in a small pot filled with water and placing that inside of a larger pot and heating it.

STRAINED HONEY

Strained honey is honey that has been strained through a mesh cloth of some type. This removes many of the particles and contaminants in honey. It does not affect the enzymes and other properties of honey and is merely cosmetic.

FILTERED HONEY

Filtered honey is heated to about 170 degrees F in order to make it more liquid to pass through the fine filter. The filtering process removes all of the particulate matter, pollen grains, and air bubbles, and it is very clear and more liquid than untreated honey. This is the kind also very often found in supermarkets. It also tends to crystallize much less than raw honey, so is felt to be more attractive to shoppers than raw varieties.

CREAMED OR WHIPPED HONEY

Creamed or whipped honey is another type of honey that has been processed to remove many of the large sugar crystals and therefore is much less likely to crystallize. The process involves the pasteurization of raw honey and then the blending of it with 10 percent creamed honey to form a honey with very small crystals that usually will not coalesce into larger crystals. This type of honey is very spreadable and is often used by people for toast and sandwiches.

HONEYCOMB OR COMB HONEY

Comb honey is honey that is still in the wax honeycomb from the honey bee’s hive. Chunks of the honeycomb are cut out and packaged raw. It is identical to raw honey with the only difference being that it is still in the honeycomb. It is sometimes known as “cut comb honey”.

MANUKA HONEY

Manuka honey is the most powerful of the various medicinal honeys produced around the world. It originates from New Zealand and is made from the flowers of the tree of the same name. Manuka honey is a monofloral honey, meaning it originates from just one type of flower, as opposed to poly oral honeys which are the product of many different flower nectars.

Another name for the Manuka tree is the Tea Tree and it primarily grows in wild stands in Australia and New Zealand. The name Tea Tree originates from the famous Captain Cook who discovered Australia and upon landfall is said to have made a tea from the leaves of the Manuka tree. It is the same tree from which Tea Tree Oil is made.

Manuka honey has the highest viscosity (thickness) of any known honey and also therefore has a very strong antibacterial effect. Hence its use in the treatment of wounds, where it has been shown to prevent infections as well as promote rapid healing.

I have used it many times and can attest to its superiority over other types of honey. It also has been shown to be quite beneficial for use for skin ulcers as well as for burns, and even has been shown to be effective against MRSA (Methicillin Resistant Staph. Aureus).

As a Final Prepper, I highly recommend buying a few jars of this honey and using it exclusively for wounds, burns, and ulcers and use other less expensive honeys for eating and other purposes. It has an “earthy” type of taste to me and I am not particularly fond of it as a food, but that is just my personal preference.

Due to the limited number of Manuka trees there is naturally a limited supply of this honey available annually, hence it is much more costly than other honeys.

Beware of counterfeit types of this honey and buy it from a reputable dealer preferably from “down under” in New Zealand or Australia. Most of the honey sold worldwide as Manuka is counterfeit and made from oral sources other than the Manuka or Tea Tree.

Manuka honey’s strength and healing powers are actually measured by a system known as UMF or Unique Manuka Factor; the higher the value given in UMF labels, the stronger the healing properties. It is usually in a factor of ten range; for example ten plus, twenty plus, etc.

PURE HONEY

Pure honey is honey that has not been adulterated or changed by the addition of glucose, dextrose, molasses, corn syrup, starches, invert sugars, our, or any other foreign substances. The Chinese have been notorious for adulterating their honey and I would highly recommend not buying any honey from China for that very reason.

Unfortunately, there appears to be a lot of tampering with honey, especially from foreign sources.

If you can, buy local honey from a reputable beekeeper. There are many around and this should not be a problem. Finding a local beekeeper and recruiting him into your survival group is probably a very good idea.

Local honey will also have bene ts for any of your survival group members who have allergies. Again, crystallization of honey is not a sign of adulteration and comes about simply from honey’s sugar super saturation.

One not very scientific method for determining if honey is pure is to stir it into a glass of water. The adulterated honeys will dissolve much more quickly than pure raw honey, which tends to coalesce into clumps and take a little time to dissolve properly.

The Grading of Honey

A word about honey grading: Honey grading is primarily done on the basis of the water content of the honey as well as its particulate content and its color.

There are four grades of honey; A, B,C, and substandard. Grade A honey has the lowest water content, the least particulate matter, and is the clearest in color. Lesser grades have more of all of those factors.

Honey quality can also be easily evaluated by certain characteristics. The honey should flow off of a spoon in a straight stream without breaking up into drops. It should also bead up upon hitting a surface, and when owing onto a surface should form temporary layers that eventually disappear. This attests to its proper viscosity.

If your honey does not do these things then it probably contains too much water and is not suitable for long-term storage.

The color of honey tells you something in general about its flavor. The lighter honeys have a milder flavor and the darker-shaded honeys have a more robust flavor.

The overall color of raw honey is determined by the oral source of the bee’s nectar. However, long-term storage may darken a honey, especially if the honey is stored at a high temperature. Honey also lightens in color after it has undergone granulation. This is the reason that most forms of creamed honey are so light in color.

Over time many honeys tend to crystallize. This is normal and does not hurt the quality of the honey and can easily be reversed by gentle heating as described above. Depending on the type of honey, some such as Manuka, crystallize rapidly compared to Tupelo honey, which takes a very long time to crystallize. Crystallization means that the honey forms actual white-colored sugar crystals on the surface, this does not affect the quality or taste of the honey, and you should not discard honey that has done this.

How to Store Honey

  • Honey should be stored in either glass containers or food grade containers to prevent the leakage of any chemicals from a plastic vessel.
  • You should keep your honey in a cool, dark place out of direct sunlight and away from any heat source like a furnace or space heater.
  • Honey should always be in a closed container with a tight lid to prevent absorption of any humidity which will change the honey and promote its fermentation.
  • You should always use a dry spoon when scooping any honey from its container in order to prevent the introduction of any water into the honey.
  • Some honey purists feel that stainless steel spoons and other implements should not be used with honey, due to some subtle changes in the taste of the honey. Honestly, I have tried tasting honey with a wooden ladle and with a stainless steel spoon and I cannot tell any difference, so in my humble opinion, it doesn’t matter at all.

As a Final Prepper I would stock up on a large supply of raw local honey from a reputable source like a local beekeeper. You might even consider enlisting a beekeeper into your survival group. Or having some of your group members learn the art of beekeeping due to its incredible usefulness for a variety of survival uses from medicinal to nutritional, as well as pollination of your survival garden and orchard.

Since raw honey stored properly will last forever, and due to its multiple uses, I would keep as large a supply as you can afford. Honey will very likely be an important barter item in the post-apocalyptic economy.

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Since raw honey stored properly will last forever, and due to its multiple uses, I would keep as large a supply as you can afford. Honey will very likely be

What Never Spoils Could Never Hurt You

Today’s tool recommendation? How about honey? Sweet…of me, I know. But I’m serious. Here’s what my honey can do.

Honey never spoils…you could eat thousand-year-old honey if you found it. Why is that, you ask?

The reason is simple …honey has amazing antibacterial, antifungal, and antiviral properties…so nothing can really grow in it and hence it does not spoil. And that is one of the reasons it is so good to use on wounds. The Romans were masters of practicality…they did incredibly well with what little they had.

Physicians in the Roman army routinely slathered honey on all those nasty wounds their troops had after battles. They did not have the luxury of modern antibiotics and so they used honey and herbal treatments.

I have used honey in my practice for over twenty-five years with great success. Wound clinics routinely prescribed ridiculously expensive creams and salves for my patients, and many times with little success. I routinely intervened and told them to buy a jar of raw local honey at the farmer’s market or the local grocer. After using my honey treatment they returned to the wound clinics and repeatedly astonished the doctors and nurses there with their speedy recovery and lack of infections.

Honey and Wound Healing

Here’s the science behind honey’s amazing properties.

  • Honey is very viscous (thick) and therefore has a very strong osmotic effect (think of osmosis as gravity).
  • Honey is very osmotically active so like gravity, it has a strong pull, so it pulls or draws fluids out of the less osmotically active wound, carrying debris, dirt, and bacteria, etc. away from the wound onto the dressing.
  • That is why it is good to apply the honey directly to a wound dressing and then apply that to the wound. This way you can change the dressing each time it is soaked with fluids from the wound.
  • This osmotic effect also helps keep the wound moist, preventing premature scabbing and aiding in healing.
  • Honey also has a very strong attractive effect upon water, which it will combine with and make it unavailable to thirsty bacteria, fungi, and viruses. As the bacteria in a wound feed on the glucose in honey they will produce lactic acid. This will also prevent the foul smell of many wounds.
  • As honey gets combined with water it will produce hydrogen peroxide. This is the same substance that your body’s white blood cells produce to destroy foreign invaders. This is why hydrogen peroxide has a strong antiseptic effect. This also promotes wound healing. The hydrogen peroxide in honey is steadily produced and hence has a long-term positive effect on the wound.
  • Honey also causes the chelation of iron, thus binding it to proteins and rendering it unavailable to bacteria, which need iron to reproduce. Therefore, whenever you bind iron up and make it unavailable to bacteria, you are producing an antimicrobial effect.
  • Honey also helps promote granulation of wounds. at is the step after the production of a clot to close a wound.

Note: Granulation tissue is the yellow tissue in the base of a wound. I have found that even by nurses it is very often mistaken for pus. is is your body’s way of filling in a wound gap and allowing normal tissue to grow into that from all sides and heal a wound. You can tell the difference of it from pus because it is nice and uniform, lining a wound with the look of a thin layer of lemon pudding and without any foul smell that pus usually produces.

Honey for Burns, Skin Ulcers, and Dry Skin

Honey also works very well on burns;

  • use it the same way, covering the burned area with a large gauze soaked with honey.
  • Change it just like the wound dressing, whenever it is soaked with fluids that it has drawn out of the burn. It will prevent the major problem with burns, infection.
  • It will also produce better healing and less scarring, which can be critical in treating burns.

Honey also works very well in skin ulceration. I have treated many patients with large, deep decubitus ulcers (bed sores) and they have healed remarkably well. Honey applied to a dressing along with proper positioning of the patient to alleviate those pressure points will work wonders for patients with bed sores.

Honey has also been used to treat dry, parched, or injured skin of any type. Women as far back as Cleopatra have used raw honey for face masks and to beautify their hair and skin. The great moisturizing effect of honey on dry, ageing skin is due to its ability to attract and retain moisture in the skin without making the skin too oily. For this reason as well as raw honey’s antibacterial effects, it works very well in cases of acne.

Raw honey has been used for every conceivable kind of skin problem, including athlete’s foot.

Honey for an Upset Stomach

  • Raw honey, when combined with ginger and lemon juice, makes a very potent treatment for nausea and vomiting as well as gastric distress of any type, including ulcers.
  • Raw honey also contains large amounts of amylase which is concentrated in the pollen of flowers. Amylase is a digestive enzyme that digests starches such as bread, pasta, potatoes, and rice, thus it aids in digestion and is an excellent treatment for indigestion.

I think I made you consider at least getting some to just eat it, for now.

Question is – What Type of Honey Should You Buy?

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Honey never spoils