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My girlfriend has been putting honey in my coffee instead of sugar. She says it is better for me, but she can't give me an explanation I understand. I think she is being influenced by someone she works with.

What nutritional differences are there between honey and sucrose? Are they digested differently?

Aaronut
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Michael Hetton
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    I voted to close. The faq (http://cooking.stackexchange.com/faq) defines that questions about the healthines of different foods are off topic here. Feel free to ask other questions which are about the preparation of food, not about its effect on health. – rumtscho Apr 26 '11 at 18:18
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    @rumtscho is correct, we do not address general health topics on this site. I have edited your question to objectively ask about the nutritional differences between honey and sucrose. You can draw your own conclusions from that. – hobodave Apr 26 '11 at 18:57
  • Sorry if I've upset you. Frankly, I didn't mind the honey until she bought that acacia honey at the weekend. It tastes like glue! So I wanted to know why she was being so fussy - if it was worth any effort. I think I'll just buy a jar of cheap honey and get rid of the acacia stuff. – Michael Hetton Apr 27 '11 at 18:32
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    Nobody is upset. @rumtscho simply pointed out that the question was not on-topic for this Q&A site; @hobodave rewritten the question to make it on-topic. We are now all happy, aren't we? `:-)` – apaderno Apr 27 '11 at 21:04
  • In the early days, we were still trying to figure out if such questions can be salvaged. But the problem is that, even with hobodave's edit, this is a prime example of the type of question we don't accept, not because it is not interesting, but because we are not equipped to answer them well. I'm doing a cleanup on the old nutrition tag, so I have to close this question too. – rumtscho Sep 24 '14 at 18:26
  • Some ideas: Bogdanov, Stefan, Tomislav Jurendic, Robert Sieber, and Peter Gallmann. "Honey for nutrition and health: a review." Journal of the American College of Nutrition 27, no. 6 (2008): 677-689. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=1547721906176436278&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5 – Franck Dernoncourt Oct 29 '17 at 02:59

1 Answers1

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I'd say yes, honey is a bit healthier than sugar, but this really depends on the type of sugar or honey. Raw honey is better than pasteurized honey. Highly refined sugar is less healthy than some less refined sugar.

Assuming you are talking about table sugar and raw honey, in general:

  1. Sugar is sucrose. You need some enzymes to split it into fructose and glucose, your body has to make these enzymes and can digest those mono-sacharides. When you eat honey, there is no need for such body-made enzymes, because the fructose and glucose aren't combined, but they appear there as mono-sacharides. So honey is less demanding for your body.
  2. Honey is better for your blood-glucose level (this level raises more if you eat sugar than if you eat the same amount of honey).
  3. Honey contains some vitamins and minerals, which sugar lacks.
  4. As a consequence of all these points: If you use sugar, you have a higher risk of high cholesterol and obesity than if you use honey.

I didn't mention anything about the taste, since that is not health-related.

Source and more info: http://www.benefits-of-honey.com/honey-vs-sugar.html

Wulfhart
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Mien
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  • So the best bits of honey would be damaged by cooking, and honey is better if it is used in things that don't get cooked? Thanks for the answer. Taste? She got some acacia honey yesterday. It tastes awful to me! – Michael Hetton Apr 26 '11 at 18:43
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    I don't think a website called "benefits-of-honey" is the most unbiased source. The statements above are speculation, not based on science. For a scientist's perspective, check out Dr. Robert Lustig. (Summary: white sugar, brown sugar, HFCS, honey, syrup, etc are all the same) – michael Apr 26 '11 at 18:53
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    @michael, while I'm all for citing reliable sources, I have the impression that Dr. Lustig is considered somewhat controversial. (Not that he couldn't be telling the truth; but the way he markets himself is as if his work is as much for promoting his own agenda as a honeymakers' site). – rumtscho Apr 26 '11 at 18:58
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    @rumtscho: Say what? Lustig is an MD who's been studying this for a few decades now and has several peer-reviewed publications. *Slightly* more reliable than a web site that doesn't even list the author's name. – Aaronut Apr 26 '11 at 19:10
  • @michael: I agree with you on the biased part. However, I've found those statements on other sites as well. I don't know if they're all biased or not (e.g. http://www.caloriesexpert.com/honey-vs-sugar). I can't view all videos of Dr. Robert Lustig right now, but can you give me a link where he compares honey to sugar? I've found mostly stuff about sugary stuff in general. – Mien Apr 26 '11 at 19:11
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    Mien - you're obviously free to use whichever sources you wish, however, I tend to be wary of any sources that (a) don't explicitly indicate the author and his/her credentials, and (b) don't offer any citations to other reliable sources. There was actually a [recent meta question about reliable sources](http://meta.cooking.stackexchange.com/q/1088/41) and anonymous websites rank pretty close to the bottom. If you can find 50 sites that all make the same claim, but none of them are authored by or cite a credible expert, then together they amount to basically nothing. – Aaronut Apr 26 '11 at 19:43
  • (Of course cooking websites are different because they often make testable claims - you can see for yourself whether or not a recipe works. With nutrition, the burden of proof is much higher because most people will never be able to personally verify the effects of some choice in isolation.) – Aaronut Apr 26 '11 at 19:44
  • @Aaronut, I can see why anonymous sources aren't really desireable, especially with health-related topics. However, I approached this question as if it were about cooking (so on topic). If I find >10 sites that say that eggwhite turns white if you heat it, I assume that it is correct. I'll read the meta question thorough and try to remember what is a trusted source and what's not. – Mien Apr 26 '11 at 19:59
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    @Aaronut Sadly, an academic degree doesn't render humans immune to bias. I am always wary of people proselytizing extreme views, even if the views themselves sound plausible to me. Based on the oversimplification in Dr. Lustig's statements, the finality of his conclusions, and critique which points out that there are studies which contradict his claims, I have formed the opinion that he isn't a trustworthy source. Your opinion may be different. Still, I feel that we should strive to find a source which is more trustworthy than *both* Dr. Lustig and anonymous Internet material. – rumtscho Apr 26 '11 at 21:12
  • @rumtscho: That may be so, and if prominent experts disagree on a particular theory then all notable viewpoints should be presented in any discourse. That being said, I'll take the informed opinion of a licensed professional over the unverified claims of an anonymous source any day of the week. I have no particularly strong opinion on this subject one way or the other, but I can't give any credence to your "impression" of Lustig unless you can point me to a more trustworthy source. – Aaronut Apr 26 '11 at 21:20
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    @Aaronut Both honey and table sugar affect systems in the human organism which aren't fully understood yet (insulin-glucagon, leptin-ghrelin, plus a number of others). This is why credible sources don't provide clear-cut statements like "[Honey|Sugar] is absolutely [good|bad] for you" or "[Honey|Sugar] is better than [sugar|honey]". They publish experimental data which support or refute specific claims. I found no review of such studies listing all proven claims. But here is an example from the 3rd highest ISI ranked journal in nutrition: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/132/11/3379.long – rumtscho Apr 26 '11 at 22:10
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    @Aaronut: I find that "professional" scientists have to be taken with a pinch of salt. That pinch being a very in depth look at their funding and politics. A good proportion fall in to either the category that is funded by some organisation/business that has something to gain from a particular bias in research, or the category where they sell themselves on their forthright reputations. Good science has unbiased funding and politics and a lack of drama. – Orbling Apr 28 '11 at 00:21
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    @Orbling: That is a depressingly irrational and self-serving way to assess the quality of a scientific work. It's sheer intellectual laziness to dismiss thorough research on the basis of funding or "politics". This is exactly what the peer review process is for - scientists critique each other's work and it all gets published together, and yes, some have agendas, but either you make an effort to understand the principles and the research and the review process or you accept that you're not qualified to have an opinion. We don't rely on lame ad hominem arguments on a Q&A site. – Aaronut Apr 28 '11 at 00:30
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    @Aaronut: Self-serving, lazy and irrational? It is my view, an educated and experienced one; just because I disagree with something does not indicate a lack of understanding. Your *opinion* is your own, eternally supercilious as it may be. – Orbling Apr 28 '11 at 08:06
  • @Orbling: I never *expressed* an *opinion* on this topic. I only commented on what essentially amounted to a declaration of *ad hominem* as an infallible argument, which is exactly the sort of thinking that reputable researchers avoid. Expert testimony should be refuted *only* with either scientific facts or equivalent expert testimony; you don't dismiss a research paper entirely because it happened to have been commissioned by this lobby or that. It's not your place to declare which experts are credible and which ones aren't; you are entitled to *your opinion* but we just want the facts. – Aaronut Apr 28 '11 at 14:05
  • @Aaronut: Generally, this site is both opinion and fact, same as most of SE. Also "we" is a community, not all of which is *you*. As it stands, almost all research papers I ever see issued, at least in Europe, have to state sources of funding and any conflicts of interest clearly on the paper - as most scientists consider it a source of potential bias. To dismiss it as not relevant is unscientific. My intention was not to state *ad hominem* as infallible, just something to be taken in to account, with other relevant facts. – Orbling Apr 28 '11 at 14:54