Honey - For Athletes And Soldiers

Honey - For Athletes And Soldiers


For physical and mental fatigue and over-work there is no more excellent stimulant in the medical armamentarium than honey. A glassful of hot water with several tablespoonfuls of honey is a quickly acting energy-builder, far superior to alcohol because it is without depressive action, or better, reaction. Strenuous exercise consumes lots of sugar from the blood-stream which must be replaced. The popular German honey-tea, which is plain hot water with honey, is considered by the Germans a pleasing, wholesome and strengthening beverage.

The Greek athletes ate honey before they entered the arena for the Olympic games. Homer described in the Iliad (IX. 631) how the tired heroes recuperated in Nestor's tent by consuming honey. The Roman soldiers, on festive occasions or upon returning from war and celebrating the glory of victory, drank honey and wine (mulsum) to prolong their life. According to the Old Testament (2 Sam. 17: 29), honey and sour milk was the food for the tired warriors. When Christ was resurrected and asked for food, He was given honey. This seems to be a testimonial to its refreshing and resuscitating power. (Obtulerunt ei partem piscis assi et favum mellis. Luke 24: 42.)

The Masai warriors, according to Seyffert-Dresden, received for many days no other food but honey. In the old German army, each soldier carried a tube of it in his knapsack. The Alpine climbers never omit the eating of honey, the principal course of a Swiss breakfast. To long distance swimmers, at frequent intervals sponges saturated with honey are thrown to restore their strength. Ethel Hertel, who won the world's championship for women swimmers in the Third Wrigley Marathon Race, held at Toronto, ate honey before and during the race. She consulted a number of athletes (runners, wrestlers, boxers and oarsmen) and discovered that they all fared on honey before their contests. Hockey players and basket-ball teams are served honey three to four times weekly during their training period. The consumption of liberal doses of honey creates heat, wards off fatigue and aids recuperative power. The ice-cold waters of the English Channel and of Lake Ontario consume a great amount of body heat which must be replaced. No Channel swimmers have ever succeeded in finishing the course except those who possessed abundant adipose tissues, in addition to the heavy greasy coating with which they are always anointed. Helene Madison, the sensational seventeen-year-old girl swimmer who, in 1930, broke twelve world and twenty-six American records in eight months, used honey as her major sweet on the advice of her trainer (Gleanings in Bee Culture, 1931).

During exercise, lactic and carbonic acids are formed in the tissues which must be oxidized. Lactic acid is one of the principal causes of exhaustion. The acids are neutralized by the alkalies of the blood. Low alkali reserve means fatigue. Alkaline foods are important. Beans are one of the richest alkaline foods and soy-bean flour tops them all. The soy-bean is a perfect food and a harmless stimulant.

Recently Professor Dennig of the Robert Koch Hospital in Berlin suggested the use of bicarbonate of soda for the Reich Army to increase the efficiency of the soldiers. Experiments and control tests proved that through administration of bicarbonate of soda, the effect of which lasts for several days, runners were able to dash at full tilt for 42 minutes instead of 20, as formerly, and a bicycle racer was able to maintain a sprint for 16 minutes, instead of 11. The administration of bicarbonate of soda followed by the consumption of honey ought to be a helpful combination for athletes. During athletic training less acid forms in the muscles and the alkali reserve is increased.

The blood-sugar content of many participants in marathon races has been carefully studied by biochemists. Prolonged exercise will lead to depletion of liver glycogen and cause marked depression of blood-sugar levels. Runners who became exhausted and gave up previous races showed a definite sugar deficiency in their blood. After having been fed with honey before and during subsequent races they completed the course. These tests are further proof that honey produces considerable endurance.

W. L. Finlay, Director of Athletics of the Young Men's Christian Association of Toronto in a letter (Nov. 12, 1926) remarks: "For almost three years the members of Central Y. M. C. A. Walkers' Club, the premier club of its kind in Canada, have been using honey as a staple article of diet. Following extensive medical research work on diet and athletes' endurance, in which was involved estimations of blood sugar before and after competitive walks, these members aforementioned were advised to incorporate in their bill of fare a large quantity of natural sugars, and the article deemed most suitable by medical opinion was honey. This type of athletic activity in which these men are engaged demands great stamina and endurance, and the food problem with us is one that demands close attention.

"Honey has the following advantages over other sugars:

1. It is non-irritating to the delicate membranes of the digestive apparatus.
2. It is assimilated rapidly and easily.
3. It quickly furnishes the demand for energy.
4. It enables the athlete to recuperate rapidly from severe exertion, and the men using it show less evidence of fatigue, ac-cording to standardized medical tests.
5. As far as our research work has demonstrated, the use of honey spares the kidneys, lessening tissue destruction.
6. It has a natural and gentle laxative effect.
7. It is easily obtained and it is inexpensive.

"The group of athletes already mentioned have been very successful in the past and are now in the throes of intensive training for the largest walking race in the world."

H. W. Haggard, Professor of Physiology at Yale University, considers honey one of the most assimilable carbohydrates. He also emphasizes that "the taking of readily assimilable carbohydrates is stimulating and helps to relieve fatigue."

There is no other more severe, nay, crucial test to appreciate the physical and chemical fitness of the human system than the enormous strain to which it is exposed during deep-sea diving, especially at great depths and during long submersions. In such an artificial atmosphere the metabolic machine must function to perfection, because the minutest deficiency will frustrate the truly superhuman efforts. The faculty of honey to attend to the vital oxidative requirements of deep-sea divers is remarkable. Captain John D. Craig, 33 years old, who, on the salvage ship Ophir, is now ready to penetrate the hull of the sunken Lusitania buried on the bottom of the Atlantic, describes in The American Magazine (April, 1937) the physical fitness which is exacted for the task: "All of us are in the pink of condition. We have trained for months, working off every ounce of fat. Those of us who do the diving, like myself, have given up tobacco, alcohol and mixed foods. That is most important. For weeks we shall have nothing for breakfast but a glass of orange juice and a pound and one-half of honey in the comb which we chew thoroughly, spitting out the wax. The honey provides a carbon background for the oxygen to burn upon and prevents its burning our tissues. When we come up from the seas we are given nothing to eat except a half-tumbler of strained honey, lemon juice and rain water. We carry crocks of rain water in the ship's refrigerators because it is not only pure but contains a high degree of oxygen. When we emerge from the water our body temperatures have fallen from 98 degrees, normal, to 85, although we do not feel cold. The rain-water-honey mixture warms us up, and then, after a massage, we go to bed. After a brief rest we eat, but we must stick to one thing at a meal —proteins or carbohydrates, not both. We immediately feel it if we take the combination and we suffer nausea or weakness. Our physical discipline is most severe."