10 Life-Changing Reasons to Buy a Jar of Manuka Honey

Manuka honey as health tonic

Honey has been prized for thousands of years as more than a sweetener. (Just check out what it could do for your hair!) The first written reference to honey on a Sumerian tablet dated to 2100-2000 BC refers to the sticky stuff as a drug and ointment. Back when Aristotle was writing about various types of honey—sometime between 384 and 322 BC—he noted that pale honey was “good as a salve for sore eyes and wounds.” Then in New Zealand, for centuries, the native Maori community relied on Manuka honey for its anti-bacterial and healing properties (Manuka is the name of the bush the bees get their nectar from.). When researchers analyzed the honey, they discovered it had much higher levels of wound-healing and anti-bacterial compounds than regular honey. Now it’s being touted by everyone from celebrities to cancer researchers as a vital elixir.