Judith Haun. age 12. of Emmett. Idaho7‑

What are the ingredients of honey?

Honey. of course. is the favorite food of bees and pixies. Being a kind of pixie. Andy naturally thinks very highly of the delicious stuff. Even the strictest scientists must admit that honey is a magic food„ For besides various sugars. it contains vitamins and enzymes. We know these last two are necessary to all living cells. But no one is exactly certain how they work.

Honey begins when the bees gather sweet nectar from the flowers. They take it home and pack it into waxed combs to ripen. The raw nectar contains a lot of water which must be dried out. Some evaporates in the heat of the hive. The bees make a breeze with their wings and dry out some more. When we get it. the honey may be from 13 to 20 percent water. Much more water would tend to make it ferment.

As we all know honey is the sweetest of sweets. And no wonder almost half of it is a stuff called levulose. which is the sweetest of all sugars. Another 35 percent or so will be dextrose. an energy building sugar. Dextrose also helps the body control heat and cold. It is a body thermostat regulator. There are also traces of other useful sugars‑and traces of minerals.

But the real magic of honey is in those enzymes. They are present in small smidgeons. No matters for one enzyme molecule can put a thousand molecules to work in your body. The word enzyme means leaven. Yeast is the leavening agent in bread. It forces tacky paste to behave like fluffy dough. Enzymes force the chemicals in the body to do this and that. But they themselves remain unchanged. .

We could not digest our food without these little boss men. Some enzymes are made by the body itself. But not all others must be got from foods. They are made for us by plants and animals. We know that enzymes are protein and contain amino acids. But how they do all their magic work is still much of a mystery.

Vitamins contain enzymes. And honey abounds in all kinds of vitamins; There is also chlorophyll material and the coloring matter present in the flower nectar. There are specks of pollen dust and there may also be small fragments of beeswax. There is very. very little waste material in honey. Altogether. the wonderful stuff is a valuable and highly concentrated foods and what could taste better? No wonder bees and pixies are such happy energetic peoples

There was a time when honey was used in the home in place of sugar. That was long ago. before refined sugar from cane and beets had been discovered. Some breads and cakes are still made with honey. It tends to keep baked goods soft. It is sometimes used in candy making. But it tends to absorb moisture from the air and make the candy stickey.

Honey has one more trick. not so well known. It will not freeze hard at ordinary temperatures. And. of all things. it has been used as an anti‑freeze in cars. So. should Andy forget his anti‑freeze on a sudden trip to the northwest in mid‑winter. he can dig into his lunch box. A mixture of honey and water will make a mush in cold weather. But it won't let the water in the radiator freeze up.