2 
About 60 lbs. of sugar on the average is 
annually consumed by every man, woman, 
Honey as a child in the Unit- 
Wholesome Food, ed States. Of course, 
many use less than the average, but to 
make up for it some consume several times 
as much. It is only within the last few 
centuries that sugar has become known, 
and only within the last generation that 
refined sugars have become so low in price 
that they may be commonly used in the 
poorest families. Formerly honey was the 
principal sweet, and it was one of the 
items sent as a propitiatory offering by 
Jacob to his unrecognized son, the chief 
ruler of Egypt, three thousand years be- 
fore the first sugar-refinery was built. 
It would be greatly for the health of the 
present generation if honey could be at 
least partially restored to its former place 
as a common article of diet. The almost 
universal craving for sweets of some kind 
shows a real need of the system in that di- 
rection ; but the excessive use of sugar 
brings in its train a long list of ills. Be- 
sides the various disorders of the alimen- 
tary canal, that dread scourge, Bright's 
disease of the kidneys, is credited with be- 
ing one of the results of sugar-eating. 
When cane sugar is taken into the stom- 
ach, it can not be assimilated until first 
changed by digestion into grape sugar. 
Only too often the overtaxed stomach fails 
to properly perform this digestion, then 
comes sour stomach and various dyspeptic 
phases. Prof. A. J. Cook says: " If cane 
sugar IS absorbed without change, it will 
be removed by the kidneys, and may re- 
sult in their break-down ; and physicians 
ifiay be correct in asserting that the large 
3 
consumption of cane sugar by the Ifttlv- 
century man is harmful to the great elim- 
inators — the kidneys — and so a menace to 
health and long life." 
Now, in the wonderful laboratory of the 
hive there is found a sweet that needs no 
further digestion, having been prepared 
fully by those wonderful chemists, the 
bees, for prompt assimilation without tax- 
ing stomach or kidneys. As Prof. Cook 
says: " There can be no doubt but that in 
eating honey our digestive machinery is 
saved work that it would have to i)erform 
if we ate cane sugar ; and in case it is 
overworked and feeble, this may be just 
the respite that will save from a break- 
down." A. I. Root says: "Many people 
who can not eat sugar without having un- 
pleasant symptoms follow will find by 
careful test that they can eat good well- 
ripened honey without any diflBculty at 
all." 
Not only is honey the most wholesome 
of all sweets, but it is the most delicious. 
Honey the Most No preparation of man 
Delicious Sauce, can equal the delicate- 
ly flavored product of the hive. Millions 
of flowers are brought under tribute, pre- 
senting their tiny cups of dainty nectar to 
be gathered by the busy riflers ; and when 
they have brought it to the proper consist- 
ency, and stored it in the wondrously 
wrought waxen cells, and sealed it with 
coverings of snowy whiteness, no more 
tempting dish can grace the table at the 
most lavish banquet ; and yet its cost is so 
moderate that it may well find its place on 
the tables of the common people every day 
in the week. 
Indeed, in many cases it may be a matter 
4 
of real economy to lessen the butter-bill by 
It Is Economy letting honey in part take 
to Use Honey, its place. One pound of 
honey will go as far as a pound of butter ; 
and if both articles be of the best quality 
the honey will cost the less of the two. 
Often a prime article of extracted honey, 
equal to comb honey in every respect 
except appearance, can be obtained for 
half the price of butter, or less. Butter is 
at its best, only when "fresh ;" while hon- 
ey properly kept remains indefinitely good 
— no need to hurry it out of the way for 
fear it may become rancid. 
Prof. Cook says: "We all know how 
children long for candy. This longing 
CIve Children voices a need, and is an- 
Honey. other evidence of the ne- 
cessity of sugar in our diet. . . , Chil- 
dren should be given all the honey at each 
nealtime that they will eat. It is safer ; 
will largely do away with the inordinate 
longing for candy and other sweets; and 
in lessening the desire will doubtless 
diminish the amount of cane sugar eaten. 
Then if cane sugar does work mischief 
with health, the harm may be prevented." 
Ask the average child whether he will 
have honey alone on his bread, or butter 
alone, and almost invariably he will 
promptly answer, " Honey." Yet seldom 
are the needs or the tastes of the child 
properly consulted. The old man craves 
fat meat; the child loathes it. He wants 
sweet, not fat. He delights to eat honey f 
it is a wholesome food for him, and is not 
expensive. Why should he not have it? 
Sugar is much used in hot drinks, as in 
coffee and tea. The substitution of a mild- 
ftavored honey in such uses may be a very 
5 
Honey Is Best Sweet- profitable thing 
ening for Hot Drinks. for the health. 
Indeed, it would be better for the health if 
the only hot drink were what is called in 
Germany honey-tea — a cup of hot water 
with one or two tablespoonf uls of extract- 
ed honey. The attainment of great age 
has in some cases been attributed largely 
to the life-long use of honey-tea. 
At the present day honey is placed on 
the market in two forms — in the comb and 
Comb and Ex- extracted. Strained hon- 
tracted Honey, ey, obtained by mashing 
or melting combs containing bees, pollen, 
and honey, has rightly gone out of use. 
Extracted honey is simply honey thrown 
out of the comb in a machine called a 
honey-extractor. The combs are revolved 
rapidly, in a cylinder, and centrifugal 
force throws out the honey. The comb re- 
mains uninjured, and is returned to the 
hive to be refilled again and again. For 
this reason extracted honey is usually sold 
at a less price than comb honey, because 
each pound of comb is made at the expense 
of several pounds of honey. 
Many people think "honey is honey," 
all just alike; but this is a great mistake. 
Different Kinds and Honey may be of 
Flavors of Honey. good heavy body, 
what bee - keepers call " well ripened,-' 
weighing sometimes 12 pounds to the gal- 
lon, or it may be quite thin. It may also 
be granulated, or candied, more solid than 
lard. It may be almost as colorless as 
water, and it may be as black as the dark- 
est molasses. The flavor of honey varies 
according to the flower from which it is 
obtained. It -would be impossible, to de- 
scribe ip wQrdK the flavors of the different 
6 
honeys. You may easily distinguish the 
odor of a rose from that of a carnation, but 
you might find it difficult to describe them 
in words so that a novice smelling them for 
the first time could tell which was which. 
But the different flavors in honey are just 
as distinct as the odors in flowers. Among 
the lighter-colored honeys are white clo- 
ver, linden (or basswood), sage, sweet clo- 
ver, alfalfa, willow-herb, horsemint, etc., 
and among the darker are found hearts- 
ease, magnolia (or poplar), buckwheat, etc. 
Tastes differ as to honey as well as in all 
other things. White clover is so generally 
preferred to buckwheat with its very dark 
color and strongly marked flavor that 
buckwheat honey always rules lower in 
price than white clover, yet there are some 
who prefer buckwheat to any other honey. 
Somewhat fortunately, one generally pre- 
fers the honey to which he is most ac- 
customed. A Californian thinks nothing 
equals white sage, while a Pennsylvanian 
thinks white clover far ahead. 
In these days of prevailing adulteration, 
when so often " things are not what they 
Adulteration seem," it is a comfort to 
of Honey. know that, when one buys 
comb honey, he may know without ques- 
tion he is getting the genuine article. The 
silly stories seen from time to time in the 
papers about artificial combs being filled 
with glucose, and deftly sealed over with a 
hot iron, have not the slightest foundation 
in fact. For years there has been a stand- 
ing offer by one whose financial responsi- 
bility is unquestioned, of $1000 for a single 
pound of comb honey made without the in- 
tervention of bees. The offer remains un- 
taken, and will probably always remain 
7 
so, for the highest art of man can never 
compass such delicate workmanship as the 
skill of the bee accomplishes. 
With extracted honey the case is differ- 
ent. Unfortunately a good deal of liquid 
honey put up by manufacturers, especially 
of syrups, is adulterated. They buy up 
dark honeys, and put in SO or 75 per cent 
of glucose, and then the same is labeled 
"Pure Honey,"" Farm Honey," and scores 
of other innocent names. l3ark honey is 
preferred because it will "stand more glu- 
cose." To give the mixture an appearance 
of honesty — particularly so if the stuff is 
put up in glass — a piece of comb is put in 
sometimes. The comb in this case may 
be entirely dry, or pieces of broken comb 
honey such as the mixers buy of commis- 
sion houses. But not all broken comb 
honey should be classed as adulterated. 
In the South especially, honey is some- 
times put up this way by producers. As a 
general rule, extracted honey is pure if it 
bears the label of some one honey-produc- 
er; but be a little cautious about purchas- 
ing that which either has no label on it, or 
else, if'labeled, bears no name or address 
of some responsible person or firm. 
The average housekeeper will put honey 
in the cellar for safe keeping — about the 
Care of worst place possible. Honey 
Honey, readily attracts moisture, and in 
the cellar extracted honey will become 
thin, and in time may sour ; and with comb 
honey the case is still worse, for the ap- 
pearance as well as the qualfty is changed. 
The beautiful white surface becomes wa- 
tery and darkened, drops of water ooze 
through the capping-s, and weep over the 
surface. Instead of kei-ping honey in a 
8 
place moist and cool, keep it dry and warm, 
even hot. It will not hurt to be in a tem- 
perature of even 100°. Where salt will 
keep dry is a good place for honey. Few 
places are better than the kitchen cup- 
board. Up in a hot garret next the roof is 
a good place, and if it has had enough hot 
days there through the summer it will 
stand the freezing of winter ; for under or- 
dinary circumstancs freezing cracks the 
combs, and hastens granulation or candy- 
ing. 
If honey be kept for any length of time, 
especially during cold weather, it haa a 
Candied tendency to change from its 
Honey. original beautiful liquid trans- 
parency to a white semi-solid granular 
condition; and when it is thus changed, 
bee-keepers call it "granulated" or "can- 
died." Sometimes it is candied so solid 
that when in a barrel the head has to be 
taken off, and the honey removed by the 
spadeful. But its candied condition is not 
to be taken as an evidence against its gen- 
uineness or purity, but rather to the con- 
trary, for the adulterated honeys are less 
liable to candy than those that are pure. 
Some prefer honey in the candied state ; 
but the majority prefer liquid. 
It is an easy matter to restore it 
to its former liquid condition. Simply 
keep it in hot water long enough, but not 
too hot. If heated above 160° there is dan- 
ger of spoiling the color and ruining the 
flavor. Remember that honey contains 
the most delicate of all flavors — that of the 
flowers from which it is taken. A good 
way is to set the vessel containing :he 
honey inside another vessel containing hot 
water, not allowing the bottom of the one 
