The Health Benefits of Drinking Lemon Honey Water

When you get a runny nose or sore throat, do you head to the store for lemon and honey? It can’t just be me right? With lemon detoxes claiming to burn your belly fat, you’ve got to wonder if there is some kind of science behind the apparent magic healing powers of lemons. Do lemon and honey drinks help you lose weight? Will it cure your sniffles? Should you start your morning with a glass of lemon honey water every day?

In case you’re not sure what I mean by lemon and honey water, I’ll explain how you make it. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon into a mug, then add a teaspoon of honey. Pour boiling water in and mix together until the honey is dissolved.

To understand the benefits of lemon honey water, I thought it would be easiest to break it down by its three components to understand whether it’s healing properties are myth or magic.

1. The Healing Benefits of Honey

Honey is highly nutritious. It contains traces of minerals, vitamins and antioxidants which destroy free radicals and delay aging. It is used medicinally around the world. Furthermore, it’s an energizer, has anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal properties. It can be used to help to treat a range of health issues from nausea, coughs, osteoporosis, and even cancer growth. It’s possibly one of the best sweeteners in the world! Reason enough to make honey a habit?

How to Choose the Right Manuka Honey

Not all honey is created equal. Manuka honey is a special type of honey only produced in New Zealand, created by bees who pollinate the manuka bush and then extract the nectar from the flowers to create honey. It’s a little more pricey than your regular honey, but many believe it has extra healing benefits. So how do you know which one to buy?

Unique Manuka Factor (UMF) is used as a measure of the quality or potency of manuka honey. For manuka honey to be used for medicinal purposes, it should have at least UMF 5, which is adequate, or ideally UMF 10 or higher, which is a ‘good’ potency. So look on the label to ensure you’re getting a good quality honey next time!

2. What’s the Juice on Lemon Water?

Lemons are packed with vitamin C. Roughly two lemons provides you with almost 90% of the daily recommended intake of vitamin C! It acts as an antioxidant, and as we mentioned before, destroys free radicals, that could otherwise damage your cells. It’s also vital in producing collagen, which helps give our skin strength and elasticity, among other things. Many of us don’t eat enough lemons to get the recommended amount of vitamin C, because of the sour taste, but that’s why lemon water is a great way to enjoy lemons! You could also boost your vitamin C intake with a high quality supplement. Research has shown that eating fruit and vegetables high in vitamin C can reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke.

As well as this, the soluble fibre in lemons can help improve gut health and more!

In addition, lemons can help you stay hydrated. They add a bit of flavour which can make your standard glass of water seem a bit more appealing!

3. The Unexpected Health Benefits of Hot Water

It’s pretty straight forward, water is necessary for human survival… However, aside from the survival aspect, drinking warm water can provide lots of additional health benefits. It can help with digestion, regulate bowel movements, prevent premature aging, relax nerves and aid in sleep.

Hot water is a great natural remedy for cramps as the warmth helps relax muscles and improve capillary circulation. The relaxing effect can also aid with nerves and sleep. Pro tip: magnesium can also help relax muscles and be a natural stress relief.

Warm water can even prevent premature ageing. Whaaat? When the body accumulates toxins, it becomes susceptible to disease and ageing. Warm water can help flush out the unwanted toxins to keep you young and healthy!

Drinking warm water in the morning could even help you lose weight. Drinking warm water can raise body temperature, which can increase your metabolic rate, that allows the body to burn more calories.

Three’s a Charm

Separately lemon, honey and warm water have some amazing health benefits, so making a lemoney, sweet concoction with all three just makes sense, especially when they taste so good together.

Do you have your own variation of lemon honey water? Let us know your favourite way to make it in the comments!

Written by Monique Sparks
Marketing Assistant | USANA New Zealand