What is Manuka honey?
Manuka honey is a unique New Zealand honey with remarkable natural benefits. It is produced by bees from the nectar of a plant leptospermum scoparium, more commonly known as Manuka.
The Manuka Plant
The Manuka plant is a rare flowering plant native to Aotearoa New Zealand. It thrives in New Zealand’s unique, sun-speckled climate where nutrient-rich fresh water is plentiful. While Manuka plants are often relatively small shrubs, they can tower to an imposing 15m in height. At such heights, some refer to Manuka plants as trees.
Throughout a fleeting flowering season of between 6-12 weeks a year, honeybees race to extract rich nectar from Manuka flowers. It’s from Manuka nectar that the honeybees make one of nature’s greatest gifts: MGO-rich New Zealand Manuka honey.
The unique properties of Manuka honey
The unique natural properties of New Zealand Manuka honey have gained popularity with consumers worldwide.
New Zealand Food Standards prevents us from discussing any potential health benefits of Manuka honey in detail. But the research exists, and we encourage you to take a look into it yourself.
What makes Manuka honey so nourishing?
New Zealand Manuka honey contains astonishingly high levels of the organic compound methylglyoxal, or MGO.
Everyday honey might have MGO concentrations of 2-5mg/kg. By contrast, Manuka honey MGO concentrations can reach as high as 1000mg/kg.
MGO explains a significant proportion of Manuka honey’s unique properties, and it’s MGO that makes Manuka honey so remarkable.
Manuka honey research
The complex properties of New Zealand Manuka honey are attracting the interest of researchers from all over the world. At Helena Health, we’re committed to discovering, publicising and sharing the results of these studies of genuine Manuka honey cultivated right here in our beautiful country of Aotearoa New Zealand.
