Honey is popularly considered a legitimate sweet for promiscuous and perfectly safe use, where other sweets are considered to be dangerous. This is a delusion. Its sugar does not combine with other foods any better than do other sugars, while the manite acid it contains renders its combination with other foods undesirable.

The presence of manite acid in honey renders its combination with other foodstuffs more injurious than ordinary cane sugar. Its combination with starchy or protein foods is sure to produce indigestion. Those with impaired digestions will be sure to have gas following its use.

Honey made from certain flowers is positively poisonous. In many parts of the world poisonous honeys are produced. I have eaten honey that was as bitter as quinine. Its color, its flavor and its poisonous or non-poisonous qualities depend on the flowers from which the bees extract the pollen.

From time immemorial honey has been used as a stimulant. It has played a prominent role in the materia medicas of a number of different peoples. Herodotus tells that the Egyptians employed it in mummyfying the dead, because of its preservative qualities.

In spite of my warning against the use of honey many are going to continue to use it, declaring it to be a "natural sweet." Most honeys are delicious and the appeal to the gustatory sense is often irresistible. Those who cannot resist its lure and those who refuse to listen to any advise must find out the hard way as many others have had to do.

I cannot and do not recommend its use. But I know that there are those who are going to continue to use it. These should know that people who are engaged in active outdoor work, using their muscles rather than their brains, can use honey to best advantage. It should not be mixed with fruit, milk, cereals, mushes, meat or bread. Thoroughly charcoalized (toasted) bread may be used with honey.

No person with gastric or intestinal ulcer, or any marked catarrhal condition should ever use honey. Highly organized, nervous and sensitive people should also avoid this food.