The Healing Powers of Honey

by Cal Orey

Boost your immune system with antioxidants, lower your risk for the flu, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and more—with honey—the healthy sweetener that’s also the green choice for today’s fast-changing world!

Drawing on the latest in scientific evidence and interviews with medical doctors, beekeepers, and researchers, this enlightening book reveals how honey can help lower the risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, reduce body fat--and increase longevity!

Including information on 30 healing honey varieties with dozens of recipes, learn how to incorporate honey into Mediterranean-style, heart-healthy foods, and make more than 50 home remedies to combat everything from digestive issues to skin woes. You'll also enjoy Cleopatra's milk-and-honey beauty treatments and eco-friendly beeswax household uses--all made with the amazing honey bee's gifts!

Pure, raw, unprocessed honey is a healthier sweetener than table sugar and high fructose corn syrup. It's chock-full of antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins--and only has 21 calories per teaspoon.

Super "bee foods" (including nutrient-rich bee pollen, propolis, and royal jelly) are used and touted for their healing powers by beekeepers and medical experts in the present-day. Honey can also relieve a variety of ailments, including allergies, coughs, fatigue, pain, and stress, as well as boost libido.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Cookbooks

335 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Cal Orey is an author-journalist (savvy researcher) and pens fiction. She has a master's degree in English (Creative Writing) from San Francisco State University. Orey lives in Northern CA and is known for her hugely popular Healing Powers book collection published by Kensington.

The Healing Powers of Herbs & Spices: Timeless Treasures #9 has made its way to being a pick in Woman's World Magazine Book Club, Booklist, American Global News, NYC Daily Post, New York Daily, City Buzz News, Huffington Post, more than 68 libraries worldwide, many hard copy and online magazines... noted on C2CAM, KSFO...

These down-to-earth, compelling lifestyle-
cookbooks with lively stories have been translated in 20+ languages; featured by Bookspan (including Literary Guild, Good Cook). Her latest books are The Healing Powers of Essential Oils (2019), The Healing Powers of Superfoods (2019), The Healing Powers of Tea (2018), The Healing Powers of Honey (2018, mass market, gift size 416 pages), and The Healing Powers of Vinegar, 3rd edition mass market format.

Reviews

[Sadie E · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to the author for a copy in exchange for a review

2.5: This book is like being gently yelled at by a very enthusiastic beekeeper who really wants you to believe honey can fix your life.

It's packed with everything: history, recipes, skincare tips, wellness advice, bee trivia, probably a partridge in a pear tree somewhere if I flipped back far enough. It’s genuinely interesting at times and I learned more about different types of honey than I expected.

But also?? The tone. It’s very pun-heavy, very chatty, very “let me tell you about this one time with honey…” which is charming for approximately 5 minutes and then becomes a lot.

There is research here, but it’s kind of floating around in a sea of anecdotes and enthusiasm. The book really wants you to believe in honey as a cure-all, and while I’m on board with “honey is great,” I’m less convinced it’s about to revolutionise my immune system, skincare routine, recipe development, and emotional wellbeing all at once.

Structure-wise, it wanders. Not really in a peaceful, meditative way, more like the author forgot what they were talking about and just kept going. You’ll get recipes, then history, then a personal story, then back to health claims, and you just sort of go with it.

It's like Michael Scott: "Sometimes I start a sentence and I don't even know where it's going. I just hope I find it along the way."

This book's the embodiment of chaotic good energy. The authors voice is very earnest and occasionally borders on unhinged (I have to admit, I love when people are super passionate about one particular topic and this author is nothing if not passionate), but if you're looking for rigorous science and tightly argued claims, then this might test your patience.

[Joanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

I find honeybees so fascinating that I was thrilled to begin this book. The thrill dissolved quickly, but I remained hopeful. I don't like leaving books unfinished (when I do, it usually due to book-ADD--so much to read, so little time), and I don't like giving books poor ratings. This one was so poorly-written that I couldn't bring myself to plod more than a quarter of the way through its 300+ pages of irrelevant fluff for the few particles of sensible information it contained.

There were also WAY too many instances of "bee-autiful" and other such wordplay that is cute (or at least excusable) the first ten times, but quickly becomes obnoxious. Similarly, the chapters began with forced and overused honeybee metaphor and simile in which the author compares her own history as an itinerant hippie to sweet hive life. I tried to skip a lot of that, but it was still irksome.

It seems as if she did a lot of research for this book, but it isn't well-represented. She weakly defended many of the supposed health benefits of eating honey by saying that honey can help you relax and relaxing can help your health, when I would have preferred an intelligent review of the research. The final straw for me was her recommendation of an "almost vegan" diet juxtaposed with her autobiographical odes to cheese, ice cream, chicken, and the like. I don't know why that annoyed me so much. Even to a more forgiving reader, I would recommend searching for a different book on this topic rather than wasting time with this one.

[Kate · Rating 1 out of 5]

There are much better books on the subject. It is a little to folksy for me. To much about the writer not enough about the subject.

[Valerie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enlightening. After buying raw honey for my cat and seeing how her energy increased I wanted to know more. I learned a lot from this book.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have trouble with the "lite journalism" style of this book. It's too repetitive by far --and by "repetitive" I mean giving the same tiny bit of information three times on the same page, in the same words.

I have trouble with an author who uses the term "factoids" about their own writing (and yes, I am aware of both definitions).

If you know absolutely nothing about honey, maybe you can glean something here. But it's too reminiscent of an infomercial for me. Something about it--maybe the author's presenting her "fantasy childhood" in paragraph 1 and then saying, "Oh, heh-heh, that's not true, heh-heh, I'm just obsessed with bees", maybe it is the way she presents her obsession as a credential?--made me doubt her reliability. The style is annoying, and the fact that the author has several titles to her credit, all beginning "The Healing Powers of..." makes me wonder who is behind all this. Marketing is not science.

There are excellent resources available that deal in an accessible, serious manner with the use of honey for everything from healing open wounds to dealing with pollen allergies. This is unfortunately not one of them. Personally, I learned more from a one-hour TV documentary on ARTE channel than from this book.

[Francine Apollo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is something of a Honey 101 experience. Author gives the reader basic information, some history of honey's use over the ages, a discussion of varieties, uses (remedies from your kitchenO, recipes and more. The author lists 6 treatments for a cough., This is the most thorough exploration I have read to date.

Highly recommended.

[Jessica McDonald · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got really tired of the underlying vegan agenda - badmouthing red meat and butter. The low fat and cholesterol free comments on almost every page. I was really hoping for this to be more informative on the healing properties of honey and other bee products instead of constant jabs at an otherwise healthful diet that doesn’t discredit red meat, butter, healthy fats, and cholesterol.

[Denise Hlavka · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been reading parts of this, off and on, since receiving it as a gift last fall. Finally finished in its entirety, but I know I will use this as a permanent reference source for years to come. This book kind of changed my life....honey is absolutely amazing!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book that provides a little bit of everything -- tips, rules, recipes, etc.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book so much, I bought it. VERY handy guide to the uses of honey for consumption and for medical use.

[Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was going to only give 3 stars, but decided on 4 because it did get me to think more on honey and now I'm using it more often every day, and planning to try some of the recipes. I'd like to buy some manuka for wound care to have on hand, and I'm excited to try different varieties. I did learn a lot about the multitude of different honeys, hive biology and a bit of history. What I didn't enjoy was the narration because the cadence and speed were so different than how I normally read that it was jarring the whole way through. I couldn't wait to be finished with the book. I would have preferred a more mature female voice to match the post-menopausal author who wrote a lot about years of experiences. The younger voice just didn't match the text for me. Also, I was disappointed that there was only one tiny mention of temperature affecting honey as well as pesticides being a possible cause for colony collapse. I keep reading online that temps play a huge role in how much of the health benefits we access and I would have liked to see an in-depth study on that here, since it's about the healing powers of honey. Also, there was no mention of Round-up or other neonicotinoids. So, it was a broad review of the author's personal experience with honey and a reflection of her own research, but definitely not a comprehensive tool for using honey as a medical healing aid. The advice was basically to take some honey in any form for any ailment as an overall life enhancer. Other than the proven wound care with manuka, everything else was just "honey may help."

[Clwseattle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Healing Powers of Honey was not as I expected. It BEEcame a bit annoying with the overly cute catchphrase.

The Healing Powers of Honey has much useful information but many of the 'honey cures' also recommend often repeated universal teas, superfoods, and water. The most often recommended honey was the most expensive, the Manuka honey from New Zealand.

3 Stars for the 2011 edition of The Healing Powers of Honey. I learned some things; more are commonsense things. The quotes are lovely and the history of honey and beekeeping are most interesting.

[Anne · Rating 2 out of 5]

All the good parts of this book could be condensed into one chapter.

[Sue E · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for the history and uses of honey. Very interesting and good to know things for the days we live in.

[Tim Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

great info on all things honey including where to buy the different kinds

[Nancy Narma · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't Let This Volume of Sweetness Buzz Past!
If you’re anything like me, my knowledge of honey was limited to the ooze from Baklava, a drizzle in your teacup to sweeten up your day, and the age-old “prescription” mixed with lemon to soothe a sore throat and nagging cough. WOW! Have I ever been missing out! Cal Orey has explored every facet of the luscious nectar, from bee to baked goodies to medicinal properties and beyond. I’m betting your mouth will water like mine has, over the wonderful variety of recipes she has included and be amazed by the world of interesting and useful information she has tucked in between the covers. I have also teared up and chuckled over the personal stories Ms. Orey has shared, especially about her ‘Furry family”. I discovered so many good ideas that I hadn’t thought about prior to reading this book. For a couple of prime examples, I had always used maple syrup on my baked butternut squash—now I will try the honey and orange crème she has suggested, as well as being a little more creative with my plain yogurt by adding a mixture of chopped nuts with honey. We are blessed to have an apiary here in our little corner of Northeastern Pa., that is not too far away from our home. We’ll be getting our quart jars filled with the golden goodness before this month has flitted by. Don’t miss your opportunity to delve into the world of honey and explore the benefits it may hold for you. I learned so much and will keep referring to it in the months and years ahead. My only wish is that Ms.Orey will consider writing a volume on maple syrup. I’ll keep my sticky fingers crossed! Nancy Narma

[Aleksandar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Makes a case for the consumption of honey, but as a book, I can't recommend it to anyone in good conscience.

I love puns, and the first 20 times the un-bee-lievable bee puns were cute. But these puns weren't thrown in to be cute. They were a part of the core vocabulary, and that's just a little off-putting in a book trying to make its case for some pretty serious claims. Something the book hasn't done effectively, hence my score. I realize that the scientific literature on honey is sparse, but I was expecting way more.

Beyond that, and the thing most painful to me, there was no organization. The book hopped from one topic to another, repeated itself a billion times, threw in random recipes (despite dedicating two chapters to food), and included random autobiographical stories that had nothing to do with anything.

I'm inclined to blame the editor more than the author here, as this kind of stuff falls under their purview, since this pun-happy author can clearly write.

[Deborah Martinez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I gave the book 3 stars as I learned a lot of new information, but with that being said, the writing was poor. I did write down a few of the recipes that were in the book, so I will look forward to trying those!

[Leslie Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

The recipes were useful.