I have recently discovered Buckwheat Honey and I love it! I read a blurb about it in Parents magazine (or maybe it was Parenting magazine?) about how it is very good for children’s coughs. Particularly since the medical field is now recommending NOT to give cough/cold medicine to young children. A few days later, I was in Target (which is not my normal store) and I stumbled across Buckwheat Honey and picked some up.It is very good but different from other honeys. It reminds me more of molasses. Also, it works phenomenally well on Reed’s cough. It stops it immediately and works through the night. He woke up coughing this morning at 5:30 or so and I started thinking “Oh no! It’s not working!”. Come to find out that Mike didn’t give him any last night.
It is kind of comical to see him running into the kitchen when I ask if he’s ready for the honey. He licks the spoon all over and says “YUMMY!!” repeatedly. LOL!
Here’s some information that I found interesting about Buckwheat and Buckwheat Honey.
From wikipedia:
Buckwheat refers to plants in two genera of the dicot family Polygonaceae: the Eurasian genus Fagopyrum, and the North American genus Eriogonum. The crop plant, common buckwheat, is Fagopyrum esculentum. Tartary buckwheat (F. tataricum Gaertn.) or "bitter buckwheat" is also used as a crop, but it is much less common. Despite the common name and the grain-like use of the crop, buckwheat is not a cereal or grass. It is called a pseudocereal to emphasize that it is not related to wheat.
From multiple websites:
Buckwheat honey is pungent in flavor with molasses and malty tones and a lingering aftertaste. Buckwheat honey is also very dark in color. As a general rule, darker honeys tend to be higher in antioxidant compounds than lighter ones. Because of this characteristic, darker honeys also tend to be higher in mineral content on average, as compared to lighter honeys. The buckwheat plant is an excellent honey source, sometimes planted by beekeepers specifically for honey production. The blossoms are rich in nectar and blooming can continue into the fall.
From medicalnewstoday.com:
If a child has a cough and cold a single dose of buckwheat just before bedtime may relieve the cough and help him/her sleep better, compared to giving nothing or an OTC (over-the-counter) cough medicine, according to an article in Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine (JAMA/Archives), December issue.
The authors explain "Cough is the reason for nearly 3 percent of all outpatient visits in the United States, more than any other symptom, and it most commonly occurs in conjunction with an upper respiratory tract infection."
A cough can seriously disrupt a child's sleep. The researchers write that the most commonly used OTC medication for children's cough is dextromethorphan - a treatment which is not supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics, nor the American College of Chest Physicians. "In many cultures, alternative remedies such as honey are used to treat upper respiratory tract infection symptoms including cough."
Ian M. Paul, M.D., M.Sc., Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, and team carried out a study on 105 children - they were aged 2-18, and all were suffering from upper respiratory tract infections. They were ill for up to seven days and experienced symptoms during the night. 35 of them were randomly selected to receive a dose of honey, another 33 were given dextromethorphan, while the other 37 were given nothing - those receiving treatment got it 30 minutes before bedtime. Their parents had to fill in a survey assessing their child's cough and sleep difficulty twice - once for the night before treatment, and then again for the night with treatment.
The researchers found that honey helped children the most by far, followed by dextromethorphan. Honey helped alleviate the following problems - cough frequency, cough severity, the child's sleep, and the parents' sleep.
The writers concluded "While our findings and the absence of contemporary studies supporting the use of dextromethorphan continue to question its effectiveness for the treatment of cough associated with upper respiratory tract infections, we have now provided evidence supporting honey, which is generally regarded as safe for children older than 1 year, as an alternative. While additional studies to confirm our findings should be encouraged, each clinician should consider the findings for honey, the absence of such published findings for dextromethorphan and the potential for adverse effects and cumulative costs associated with the use of dextromethorphan when recommending treatments for families."
