Is Honey a Safe(r) Sweetener?
I pride myself on making the Primal Blueprint an easy lifestyle to follow. If you were just starting out, you could easily read a few articles, do a couple hours of research, and start making positive changes to your diet, exercise routine, sleep schedule, or daily life immediately. You could ditch grains or replace some chronic cardio with weights or switch to grass-fed meat, and even if you did nothing else, you’d have made a significant improvement to your life and eventually your health. I often receive thank you emails for putting together a program that Internet-illiterate grandmas and grandpas can get into and actually understand. That said, sometimes things get a little confusing.
Like with honey.
See, as a general rule, I am against the consumption of refined sugars, especially sucrose and high fructose corn syrup. To understand why – if you’re still wondering – check out my definitive post on the subject. But what about the preeminent unrefined natural sweetener – the rich amber nectar that’s been available to humans from the very start (albeit protected by barbed, flying suicide stingers)? How are we to approach honey? Because while refined sugar and particularly fructose are to be avoided, alone those are refined, manmade, processed “foods.” White sugar is just sucrose, which is just fructose and glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is just fructose and glucose. Isolated fructose is just fructose. Those aren’t even foods, though they can be eaten; they’re just disaccharides and monosaccharides, with zero minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients, flavonoids, and other micronutrients.
Honey, on the other hand, contains over a hundred different compounds, not just fructose and glucose. It has a small amount of minerals, amino acids, and vitamins, but the point is that it’s not just sugar. Entire colonies of honey bees thrive on the stuff. It’s food by any definition. And whole foods are different than refined foods, and especially refined food-like products. They have different effects when you eat them. Eating an almond is not the same as taking a shot of rancid seed oil. Eating a handful of berries isn’t the same as sprinkling an equal amount of berry-extracted sugar in your water and drinking it.
The question, then, is whether or not this holds true for honey. Is honey “better” than sugar or HFCS? Are some of the harmful effects of the sugar contained therein mitigated by the presence of bioactive compounds? Let’s take a look.
(Speaking of which, I won’t get into the individual compounds found in honey, because each batch of honey is unique. Besides the whole vomiting thing, honey bees don’t really have strict manufacturing standards, and which bioactive compounds end up in the honey depends on the variety of flowers visited by the bees, as well as the season. I might refer to different honey varietals, like buckwheat or wild flower, but keep in mind that buckwheat from area to area and even harvest to harvest will have different pollen concentrations, giving the honey different qualities.)
Humans have certainly been figuring out ways to get their mitts on the sticky mess for as long as we’ve realized it tasted good: a 6,000 year-old cave painting from Spain even depicts a honey hunter climbing a ladder, stick in hand and satchel at its side, gathering honey as bees swarm. Modern day people, like the San bushmen and the Ache of Paraguay, are honey hunters, with the Ache getting upwards of 10% of their calories from wild honey (and the larvae found in the honeycombs). For a visceral idea of the great lengths some people go to for honey, check out this incredible video of a tribesman from the Congo scaling a 40 meter tree to get at the hive. That’s dedication. After that climb, I imagine his muscle and liver glycogen stores were rather depleted and the honey was a welcome fuel source.
Studies on honey paint a pretty favorable picture, actually, especially when it’s compared to table sugar or other more refined sweeteners. Let’s dig in to a few, shall we?
In one study (PDF), researchers compared the effects of honey and refined fructose feeding on rats. Using equal amounts of fructose – just different sources – the authors explored the effects on several health markers. Feeding fructose raised triglycerides more than feeding honey. Feeding fructose decreased blood levels of vitamin E, while honey did not, suggesting less oxidative stress. Feeding fructose also promoted more inflammation than honey. All in all, honey did well for itself.
Another set of studies compared the effects of honey, sham-honey (a mix of fructose and glucose), dextrose (which is just glucose), and sucrose on several health markers in various groups of people. There’s a lot to wade through, but the gist is that honey performed well. Honey resulted in smaller blood glucose spikes (+14%) than dextrose (+53%). Sham honey increased triglycerides, while real honey lowered them (along with boosting HDL and lowering LDL). After fifteen days of honey feeding, CRP and LDL dropped. Overall, honey improved blood lipids, lowered inflammatory markers, and had minimal effect on blood glucose levels.
In rats, honey produced lower triglycerides, less body fat, and greater satiety (as indicated by the spontaneous reduction in food intake) when compared to sucrose.
Looks like wildflower honey might go well in a meat marinade, too: wildflower honey inhibited lipid oxidation in ready to eat beef patties. I’m not sure what a ready to eat beef patty is, and I don’t think I want to know, but the honey info is good to have. Wildflower honey, which comes from bees dining on a wide variety of wild plant life, outperformed clover honey in the study.
Although discerning the full effects of individual honey-based compounds is many research years out, it looks like honey with lower levels of bioactive compounds acts more like regular sugar while honey with higher levels of compounds acts more like a whole food. In one study (PDF), buckwheat honey was found to be the richest in phenolics and flavonoids, while rapeseed (yes, canola) honey was found to have the lowest number of compounds. The researchers didn’t explore the metabolic effects of the two honeys, but another study did find that people who ate rapeseed honey, but not acacia honey, displayed highly elevated levels of serum fructose. The same thing happens when you eat HFCS. That tells me the bioactive compounds are probably responsible for the “benefits” of honey.
Darker honeys are typically higher in bioactive compounds and show greater antioxidant activity. They also taste better, if you ask me. Buckwheat is a personal favorite of mine and ranks quite highly in antioxidants, even showing some beneficial effects on serum antioxidant status in those who consume it. When in doubt, choose the darker honey.
Now, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so I don’t go out of my way to dip my paws in a jar labeled “Hunny,” but I keep some raw buckwheat honey around. The last pound I bought has lasted me well over six months, and there’s still plenty left in the bottle. And in the past, it has certainly proven useful. Can you eat it? Sure; you can do just about anything you want. Should you eat it? That depends. Are you active and in need of liver glycogen repletion like the guy who climbed the Congolese tree? Then raw honey might be a nice choice for a treat. It’s clearly superior to refined sugar, and the extent of the damage we normally see from sugar intake doesn’t seem to occur with honey.
What do you think? Does honey fit into your diet? Is it Primal? Let me know what you think.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
“The last pound I bought has lasted me well over six months, and there’s still plenty left in the bottle.”
After 6 months honey loses almost all antioxidant abilities, so it’s better buy less but always have fresh honey (who knows how long it was stored by its manufacturer, but at least we can try).
Some but not most of the nutritive value in honey is lost with time. Honey is 85% pre-digested carbohydrate, and that is its greatest food value. That essentially doesn’t change with time. There hasn’t been much scholarly research on exactly how much enzyme loss occurs in honey, with time. It is know known that diastase (or more properly, amylase)–the useful enzyme that “digests” starch–does degrade with time. Researchers have found that when in storage, honey loses about 3% of its diastase per month. This makes long-term storage honey slightly less nutritious, but it is still quite useful as a sweetener and as a useful carbohydrate.
Your right, you have no idea how long that honey was stored in that hive before the bee keeper harvested it. LOL if it was a wild bee it could have been in there for decades, but if it was a local beekeeper, you can be assured that he harvests fresh ever year, and you can go directly to his home and buy from him is you so desire. Honey is generally harvested once a year, sometimes twice so if you buy enough for one year, you’ll know it’s as fresh as it can be. However I can’t imagine what gave you the idea that it would loose quality after six months. do the bees eat inferior stuff the rest of the year?
I take a teaspoon of locally produced honey everyday to assist my body in developing a tolerance to local pollens. This helps ease the effects of seasonal allergies. The theory is that bees produce the honey with pollen native to your area. By taking a teaspoon each day, your body can slowly build a tolerance to the pollen, rather than trying to fight off the pollen during spring and summer when it is being overwhelmed with high pollen counts.
Does it work? While I still have occasional bad allergy days, they are much milder and far and few between, compared to a time before taking honey, when I would have back allergy weeks!
It’s not an overnight treatment, it takes months for your body to build it’s tolerance. Start now and enjoy the benefits this spring. The key is it MUST be locally produced honey.
Here’s an interesting article about honey sold in the US, explaining that most of it’s not really “honey”. Be careful what you buy…
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/
“Bryant found that every one of the samples Food Safety News bought at farmers markets, co-ops and ‘natural’ stores like PCC and Trader Joe’s had the full, anticipated, amount of pollen.”
I think most of the regular readers here are more likely to be getting honey from those types of places anyway, but this is definitely good to know.
I think if I weren’t a recovering sugar addict, I’d allow raw honey and maple syrup into my kitchen.
As it is I am terrified that one taste would send me spiraling, right back into the arms of Trader Joe’s dark chocolate caramels.
recovering sugar addict…wow, how did you do it?? i have been trying for the past / #$%^&*( well; since i can remember ;-(
Chantal, have you given up all grains and sugars? That did it for me – and my life previous to that had been centered around my sugar addiction. It only took a couple weeks at most and then I had no desire whatsoever – amazing. Seriously, I was the ultimate addict.
Ditto that. I did a strict 30 days: no sugar, no sugar substitutes, I continued to be careful with whole fruit allowing berries mostly. I told myself I could do anything for 30 days … the first 7 were the hardest then really pretty easy. Now I feel like I have control over when to enjoy a sugary treat instead of controlling me (it’s in the house, I have to have some!).
I do still have to be careful, though and have ramped up my consumption a time or two since, but once I caught it, I was able to correct again. Good luck – it’s worth it!!
Giving up grains did it for me as well. Once I stopped with the brown rice, no more sugar cravings.
Me too! Even when I gave up grains and sugars, I was addicted to dates. The only way to overcome the addiction is to do at least two weeks, but preferably a month with nothing sweet in your diet, not even fruit. That did it for me. I lost all my cravings. In fact, just the thought of very sweet things now turns me off.
I used to do the same sort of thing – give up one thing and find myself substituting with a healthier version of the same. I love dates, too – with cream cheese especially. Dairy was more of a craving than sugar for me. And, I loved fresh breads and pasta. What I discovered after the initial couple of weeks of primal eating was that I lost desire for both carbs and dairy. Basically, for me primal eating has given me a handle on a range of food intolerances.
As others have said, pretty much cold turkey on everything with a sweet flavor, except for just enough stevia in my coffee to make it bearable. I’m otherwise low-carb and an intermittent faster, so that helped as well. I limited fruits as well, except for low-sugar berries.
I’ve read that for sugar addicts that they can eventually become like “normal people”, able to have “just one chocolate” sanely, after about a year of going sugar-free. A shorter duration than that, though, is still very risky. 3-4 months is the real danger zone, where you THINK you are in control now, but you can slide back reeeeal easy.
I have found a great source for local honey with the comb. It tastes much better than store bought. I use it in cooking (as a glaze for chicken with garlic and ginger- YUM), in tea when I am sick (or just want to warm up on a chilly day), and, since its local, helps with allergies that my sons get every so often. Good stuff. I often cringe at the “experts” that say sugar is sugar and your body treats it all the same. Will have to look into it as a cleanser, though.
Glad to know it’s overall good for me. But even if it were slightly hazardous, I’d do it to be able to breathe in the summer. Before I found out about raw, local honey for allergy inoculation I couldn’t even mow my lawn or go for walks near grassy fields. Now I might get a slight sniffle at worst, but my eyes and throat don’t swell shut. Just a bite a day from the jar is all it takes. Probably somewhere between a teaspoon and tablespoon.
Yeah i squirt some honey over my plain jane yogurt. Throw in some raisins and it’s heaven! I’ll have to look out for this buckwheat honey now. Thanks for the heads up!
Buckwheat honey was in the news recently.
they said that it’s been shown to be more effective for a cough than dextromethorphan.
I don’t find that news surprising. Honey has both decongestant and cough suppressant properties.
A tablespoon of honey before bed clears my acne up
It was a 15,000 year-old cave painting, by the way, according to the link.
My brother-in-law is a bee keeper in Northeast Florida, the only region in which Tupelo honey is produced. I have a tremendous sweet tooth and love honey. So I’m happy to see results that honey is in fact better than sugar.
I’ve also heard local honey good for some allergies. Is that true?
His name isn’t Donald Smiley, is it?
Honey is good. I would say that as I keep bees.
I keep my own bees, but last year was my first season with them so no honey yet. I’m excited for it for allergy treatment, sweetener to eat, beeswax for all kinds of uses, and propolis to make tincture for fighting colds etc.
We also tap our maple trees but just for fun, we don’t get enough maple syrup to really last us (we boil it down over a turkey fryer burner on the porch).
If you are going to eat honey, eat raw, unpasteurized honey. Pasteurization destroys the beneficial enzymes in the honey.
Correct.
I use raw honey in treats for my kids (birthdays, special occasions). I love to make custards/clafoutis/puddings with eggs, coconut milk, raw honey, and fruit. It helps them feel like normal kids that get treats.
For medicinal purposes, I prefer Manuka Honey with a high Unique Manuka Factor (UMF).
For raw honey, I always go for a variety. I like the raw honey made in my area to combat seasonal allergies. It’s dark orange, and full of flavor. I have heard that a few people have gone into anaphylactic shock whose bodies were not ready for the pollens, although very, very rare. I have heard some warn to start small if ever your first time with raw honey. To me, if you can go into shock over raw honey, it’s better to know now than find out later unknowing or not being prepared.
I love raw Buckwheat and Wildflower Honey as well. We have a local farmer’s market that sells all different types of raw honey from various flowering plants, from all over the world, so I have collected and sampled many.
One part that I found interesting, and mentioned in the blog, is that not all honey is inherently healthy, depending on where the bees are getting their nectar as bees can fly many miles from their hive. If the flowers are toxic to humans, they will be toxic to humans in the honey. I know from my late father’s bee keeping days that flowers likes the Jessamine is very dangerous to humans. Then many other common plants are not enough to be deadly, but are still mildly toxic including many nightshade vegetable plants like tomatoes & chili peppers and fruit tress like the Apple & Cherry Trees.
I am also curious how pollution will effect humans, because the bees are moving within it, even effecting their own colonies with the dreaded Colony Collapse syndrome. I suppose their fate is ours, even if we avoid their wild honeys. These days, I avoid all processed and filtered honeys. They might as well be Sham Honey when you lose all those wonderful compounds and qualities about honey.
Someone asked about eating the honeycomb. I keep bees and use our honey in my coffee. If you’re buying “organic” honey with comb, ok, you could eat it. Why, I don’t know. It’s just wax. The wax, though, will hold any chemicals the bees come across while gathering pollen and nectar. That’s why there isn’t any true organic honey produced in this country unless the beekeeper lives more than five miles away from anything and anyone. Wind blows chemicals onto flowers and the bees don’t know or care that the beekeeper is trying to run an organic apiary. I lived in MS for a while and someone gave me some actual sugar cane to try. It was like…chewing wood to get sugar out of it. I view eating beeswax the same way.
When I was about 41 years old, I suffered from seasonal allergies for the first time in my life. I started eating local, raw honey daily and, six years later, have never had a reoccurrence.
I love honey so much that I started keeping bees myself. The beneficial properties of honey are so numerous; plus, it just tastes damn good!
I use Really Raw Honey. I love the stuff, been eating it for 10 years. check out reallyrawhoney.com. its the real stuff, unfiltered, unpasteurized, You can get it fermented or not.
I too am interested about the relative values of honey vs both coconut nectar and raw coconut sugar. Both coconut products are supposed to have lower GI and beneficial nutrients. But Honey, for all the reasons pointed out here, particularly when close to a natural source, is as pure a natural substance as one can find. Because of this, data be damned, I want to believe that honey is superior…but I also wonder if there is any data on honey v coconut sweet
I’ve also always heard, but do not know if there is data to support this, that natural LOCAL honey can have the effect of reducing pollen related allergies of some types. The notion seems to be that the pollen acts as a type of vaccine if you eat it regularly, thereby exposing yourself to the pollen in small doses. Again not sure if this is real or not, I have never had pollen related allergies…maybe because I eat local natural honey
Thanks Mark! Always informative.
We have a good supplier of local honey here, and since I started eating it my hay fever symptoms have almost disappeared. I have it in tea, and make almond flour cookies that rock. Going off sugar is hard for sure, but not impossible. Life is SO much better after you bite the bullet & go for it — and you won’t believe how good fruit tastes!
Kitzie,
I have been making almond milk and I have a lot of meal in the freezer that I don’t know what to do with. Could you send a link for your recipe? Thanks!
I use honey and coconuat oil as binding agents in making paleo granola. Provides a nice sweetness and allows my diet to stay primal.
How do you make primal granola bars, without using oats?
Please please your grammar It’s not “Like with Honey” its ‘as with honey”!!
Please, please!!!
Been using 2-3 tblsps honey in my post-workout shake, along with protein. It’s a great way to replace glycogen and prevent cannibalization of my body’s protein stores. Plus, of course, great taste and it dissolves well.
As a beekeeper and a regular consumer of honey, this post makes me happy.
I truly believe raw honey to be Primal. I don’t think it advisable if it spikes our blood sugar and only the individual testing the impact on his or her body will be able to determine that. If we are insulin resistant or leptin resistant, we need to check our body’s reaction to any sweet food or diet changes. If we don’t do finger sticks, then we should be aware of body signals, like carb craving, hungry two and a half hours after a meal, irritability (or even panic) with meal delays, and maybe all the way to shaky and jittery before meals. If we are insulin or leptin resistant, then we are not in Primal shape and not ready for that Primal treat of honey, in my opinion.
It’s part of my 20%. I eat it exclusively on the weekends or in replacement of a dessert in the evenings, and never more than a teaspoon or so. I also make sure to buy raw, dark honey. It’s wonderful.
“… the Ache of Paraguay, are honey hunters, with the Ache getting upwards of 10% of their calories from wild honey (and the larvae found in the honeycombs).”
Did anybody else have images of a certain badger running through their head while reading Mark’s line from above?
Not really
Honey Badger don’t give a..
A friend bought back a pot of Cameroon honey taken from a tree – dark and bitter and delicious.
Raw honey has been a lifesaver during my switch to eating primally. Even just a tiny spoonful satisfies any dessert cravings. For a Superbowl party this past weekend, I volunteered to bring dessert (and was greated with skepticism from my friends who know my eating habits) — I took dried dates stuffed with a mix of almond butter, raw honey, and a tiny bit shaved dark chocolate. They tasted like chocolate-peanutbutter fudge and were almost gone before the game started. [I know dried fruit is high on the GI, but it was a special occasion and you really only need one or two to feel satisfied
]
Earlier somebody mentioned about honey being one of the top five sattvic (pure and beneficial) foods according to Ayurveda, and this is correct. However, bear in mind that Ayurveda also says that heating honey turns it into a toxic substance (ama), so always buy the raw stuff. Not sure where this leaves putting it in very hot tea etc, as some say damage is done only when it’s heated to over 108 degrees F. More modern opinions also say that heating it destroys many of the beneficial substances in it too. Anyway, something to consider…