Ayurveda's view on honey

Feeling sick and about to make a honey, lemon and ginger tea? Listen up. If there's one message I can pass on, I want it to be this: never ever heat up honey. Like never ever. And always buy unprocessed honey. This sweet and delicious product has so many health benefits when it's raw and unheated, yet can cause a host of troubles once it's been processed (tips on what to buy below). Not only does heating honey over 40 degrees kill its therapeutic properties but the negative implications are bad enough for Ayurveda's ancient sage Charaka to announce “nothing is so troublesome as ama [undigested matter] caused by the improper intake of honey". More on ama later - but basically, it's not good news. So make that tea, but with warm water and good quality honey that will do the job it's meant to do. . When you're buying it, look for "raw/not heated/not processed/unpasteurised/לא מחומם on the jar).