Is honey better than sugar?

crevices

i just throw in some sweeteners in my oatmeal lol so much easier

creatureofthewind

I know this thread is a little overdone OP, but I was wondering the same as you. So I researched both sugar and honey on wikipedia and google. With all the combined information I came up with, honey is slightly very slightly better for you. I don't want to get in why I feel that because, this seems too much of a debate for me..
My vote is honey, but if you have to have sugar, then it's not the end of the world.

JustAnotherCalorieCounter

Well honey is higher in calories. But I think as long as it fits into your calories, who cares?

richardheath

It has nothing to do with the type of pollen in the honey. What helps allergies is the vitamin, mineral and enzyme content of the honey especially the B vitamin content. Most honey has added corn syrup and is pasteurized and/or heated in some other way so it's not going to help. Raw Manuka honey is one of the more nutrient dense types.

Also something isn't debunked just because there is little to no official evidence, it just means no one has done the proper studies.

So if it nothing to do with the type of pollen, then why is the claim so often made that local honey should be used? The rationale often given (if anybody actually tries to rationalize it) is that it is the local pollen.

So, we agree then that the pollen is irrelevant.

So what you are now claiming is that the very low mineral and vitamin content of honey is some magic switch for the immune system? And that these nutrients can't be gotten in higher amounts from other sources? Looking at some labels, honey has about 1-4% of the RDA for a few B vitamins.

And enzymes? How does bee invertase help immune function, once eaten and digested?

Look, I'm not knocking honey. It tastes good. I just would like some evidence of the touted health benefits. Is that really an unreasonable request?

Hezzietiger1

it's more natural than table sugar.. but still sugar.

richardheath

Richard Heath is wrong, so is MedWatch. While honey may not cure allergies, it can certainly help tame them. Not all research is good research and western medicine assumes if there are no studies, then it can't be true. That's erroneous tunnel vision type thinking. It's what they pay 100,000 for, to become doctors and adopt the same tunnel vision.

The sting from honeybees has been proven, in very small studies, to alleviate (and often even reverse), arthritis. Honey is a much better choice, then sugar, because it is a whole food (as it happens, being a beekeeper, I do have research somewhere, showing this.......I'll look for it, if anyone is interested).

I'm sure hard-core vegans will disagree, but honey is part of an intensive land stewardship, in that the beekeeper has to create a symbiotic relationship with their bees. This relationship is on a very micro level, but in turn, causes a macro effect, especially when it comes to micro-climates.

If you choose honey, instead of sugar, you are becoming part of a small minority, desperately trying to save the honeybee, especially if you buy it locally, from your neighborhood beekeeper. The honeybee is responsible for pollinating over 80% of the food we eat, (now that we are all dieters, and all).

I will try and locate the studies I have on my computer.........if you wish to see them, feel free to email me.

OK, so I'm wrong. Show me where I went wrong.

And I'm not knocking beekeepers or honey here (I've made mead from local honey), although you appear to feel free to knock my profession. I'm only questioning the health claims. If there is true evidence for it's efficacy, then it should be available, right?

ninerbuff

Body breaks down both to simplest form to absorb. So no.

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totallyforgiven

I don't if it is me, but if you get local honey from a trusted farmer, who doesn't do all of the processing, Real Natural Honey, it would be 1000 times better for you, then sugar which is high processed.:happy:

Firststar16

anything you can lick the spoon after is always better..

writemusic4him

Yes..or you could use agave syrup. If you kind of have a bit of a plain oatmeal, a flavored agave syrup could be fun.

egh1974

Oh goodie.... I went out of town for a few days and missed the festival on modern medicine vs. naturopathy. I can't wait to refer back to this in a few years and mail out a few "I told ya so's". Hey, remember when all the "studies" said that fat free diets were best? Yeah, that was a riot.

The_WoIverine

IMO, when it comes about the effect glucose has in the body, both do the same. When it comes about the health benefits, sugar has none, honey has some, including its natural antibacterial/antibiotic properties. This properties will be argued by many, including some "doctors". I personally don't care what people say, including those "doctors.

richardheath

IMO, when it comes about the effect glucose has in the body, both do the same. When it comes about the health benefits, sugar has none, honey has some, including its natural antibacterial/antibiotic properties. This properties will be argued by many, including some "doctors". I personally don't care what people say, including those "doctors.

It's antibacterial properties are only going to be useful if you are using it externally though. Not really a nutritional thing.

tifferz_91

IMO, sugar is sugar.

But since this is specifically about honey & sugar, organic RAW honey is better.

It's low glycemic & naturally has the nutrients & benefits that regular refined sugar lacks.

Of course I think all sugars should be eatened & enjoyed in moderation though.

Gkfrkv

yes, honey is better than sugar.

wait, what..how do you figure that one...?

honey has..wait for it now..sugar in it....!

Sure, but in addition it has minerals such as iron, calcium, phosphate, sodium chlorine, potassium, magnesium. In addition the slightly acidic pH level of honey (between 3.2 and 4.5) is what helps prevent the growth of bacteria, while its antioxidant constituents cleans up free radicals.

But of course the quality of honey varies and the cheapest brands are barely honey at all.

Inkratlet

Honey can be highly processed, as with refined sugar. But finding a local, non-pasturized, will not only taste great but can also help with allergies (if you have them).

Actually, that is false. Honey has no effect on allergies.

http://www.webmd.com/allergies/features/does-honey-help-prevent-allergies

Thanks for posting that. It is funny how you hear things from doctors for years, and believe, to only find out it is false! I will never tell anyone that again!

Can't quite work out if you're being serious or not...

CookNLift

not in coffee

MonaRaeHill

For all of you who still think that honey is NOT superior to sugar. Richard Heath and I have been emailing back and forth about whether or not this is true. RAW, unadulterated honey, is a much, much, better choice then sugar, for too many reasons to debate about. For those of you who have the patience to get through this white paper.............here ya' go!

http://www.bee-hexagon.net/files/file/fileE/HealthHoney/Honey_NutritionJACN.pdf

To those of you who don't have the patience to read through all that: Here is my response:

Large doses of honey do act as an antihistaminic, which, while it may not cure allergies, it can help to prevent them, if taken regularly in large doses.

I eat a LOT of honey, I don't know if I eat as much as these guys (who wrote the paper) indicate as healing, but there is nothing that will convince me that honey is NOT a better choice then sugar, which is ALL I was responding to.

I believe you also said in your post, that there was nothing to indicate it was a better choice then sugar (if I am wrong, then that's fine). That is what I was responding too, when I said that was wrongful, linear, western medicine, thinking (and mostly just a knee-jerk reaction), when it comes to counting calories, or making wiser food choices.

Honey is superior to almost every sweetener out there, for many reasons, and I don't just say that, based on a single white paper.

I do my research and I have first hand experience with the healing and preventative powers of honey. I don't really care if they are only viewed as anecdotal by western medicine (western science has yet to explain how a bumble bee can fly, or how butterfly's know how to migrate, so I'm not sure that tunnel vision is really serving them as a profession). That is the kind of biased and tunnel-vision thinking that I was responding to, and not whether honey was a good allergy cure. (Although I still believe it IS a good preventative. Since I have been eating honey every day, for years, I haven't had a single case of seasonal allergies). I had them four times a year, prior to that.

Well, so, if we all live long enough, perhaps we will see that tunnel-vision thing that western medicine has going on, do an about face. I just listened to a program on NPR, that talked about placebo's being 'cures' over 50% of the time.

Just because something can't be proven, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Best to keep an open mind. The power of belief is extraordinary.

But, back to honey. Honey is clearly superior as a food choice, for the human body, vs. sugar. Not only that, but I stand on my laurels in my post, that it is also the 'greenest' (i.e. most sustainable) choice, out there, if you gotta' have a sweetener.

Sugar is NASTY, and I can't believe there are still peeps in the world, who think otherwise. I've made it my mission, to educate the masses, because if we lose honeybees, we lose 80% of our pollinators. Our food choices will SHRINK, substantially. The NIH, the USDA, and the AMA, (among others) don't seem to give a **** (too many of them in Monsanto's pockets, I guess), so it's up to us, in the trenches, to get the word out. To do otherwise, is just lame-brain and irresponsible, in my mind.

YES, Honey is a better choice. Period. For too many reasons to debate about. That's ALL I was saying.

Western Medicine IS wrong, in promoting that we should feed our children pink slime and HFCS, instead of honey and other locally sourced food. If everyone switched to honey (instead of sugar), I can almost guarantee you that allergies would be a thing of the past. Not because of the honey, but because of the subsequent better choices that would follow, as a matter of course. The more educated peeps become, the better their choices and the easier we will live on the earth, as a species.

When a butterfly flaps its wings...................and all that.

So, yea, I still thing peeps who think honey is NOT superior to sugar, as a food choice, are wrong, and are promoting wrongful thinking by saying so, all allergy discussion, aside.

Cheers. Mona.

stealthq

western science has yet to explain how a bumble bee can fly, or how butterfly's know how to migrate

I hate the taste of honey, so I really have no patience for proving/disproving it's relative superiority.

But, I must say that the above is a load of hooey. Physicists have indeed explained how bumblebees fly - with formulae and everything! The molecular basis of the migration of Monarch butterflies, at least, has certainly been determined. While science does have it's limitations, these particular points aren't two of them.

MonaRaeHill

http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2009.0311?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub=pubmed&

MonaRaeHill

Well, all I can say is that if physics has proven the above two points, where's your proof? Can you post the link to these 'proofs"?

Oh, don't tell me, you are a friend of Richard's, right? Good Grief. (Oh, wait, no......I just went to your profile, which doesn't exist......so.........maybe you are Richards Doppleganger?) The last bastion of the truly arrogant is to just dismiss, without proof. Or at least, that's what I've been told, in private emails. So.............where's your proof?

You know, 30 years ago, the Butterfly Effect was absolutely, categorically, dismissed, by western scientists. Now, it's quoted as fact.

Unlike you and your input, I am open enough to being right, wrong, or at some point, hopefully, coming out in the middle, in any debate.

I am open enough to say that some things simply cannot be proven. It doesn't mean they aren't real to whoever believes in them. I don't believe in UFO's, but I also don't go around telling other people, to show me proof of their existence. "I don't know, but I believe" is often as much of a cure, as 'proof' in the efficacy of something. I'm sure you believe my input as not real, based on your perception, which is clearly jaded because of whatever history you've endured. Just as I believe what I've seen with my own eyes, which is more pivotal to me, then a bunch of 'bought and sold' journal papers......i.e., so called scientific proof.

Plus, I believe there's as many kinds of proof, as there are, peeps'. There's all kinds and types, of proof. Experiential and Existential are both types of proof dismissed by western scientists, until they are 'proven' by hoards of actual hands-on users.

'There's no mystery, just things we don't understand, as yet.'

Western Scientists can't even entertain this notion, because it's ambiguous and undecided and as a whole, they are too insecure, always clamoring on about proof, to one extent or another.

What I have learned is that: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS PROOF. Just human belief systems, making it up as they go along, en masse, AND, that the power of a placebo, is not to be underestimated.

Argue that if you will, but be sure and bring along your proof, won't you?.