Sweet clover honey - useful properties and important features. Sweet clover honey: useful properties and contraindications, recipes and application features

The variety of honey and its medicinal properties directly depend on the plants from which the bees collected nectar.

The healing properties of sweet clover honey have absorbed all the qualities of the popular sweet clover plant among the people. This bee product is not only able to strengthen the immune system, but also copes well with vascular diseases.

Vitamin and mineral composition

Sweet clover honey has a white or light amber color, sweet, vanilla-bitter taste, coumarin smell and is a first-class product. It is well absorbed by the body: almost 90% of it immediately enters the bloodstream after ingestion.

Sweet clover honey contains many useful substances:

• Glycosides are substances with vasodilating properties.
• About 300 macro- and microelements, including: manganese, copper, zinc, chromium, fluorine, iron.
• Vitamins: B, K, E, PP, C.
• Coumarins - have an analgesic effect.
• 40% fructose, 36% glucose, polysaccharides, organic acids.

Useful properties of sweet clover honey

• Honey helps to improve blood circulation, removes edema caused by diseases of the cardiovascular system, expands the lumen of the coronary arteries, and increases blood pressure.
• The product has antiseptic and bactericidal properties, which allows it to be used in conjunction with various tinctures for the treatment of purulent wounds, cuts, cracked heels, burns, inflammation of the skin.
• It is useful to consume a delicacy after intense physical exertion, since its calorie content, a large amount of vitamins and minerals help to restore strength and energy in a short time.
• The anti-inflammatory and expectorant properties of honey help to cope with diseases of the upper respiratory tract: tonsillitis, flu, pneumonia, tonsillitis.
• Sweet nectar is eaten during lactation. It helps improve the quality and quantity of breast milk.
• Sweet clover honey has sedative properties, due to which the product is actively used for severe emotional shock, insomnia, regular headaches, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

How to distinguish from fakes and other varieties

Sweet clover honey crystallizes faster than other varieties, so it is very rare to find it in liquid form. Even candied nectar should retain a white tint, be of a uniform consistency, and not have grains.

Sometimes cheaper rapeseed honey is sold under the guise of sweet clover nectar. You can distinguish it by taste: in rapeseed it is sweeter, even cloying, without a hint of vanilla aftertaste. To give a fake product the necessary structure or color, unscrupulous manufacturers add molasses, flour, starch, and chalk to it. Impurities are detected as follows:

The use of sweet clover honey

You can use sweet clover honey not only inside, but also use it externally in various fields of activity:

• Cosmetology: for the preparation of masks, cleansing scrubs, wraps, in the production of soap to fix the smell.
• Production of alcoholic products: some brands of wine, vodka, liquors have a pleasant aroma due to sweet clover.
• Cooking: when preparing pastries, sweet desserts, sauces, marinade of fish or meat.
• Alternative medicine: for the prevention of colds, the treatment of hemorrhoids, varicose veins, diseases of the digestive or endocrine system.

Treatment of cough and respiratory diseases

There are many expectorant medicines for cough, but natural remedies are considered safer, especially if the child has been exposed to respiratory disease. To reduce the viscosity of sputum, to improve its discharge from the bronchi, pure sweet clover honey should be consumed in 1 tsp. 3 times / day.

A medicine made from black radish with honey will be more effective:

1. Wash the root crop thoroughly.
2. Cut off the tip, make a recess in the center.
3. In it put Art. l. honey, let it stand.
4. After a while, juice will appear inside. It must be collected and drunk 1 dessert spoon before meals until you feel better.

Stimulating lactation while breastfeeding

To enhance the production of breast milk, nursing mothers are recommended to eat 1 dessert spoon of a sweet treat after each meal. Honey can be combined with the intake of special decoctions, teas, medicinal infusions that stimulate lactation. Important: fees should be drunk only warm, so the desired effect will be achieved faster.

During honey therapy, mothers need to closely monitor the reaction of the child's body. If red spots or other signs of allergy appear on the body, it is better to refuse to take bee products while breastfeeding.

Improving the functioning of the thyroid gland

Sweet clover nectar is indispensable for diseases of the endocrine system. Only 30-40 grams of honey per day in a month normalize the production of hormones, improve the condition of hair, nails, reproductive system. Well proven and such a medicine:

1. Mix 350 g of lemon, crushed together with peel, with 500 g of viburnum juice, 200 g of medical alcohol, 250 g of aloe juice and 150 g of honey.
2. Remove the resulting mixture to infuse in a dark place for 7 days.
3. Take gruel for 1 tbsp. l. before meals for a month.

Activation of the immune system for the prevention of SARS

To increase the body's defenses during an exacerbation of respiratory viral infections, sweet clover honey should be taken at 25 grams per day. For children, the dosage is recommended to be reduced to 10 g of nectar per day. It is important to remember that increasing doses does not increase the immunostimulating effect, therefore, in order to avoid adverse reactions, you should not overeat.

Sweet clover honey for hemorrhoids and constipation

To alleviate the patient's condition, reduce the manifestation of symptoms of hemorrhoids, enema will help prevent bleeding:

1. Heat 100 ml of water to 40°C.
2. Dissolve 20 grams of honey in it.
3. Use the prepared solution for enemas 1 time per day, preferably at bedtime, until you feel better.

If you suffer from indigestion, flatulence, constipation, prepare the following mixture:

1. Peel the apple, grate it on a fine grater.
2. Mix with lemon juice squeezed from half a citrus.
3. Add 1 tbsp. l. water, honey, ground oatmeal.
4. Take the medicine 1 time per day for 1 tbsp. l. at lunch time.
5. The duration of treatment is 7-10 days.

For varicose veins

The following solution will help reduce the visibility of varicose veins:

1. Grind 350 g of garlic.
2. Mix with 250 g sweet clover honey.
3. Leave in a dark place for a week.
4. Take the finished medicine one hour before meals, 1 tsp.
5. The course of treatment is 1 month.

Contraindications

• allergy to bee products;
• bronchial asthma;
• diabetes;
• hypertension (high blood pressure);
• blood clotting disorder.

Storage conditions

For proper storage of honey, tightly closed containers made of ceramics, wood, food-grade plastic, glass are suitable. It is strongly not recommended to keep the beekeeping product in galvanized or aluminum containers, with the surfaces of which it reacts. There should be no unpleasant odors in the room. Optimum storage temperature: +4-18 °С.

Video

Sweet clover honey is considered an expensive beekeeping product. Its price is almost twice as high as that of buckwheat or flower honey. But it's well worth the price. Sweet clover honey, with a pleasant floral aroma, has long been considered as a good remedy for the treatment of the abdominal cavity and small pelvis. This honey is used to increase lactation in breastfeeding women, to heal nipple cracks and a number of other diseases. What is sweet clover honey, what useful properties it has and how to use it for treatment, read further in the article.

Sweet clover honey, as the name suggests, is collected by bees from sweet clover flowers: yellow sweet clover or white sweet clover. Fresh honey has a beautiful golden color, which becomes almost white when crystallized. The aroma of honey is very subtle, with slightly perceptible floral notes, reminiscent of light vanilla.

Sweet clover is considered by beekeepers to be a good honey plant and very productive. From 1 hectare of yellow sweet clover, bees can collect from 200 to 300 kilograms of honey. And from the white sweet clover as much as 500 kilograms. Therefore, rarely any of the beekeepers will miss the moment of flowering of this herb. And the very name of the herb sweet clover from the Greek melilotus is translated as "honey flower" and bees willingly visit it.

Sweet clover grows almost everywhere. It is planted specifically for honey production. This plant has a special flower structure, which allows you to save valuable nectar even in rainy weather. In Canada, breeders have specially bred a new annual variety of this plant for beekeepers.

In nature, two types of sweet clover are most common: white and yellow. Yellow sweet clover is grown on an industrial scale mainly for medicinal purposes as a medicinal herb.

Flowering of sweet clover lasts a very long time, almost two months. Interestingly, after mowing, the newly grown grass has time to bloom.

Composition of sweet clover honey

Sweet clover honey, like any other natural honey, has a very diverse composition, which includes many useful nutrients for humans. These are vitamins, enzymes, organic acids, minerals. In total, honey contains up to 60 different compounds.

Among the vitamins, it is necessary to highlight the B vitamins: B1 and B2, C, E, PP.

Sweet clover honey contains:

Carbohydrates;

Fructose;

Its calorie content is 314 calories per 100 grams.

Useful properties of sweet clover honey

Sweet clover has many useful and healing properties. Honey, obtained from the nectar of this plant, has the same beneficial qualities as the herb, and is an effective remedy for the treatment of many diseases. It is traditionally used to treat colds, coughs, swelling and diseases of the joints, veins, abdominal pain, gynecological diseases, headaches.

Sweet clover honey has antibacterial, sedative, diuretic, expectorant, anti-inflammatory, analgesic properties.

In folk medicine, honey has long been used not only as a pleasant sweetness, but also locally.

The use of sweet clover honey improves blood composition and increases hemoglobin.

In the form of honey cakes, compresses, it is used for boils, abscesses. It is effective for rheumatism, stomach ulcers, joint pain, atherosclerosis and hypertension.

Due to its properties, sweet clover honey can be used for:

Migraines and headaches;

bronchitis;

flatulence;

Varicose veins;

atherosclerosis;

With high blood pressure;

Insomnia.

Natural sweet clover honey has a healing effect on the entire body. It is often used to make home remedies for many ailments.

Sweet clover honey to increase lactation

To improve immunity

As a preventive measure during the season of colds and viral diseases, take a tablespoon of sweet clover daily. For children, 1-2 teaspoons will be enough, depending on age.

Cough treatment

Honey is often used to treat coughs. It can be drunk along with medicinal teas that have expectorant properties, and medicinal remedies can be prepared, for example, with black radish or.

With tuberculosis

Treatment of hemorrhoids

The Russian name for the herb sweet clover comes from the name bottom, which means gout or don, which meant diseases of the small pelvis.

Therefore, it is not surprising that this honey is used to treat hemorrhoids.

Honey is used in the form of a honey solution, which is prepared from 100 grams of water and 20 grams of honey. The resulting solution is used in the form of microclysters.

For best results, you can make a sitz bath with a decoction of sweet clover flowers.

For varicose veins

For the treatment of veins, a medicinal garlic syrup with honey is prepared. To do this, pass 350 grams of garlic cloves through a press and mix with 250 grams of honey. Put the jar in a dark place for a week.

Drink a teaspoon of the syrup received daily, three times a day, an hour before meals.

Instead of garlic, you can use onion juice by mixing it in equal proportions with honey. Infuse for three days at room temperature and then refrigerate for another 10 days. Take the same as garlic syrup.

Treatment of pneumonia

To prepare a compress, mix 2 parts of sweet clover honey with 1 part of aloe juice and 3 parts of vodka. Soak a napkin folded several times with this mixture and apply on the back and chest. Cover with cellophane and put on warm underwear. leave the compress overnight.

constipation treatment

Prepare porridge from oatmeal, grated apples, a little lemon juice, a tablespoon of water and sweet clover honey.

Contraindications to the use of sweet clover honey

Like all bee products, this honey can cause allergies. Therefore, before use, be sure to make sure that it is not present. You need to eat some honey and if there is no reaction during the day, you can use it for treatment.

If a rash or other signs of an allergic reaction appear, then the use should be discarded. The fact is that sweet clover belongs to the legume family, to which some people may be allergic. After all, honey always contains a certain amount of pollen.

Given that honey is a high-calorie foods, you should not consume it in large quantities for overweight and obese people. How much honey you can eat is better to consult a doctor.

Not only with this honey, but also with any other, compresses are not recommended for tuberculosis, bronchial asthma, bleeding in the lungs, emphysema, heart failure, myocarditis.

Be sure to get advice from a doctor for people suffering from diabetes about the advisability of using sweet clover honey.

Since honey is a mild diuretic, remember to replenish your body with water to stay hydrated.

How to distinguish sweet clover honey from a fake

Anyone who has tried real sweet clover honey at least once will be able to distinguish a fake.

Firstly, sweet clover honey is light yellow in color. The saturation of the color depends on the color of the grass flowers. If there is more yellow sweet clover nectar, then the honey will be darker, with a barely perceptible greenish tinge.

If white sweet clover predominates, the honey is lighter.

Secondly, the aroma of honey. Real honey has a very subtle smell with hints of vanilla. After tasting, you can catch light bitter notes.

Rapeseed honey is often passed off as sweet clover honey. It cannot be said that this honey is bad. It just costs less. And the price of sweet clover honey is higher. And rapeseed honey does not have such an aroma and is more cloying in taste.

When buying honey on the market, we always want to be sure that we are not buying a fake. It is important to know several signs by which you can recognize a fake.

Natural honey flows from a spoon in a thin stream. Fake - drops.

When lowering a spoon into honey and quickly twisting it, natural honey wraps around it.

Be sure to try the honey. Natural honey always has an inherent bitterness in the aftertaste. If there is too much bitterness, acidity or an aroma not inherent in honey, then most likely it is a fake.

Where to buy sweet clover honey

Having bought honey, the question naturally arises of how, where and how much it can be stored.

Sweet clover honey does not lose its properties for 2 years. Store it preferably in a glass jar. But more often honey is sold in plastic jars, in which honey can also be stored.

You can not store it in aluminum and metal utensils. The storage temperature of honey is room temperature. It is not necessary to put in the refrigerator. There it crystallizes faster.

Sweet clover honey is a very tasty and healthy beekeeping product and brings not only pleasure, but also great benefits for the body. Be sure to buy and try this fragrant honey.

One of the favorite nectars of bees is sweet clover, in biology it is called Melilotus, which means honey flower in translation. White sweet clover has medicinal properties. Also, bees prefer to collect nectar from yellow or medicinal sweet clover. The two species differ in their coloration, the first one has small and white flowers, while the other variety has yellow and large flowers.

Features of sweet clover nectar

Before sweet clover was popular in Europe, America, Asia. The French believe that the benefits of sweet clover are not only that this plant is the best nectar, it is an effective cure for many diseases.

The people call the plant sweet clover, burkun, bottom grass. Belongs to the legume family, is a biennial species. The flowers of sweet clover are moth-shaped, yellow or white, have a wonderful aroma, can elongate and gather in brushes.

Melilot honey is very sweet, transparent in color and has a sharp hay smell. Sweet clover nectar is preferred by bees because it is easy to obtain. Sweet clover fruits are small beans that are egg-shaped. The plant contains up to 20,000 seeds.

You can meet sweet clover in the steppe, forests, sometimes it forms a large number of thickets and hides in them, it also grows on a slope, near roads, among other shrubs. White sweet clover is especially valued, it is specially sown, because it is believed that it improves the condition of the soil. In America, they think that it is not necessary to specially plant this type of plant because bees love it, it takes up a large amount of space, so they plant it in ditches, near roads, in a ravine. In the US, white sweet clover is one of the main sources of honey. Canada has also noticed that bees bring a large amount of collected nectar from this plant species, therefore increasing the area for breeding beekeeping.

Healing composition and use of sweet clover

The plant contains a large amount of resinous, tannins, dicumarol - they have an excellent effect on the state of the blood, do not allow it to clot. Also in sweet clover there are a lot of vitamins of group E, C, choline. The flowers are rich in glycosides, flavonoids, they contain other useful substances. Due to the fact that the grass contains a large amount of coumarin and some essential oils, it has a pleasant aroma that attracts bees.

White sweet clover constantly pleases bees with abundant nectar, it can bloom for more than two months, it starts in the middle of summer, ends in early autumn, when clover and alfalfa have already faded. After being mowed, it may still bloom until severe frosts appear. Beekeepers, comparing white sweet clover with other plant species, came to the conclusion that from 200 to 600 kg of honey can be obtained from 1 hectare of a sown plant. Some call it honey clover, white sweet clover is not afraid of drought, but it is very important to periodically moisten the soil, so the nectar will increase.

Sweet clover is actively used in food, alcoholic beverages, perfumery purposes. Essential oils are used to make soap, so they fix the smell. The flowers have an unusual smell, they are added to liquor, wine, vodka. For culinary purposes sweet clover is used as a spice for fish and vegetables.

Useful properties of honey from sweet clover

White sweet clover honey differs in that it has medicinal properties. The color of honey depends on the type of plant, white or yellow. Most often, the product is light and amber, less often pure white. Beekeepers notice that it can have a golden hue. What attracts the most is the smell, it is soft, gentle. The nectar from the yellow variety is similar to that of the linden tree. But the white sweet clover gives honey a spicy vanilla specific taste, some consider it bitter.

The beneficial properties of the bee product are diverse, because it contains glucose, fructose. Sweet clover honey can crystallize for a long time, then it can acquire a yellow, viscous consistency, less often white. Due to the fact that it has medicinal properties, it is valued as a high quality product and belongs to the best type of varieties. The composition of honey includes cane sugar, ash, organic acid, inverted sugar, water, proteins, vitamins.

Treatment of diseases with sweet clover honey

Beekeepers are well versed in the fact that each of the varieties of honey helps to cure certain diseases. Honey, which gives linden, will help get rid of colds, SARS, flu; a product collected from acacia is treated for the stomach and intestines; chestnut honey - heart disease. White sweet clover honey is advised to be used by nursing mothers in order to receive enough milk during lactation. So the body is saturated with a large amount of minerals, trace elements.

1. Since ancient times, gout, diseases of the abdominal region have been treated with honey, with the help of it it was possible to establish metabolism, stop the inflammatory process in the urinary tract, and the renal system.
2. The healing properties of sweet clover honey make it possible to cure human nervous diseases. Therefore, the product is advised to be used by those who are constantly nervous, women in position, in childhood, in the elderly, if a person suffers from neuralgia, his sleep is disturbed, and frequent headaches are disturbing. Women with menopause.
3. The product has expectorant properties, so it can be used to cure cough, bronchitis, laryngitis, pneumonia. Doctors advise honey to treat the stomach, intestines in case of atony, increased gas formation in the intestinal area.
4. Due to the fact that the product has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, it can be used both internally and externally. Baths and lotions are especially useful for purulent wounds, furunculosis, rheumatism and arthritis of the joints, myositis. The effect will increase if you add honey, which gives linden, as well as propolis, to the product from sweet clover.
5. It is valued for heart disease, with the help of it you can expand blood vessels, improve blood flow, get rid of cardiac edema, normalize blood pressure and protect against hypertension.
6. Gastroenterologists have proven that this variety is an ideal healing agent for the gastric mucosa, it not only preserves the beneficial microflora, eliminating the pathological one, but also helps to get rid of ulcers, gastritis, and treats cancer in the first stages.

Honey sweet clover calorie table

Thus, sweet clover honey is a product of the best quality, it belongs to the first grade. It is valued for its useful and medicinal properties. Most often light yellow, maybe white, pleases with its pleasant aroma and vanilla taste. It is easy to distinguish it from other varieties, for this you need to pay attention to the fact that it is transparent yellow, after it crystallizes, it turns into milky white. It is important not to confuse it with what is harvested from rapeseed.

Sweet clover honey is considered one of the healthiest and most delicious bee products. To find out how useful sweet clover honey is, you need to carefully understand its features and unique qualities.

Content

sweet clover

This herbaceous plant belongs to the legume family. It has yellow and white flowers and trifoliate leaves, which is why it is also called the shamrock. Sweet clover is a plant that produces nectar for a long time. The flowering period covers all 3 summer months, so the honey harvest is rich, and the harvesting process lasts a season. Sweet clover treats diseases such as:

• Migraine.
• Cough.
• Bronchitis.
• Constipation.
• Arthritis.
• Insomnia.

This plant contains a large amount of minerals and various nutrients that are transferred to the sweet product. Useful properties of white honey from sweet clover are due to the composition of a valuable plant, which is rich in coumarin, essential oils, protein, tocopherol, ascorbic acid.

Features of this variety

The characteristic of honey depends on the characteristics of the honey plant. A distinctive feature of sweet clover is a light, pleasant vanilla flavor. This fact makes honey a valuable ingredient in various confectionery products and pastries. It retains the rest of the flavors and aromas, only gently complementing and enhancing the taste sensations. The product is white. Sometimes it can be pale yellow. Its taste is rich, full-bodied, sweet. A person who has tried a sweet clover product feels a taste of vanilla in his mouth.

This variety is especially popular in the USA. In this country, 70% of bee sweets sold by beekeepers are sweet clover. The sweet mass crystallizes rapidly, which is the reason for the impossibility of acquiring this type of honey in a liquid state. Many beekeeping product lovers confuse sweet clover, which does not have a delicate vanilla aroma and has a pronounced sweet taste. If the nectar was collected by bees from yellow flowers, the taste of honey will be slightly different. It will have a slight bitterness. Nectar from yellow flowers, according to beekeepers, is the most beneficial for human health. Honey from it is considered first-class and.

Due to the fact that this variety thickens quickly, the process of pumping out honey must be carried out quickly and at the right time, otherwise extracting from the honeycombs will become very problematic.

You can eat natural liquid honey of this variety only at the beekeeper during the pumping out of sweets.

Methods for determining naturalness

When buying honey, every connoisseur wants to get a high-quality product that meets the requirements and standards, but often encounters unscrupulous sellers who offer fake sweets. Therefore, it is important to be able to distinguish natural honey from a fake. Most often, rapeseed and bodya honey are mistaken for sweet clover honey. Fraudsters often sell sugar syrup that has vanilla added to it.

1. A healthy sweet clover product has a slight vanilla smell. It should not be sharp and saturated.
2. The consistency should be uniform. The delicacy should not contain any foreign substances, inclusions, clots. Their presence speaks of the low quality of the product.

The composition of the treat

This variety is rich in vitamins B, E, C, carotenes, folic acid, nickel, zinc, fluorine, silicon and other valuable trace elements. It contains 37% glucose, proteins and carbohydrates.

Healing properties

The benefits of sweet clover honey are obvious. It is actively used in medicine for the prevention and treatment of many diseases.

• Sweet clover honey improves the functioning of the cardiovascular system, treats hypertension, normalizes blood pressure, increases blood supply and speeds up the process of blood circulation.
• The sweet contains dicoumarol, which thins the blood. It is recommended to use this variety to prevent or cure thrombosis. It also strengthens the walls of blood vessels, tones, making them elastic.
• The beneficial qualities of sweet clover honey also extend to the human immune system. It is no worse than linden, supports immunity, helps fight viruses, destroys pathogenic microbes and bacteria.
• The properties of sweet clover honey are valuable in diseases of the respiratory tract, as the sweetness copes with inflammatory processes in the throat. Experts advise using it for those who suffer from pharyngitis, tonsillitis, laryngitis.

• It facilitates the discharge of sputum, so doctors recommend eating a treat for those people who have been diagnosed with bronchitis.
• This variety has also found its use in the fight against tuberculosis.
• Relieves migraines.

The benefits of a bee product for women

Sweet mass is extremely useful for the female body. Honey is especially useful for pregnant women. Doctors advise using a teaspoon of the product in the evening for expectant mothers to compensate for the loss of vitamins and nutrients.

For lactating women, sweetness plays a special role: it increases the amount of milk. Warm tea with the addition of treats will cause increased milk production. If a woman has problems with milk stagnation or mastitis, she will also be helped by a melilot product, which must be used as a compress.

In women, during menopause, the work of the hormonal system is disrupted, with which this variety fights. It restores the hormonal system, gently normalizing its work, defeating nervous disorders and stress.

Other medicinal properties of honey and its uses

It is advisable for people suffering from insomnia to dilute 1 teaspoon of bee product in a glass of warm water and drink the resulting drink before going to bed. It will calm the nervous system, relieve anxiety, irritability and put the body to sleep. You can also add honey to tea with chamomile or lemon balm.

In case of intestinal disorders, flatulence, you need to eat a treat, as it helps the intestines, eliminating discomfort, cleansing it. Experts recommend giving honey to children who do not eat well. This variety increases appetite and helps digestion. The product has antispasmodic, diuretic, laxative effects. It has a beneficial effect on the condition of the intestines, liver, kidneys. Recommended for constipation. Relieves symptoms of gout and arthritis. Honey can also be used externally as an ointment, because it has antiseptic properties and is effective for burns and purulent wounds as a compress.

Application in cosmetology

Cosmetologists appreciate the bee product for its rich composition and amazing properties that affect the skin and hair. It qualitatively rejuvenates the skin, smoothing fine wrinkles, fighting the signs of aging. The delicacy nourishes, moisturizes, tones, thanks to which the skin seems to be renewed, becoming velvety, clean and radiant. Sweetness has the ability to reduce age spots. Fine, frizzy hair becomes strong, thick and silky again with this unique bee product.

Contraindications

This variety has several contraindications that you need to familiarize yourself with before using it.

1. If you are allergic to legumes, you should not eat sweet clover honey. After all, the medicinal plant from which it is collected belongs to the legume family.
2. It is not recommended to use sweetness for people with disorders of the pancreas.
3. Diabetes mellitus is a contraindication to the use of a bee product.
4. Since this variety is very high in calories, it is undesirable for those who are overweight to eat it.

On the edges of the forests of the temperate natural zone, there is a plant that gives us (with the help of bees) fragrant and tasty honey - sweet clover. Useful properties and harm of this flower will be discussed in our article. It should immediately be noted that the sweet clover plant is of two types: with white and yellow flowers. The latter is considered medicinal. All beekeepers know that the most valuable and beneficial for the body honey is obtained from flowers. But it is very difficult to find it on sale. Instead, you can often find a fake - burdock honey. It is also tasty, but more sweet, to cloying. And there are not enough useful properties in comparison with sweet clover honey in burdock honey. How to distinguish one product from another? We will explain this in our article. We will also touch on the question of who should avoid eating sweet clover flowers. Honey, of course, is very good for health, but it also has contraindications.

Sweet clover honey: useful properties

The photo in the article shows us a jar of this product. First of all, a strange color is striking, not at all “honey”. The product has a milky, even greenish tint. enriches honey with the smell of vanilla. But this taste is light. Honey should not smell like vanilla ice cream. White sweet clover crystallizes very slowly. And if this happens, then a creamy mass of white, like milk, color is obtained. (the one that gives honey with a slight bitterness. It is this product that is most useful. But since it contains a lot (up to forty percent) of fructose, it quickly crystallizes. Any sweet clover is a storehouse of vitamins. But yellow honey, although it is bitter ", more useful. In Canada and the USA, it is he who is the leader in sales of beekeeping products. Sweet clover honey has a high enzymatic activity. Let us analyze its useful properties in more detail.

Value

Varieties of honey, or rather, flowers, the nectar of which served as the starting material for the product, have different indications and are used to treat various diseases. For example, linden is good for colds. Acacia honey is used to treat ailments of the gastrointestinal tract. Chestnut color restores the work of the heart. And what is the value of sweet clover honey? The beneficial properties of this beekeeping product can hardly be overestimated. But his main "specialization" is women's health. Sweet clover honey contains minerals and microelements that cause a rush of breast milk in nursing mothers. This product should also be consumed during pregnancy, so that the body has time to get these substances and rebuild for childbirth and subsequent lactation. It is enough to eat one spoonful of sweet clover honey at the end of the meal. But this product is also good for other women, not just those who are preparing to become a mother or breastfeeding. Doctors advise using sweet clover honey for menopausal neurosis.

Indications for internal use

A plant with yellow flowers is recognized as medicinal. Therefore, it is not surprising that sweet clover honey is also such. The beneficial properties of this product are not limited to the effect on women's reproductive health. Yellow sweet clover honey is an excellent sedative. It helps with insomnia, neurosis, high blood pressure, frequent headaches. Like linden honey, sweet clover is used to treat the respiratory tract. It not only relieves inflammation, but is even effective (in combination with other medications, of course) in the treatment of tuberculosis. It is also an excellent laxative and diuretic. And, of course, like any honey, sweet clover has an expectorant property, so it is prescribed for colds, bronchitis, tonsillitis. It improves immunity, it is recommended to use it during epidemics.

Indications for external use

How to use sweet clover honey externally? The beneficial properties of this food product make up a long list. Among them are antispasmodic and analgesic actions. Even in ancient times, yellow sweet clover honey was applied in the form of compresses to burns and festering wounds. It is also effective in the treatment of furunculosis. Honey can be dissolved in warm water and thus prepared for healing baths for children. Such fonts are also good for adults in case of rheumatism, myositis, varicose veins, joint diseases. Honey has a mild laxative effect, so it is recommended for those who suffer from constipation. And as a drug for external use, it is used for gout.

Sweet clover honey in folk medicine

Our ancestors called this honey plant sweet clover, bottom grass, burkun. And botanists call it Melilotus. This Latin term consists of two words: "chalk" (meaning "honey") and "lotus" ("fodder grass"). It is very easy now to determine the essence of this two-year-old leguminous plant. "Honey lotus" blooms very beautifully, especially yellow. Bees, smelling his scent, rush to him in swarms. The benefits of sweet clover honey have been known for a long time, and not only in Rus'. Traditional medicine used it as an expectorant for coughs, pneumonia, bronchitis. In Rus', they cut out the middle of a black radish and put sweet clover honey inside. For a day and a half, it was mixed with vegetable juice. consumed twenty minutes before meals, one dessert spoon. Sweet clover is a very fragrant plant. It is used not only as a product of beekeeping. Zaporizhzhya Cossacks ground dry and added to tobacco. And Ukrainian housewives wiped the barrels in which they were going to pickle vegetables with a decoction of the plant.

In cosmetology

The fair sex quickly realized, from sweet clover. Youth acne will pass, and oily skin will be gently dried, if you add a spoonful of this delicious drug to warm water for washing. For more serious problems (pimples, boils, acne), cosmetic masks are made. To do this, grind two cucumbers on a coarse grater and mix with a spoonful of sweet clover honey. Apply this mask on a cleansed dry face, wash off after fifteen minutes. This remedy is useful for any type of skin. The only thing to consider: if you do not want the mask to dry out your face, add a little heavy cream or sour cream to it. And for oily skin, such a simple folk recipe is suitable: add a spoonful of sweet clover honey to a glass of warm water and mix thoroughly. Wipe your face with this solution instead of tonic. The essential oil of this plant is used in soap making to fix the smell.

In dietetics

Those who follow the figure have also noticed honey from sweet clover for a long time. The properties of this product in nutrition are twofold. On the one hand, it perfectly cleanses the intestines without harming its microflora. Sweet clover honey has a mild thermogenic and diuretic effect. This should be taken into account by those who use dietary supplements for weight loss. In this case, you need to increase fluid intake, as well as drink less coffee, tea, energy drinks. On the other hand, the calorie content of such honey is quite high - three hundred and nine kilocalories (per 100 g). But there are no fats in the product, and this is with a significant content of carbohydrates (81.5 g). Proteins in honey from sweet clover 0.8 grams. The glucose content is also quite high: 36.7 percent with 40% fructose. This should be kept in mind for diabetic patients. You should also be aware that this product immediately loses all its valuable properties when heated above fifty degrees. But in its natural form, it is useful both in liquid and in candied form.

Sweet clover honey: medicinal properties and contraindications

There are no unconditionally useful products in our world. So sweet clover honey also has its own, albeit few, contraindications. Let's not forget that this plant belongs to the legume family. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid its use by those who are allergic to peas, beans and similar products. Honey can provoke increased intestinal flatulence, especially when combined with milk. It can cause allergy sufferers. There are resinous and tannins in sweet clover grass. Therefore, in Central Asia and the Caucasus, it is used as a seasoning. Moreover, both leaves and stems and even roots are eaten. But the chemical composition of the plant also contains dicoumarol, which prevents blood clotting. Sweet clover flowers contain vitamins E and C, choline, flavonium glycoside and other biologically active substances.

How to distinguish a valuable product from a fake

This plant in our country develops wastelands and roadsides, while in the USA and Canada it is specially sown for the sake of honey in the first place, as well as for the sake of hay for livestock. Getting a sweet clover product in America is as easy as shelling pears. But in our part of the world, honey from this plant is very rare. You can buy it, and even in liquid form, only from beekeepers. In stores, a fake is often sold - also honey, but from rapeseed. It gives out too sugary taste and lack of vanilla smell. The color of honey from sweet clover should be very light - "hay". And when it crystallizes, it completely acquires the shade and texture of pork lard. Honey from yellow sweet clover is slightly bitter at first, and then a sweet-spicy aftertaste is felt for a long time on the palate. After trying this product, you will not confuse it with any other.

Honey for hypertensive patients

In this matter, the opinions of scientists and traditional healers differ. The former claim that the coumarin contained in the nectar of the plant increases blood pressure. Traditional medicine assures that for patients suffering from hypertension, it is just useful to eat honey from sweet clover. The beneficial properties of this product also lie in the fact that it improves peripheral circulation.