Status of Honey in Singapore
What is the response for honey in Singapore (this is where I live - a tiny, modern, wealthy island-city-state in Southeastern Asia, located at the tip of the Malaysian Penninsula)? I notice that most locals know very little about honey and its benefits. Here, honey is probably used most in barbeque foods to reduce
"heatiness in the body",
eaten as a sauce for breakfast pancakes, used as a sweetener for some herbal
teas
and fruits juice, and to make throat-soothing or thirst quenching icy honey drink, a popular drink in such a hot climate. Not many people know much about the goodness of honey in Singapore, especially for the health of women, elderly, and children, or how it can be used in their diet or
cooking.
What does honey mean to the average housewives here? Yes, it costs much more than table sugar but they don’t really know how much more extra value they could gain if they and their families eat
honey instead of table sugar.
Applying honey on toast or bread like the Westerners is somewhat strange and bizarre for most locals. And how foreigners spoon honey straight from the jar and drizzle it over fruit, pancakes, and waffles, how they use
honey as a natural sweetener
in place of sugar in hot drinks, and how they use honey in place of granulated sugar in desserts such as puddings – are all not common knowledge and practices here.
Both general interest and knowledge level of honey in Singapore is low. I believe many people here don’t really know how honey is actually produced. Yes, from the honey bees, but that’s about all most people know, nothing more. Many don’t even know that there are different floral varieties of honey and how they can be ingeniously and creatively used in cooking. Honey in Singapore is pretty standard, basically sweet and nothing more. Actually, I can understand why this is so, most of the people here are only familiar with the mass produced honey on supermarket shelves, a homogenous blend that makes each jar look the same and have the same mild, unexciting mainstream flavor. Many don't know that there is so much more to honey, that honey from each bee colony is really a snapshot of that landscape, the flowers and crop that florish there, and that time period. They don't know how much they are missing out there when it comes to honey and its varying flavour, profiles and facades. Attitudes towards honey are probably like decades ago where people saw all wine as basically either red or white. Also, it seems to me that people here don’t really know what honey to look for – which brand, and know what is considered as good quality honey. Some of the youngsters perhaps will at most consider and grab and enjoy a honey stick from the store but do not know anyhting about its nutrition value. There are no honey bee farms or beekeeping activities in Singapore, hence no local beekeeping associations where beekeepers share information with the public. I do not know of any efforts to enlist honey manufacturers to promote and talk about the health and taste benefits of honey in Singapore. I have never seen an in-store cooking demonstration using honey or know of honey tasting events. And teachers in the schools here do not really make any attempt to educate and explain to their kids in details how honey is produced. Children grow up innocently thinking that honey simply come from the jars or bottles in the supermarkets or grocery stores. My fascination with honey goes back many years when I stumbled upon the different types of
honey products
in the store. The benefits of honey such as
Manuka UMF
intrigued me a lot and drove me to find out more about the
properties of honey
and folk remedies related to honey. I am excited by the fact that now I can even precious costly herbs and supplements such as
Ginseng,
Royal Jelly,
and
Tongkat Ali
in bottles of honey for sale in the supermarket. And this is how and why benefits-of-honey website all began and set out to be – to elevate the level of knowledge about honey in Singapore and beyond and all its benefits, and to form a community of honey lovers who are excited to share with others their experience about the kinds of honey they have tasted and the health benefits they have seen in their lives. For the latest information added to this website, go to my
Honey Blog.
As we see a stronger current trend with natural remedies and foods and a revisit of the the ancient times when honey was used as a
folk remedy
for ailments such as cuts and scraps, laxative, and cough and sore-throat balm, among other things, I believe that the general public here will show more interest in honey, both in the kitchen and outside of the kitchen. And one of these exotic honey recipes might be something that would get you started on exploring the wonders of honey -
Traditional Chinese Honey BBQ Pork Recipe
,
Oriental Honey Pickles Recipe
,
Famous Peking Duck Recipe
, and
Thai Honey Green Mango Salad Recipe.
|
