Cancer and Honey

“Is honey one of those anti-cancer foods? Can it cure cancer?” From time to time, I receive these questions from “Just Ask”.

Our heart goes out to those whose lives are troubled and threatened by cancer, but I had to reply and inform them that honey is not an antidote for cancer or a “cure-all”.

Perhaps what many people don’t think enough of or haveoverlooked is – honey possesses carcinogen-preventing and anti-tumour properties; honey is curative; honey is anti-cancer. According to the book Honey Revolution by Dr Ron Fessenden, scientists have found floral flavonoids in honey.

These tiny traces of bioflavonoids, generally known as antioxidants, have powerful influences when entered into the body’s cells. When ingested, they immediately increase the antioxidant levels within cells, “decrease capillary permeability and fragility. They scavenge oxidants and inhibit the destruction of collagen in the body”. In fact in the recent years, major drug companies recognised the effectiveness of these flora-flavones in removing free radicals from our body and improving our body immunity functioning, and are now investing millions of dollars just to produce these substances artificially. Tell your family, friends that the foraging honeybees have passed on these precious natural floral-flavones from the floral nectars to honey and then to us! Look, you may not see the benefit of turning to healthful food overnight, but daily repetitive, anti-cancer choices will can potentially safe your life from deadly diseases like cancers.

Surely all of us know that prevention is far better than cures, but sadly, the world has succumbed to the instant gratification syndrome. Just see how people are losing weight so quickly by taking diet pills, getting liposuction, or even starving. Working out things over time has become a waste of time. We want material wealth, relationships, and success now, totally abandoning the universal law of sowing and reaping. And with the exact attitude, we often put all our strength and focus into demanding instant cures of diseases and forget all about constant prevention with anti-cancer diet and lifestyle.

I want to share this story with you. Our local papers recently featured a retail magnate who was punished by the law for buying a kidney illegally. As reported, his kidneys failed in 2005 due to the high levels of sugar in his blood and his well-known penchant for “good food, especially the deep fried stuff”. He was tethered to his dialysis machine for three hours a day, and when he was not having dialysis, he would be with a doctor for heart problems and diabetes. When interviewed, he remarked that if he had listen to his doctors a decade or two ago, he might not have lost the use of his kidneys. Hindsight is always 20/20, he said.

Such stories must be powerful enough to jolt us out of our wilful nonchalance. Borrow the hindsight of those who have been there before and work on our health and picture in our mind the good health of our children 10, 20 years later. We can’t forecast freak diseases, accidents, and natural disasters of tomorrow, but we can definitely will ourselves to treating our body better by choosing wisely the kind of food to deposit into it today.