Top Tip to Energize your life

Fabulous Foods - Honey

Most human beings have an in-built liking for a sweet taste. Food manufacturers know this and produce plenty of sugary "foods" in the form of jelly beans, fizzy drinks, cakes, biscuits, fruit yogurts and mint humbugs. These are poor quality sugary foods and, if sweetness is what you enjoy, honey is a better choice because it offers more than just sugar. The sugars - mainly - mainly glucose and fructose - are mixed with acids and minerals such as copper, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron and manganese, 18 amino acids, a small amount of protein, enzymes, most of the B vitamins and vitamin C. The glucose/fructose sugar mix is a useful combination to take during or after exercise, to provide a sustained release of carbohydrate into the body. Although some honey is sold as organic, British beekeepers are not happy about this. No British beekeeper can get Soil Association approval as there is nowhere in Britain suitable for commercial beekeeping far enough from road pollution or non-organic crops. The only countries that do claim to produce organic honey have no regulatory body and, if they did have a reputable one, it is extremely unlikey that they would meet the requirements necessary to qualify as organic producers. Honey is a source of natural sugars. Rather than rely on food manufacturers to dictate how much sugar you eat, get into the habit of adding honey to yogurt or fruit teas or on toast or in wholemeal bread sandwiches with mashed banana. Honey is sweeter compared with white sugar, so you don't need to use as much of it to get the same level of sweetness.

Past Top Tips...

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• Winter food for dark days - 27/10/2008
• Injury beating food - 04/04/2008
• Love Your Liver - 02/02/2008
• eating in season - 01/08/2007
• Bad hangovers. Why alcohol is only partly to blame - 01/07/2007
• Caffeine - Do you need it? - 01/04/2007
• The Power of Porridge - 01/02/2007
• Talking Turkey - 12/12/2006
• Fabulous Foods - Honey - 22/10/2006
• Fabulous Foods - Brown Rice - 01/06/2006
• Thoughts on The Atkins Diet - 01/05/2006
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