Sugar isn’t necessarily bad for you.
Honey isn’t necessarily “not bad” for you.
These are all weaselly phrases meant to remind you that there’s a ton of nuance regarding biological.
Please note: I’m not saying sugar is better than honey. I’m saying they’re both potentially bad and they both have ways that they’re healthful
The major argument for honey byring a superfood comes from a Naturalistic Fallacy — that honey is good because it’s “natural” and is made by bees…and there’s no “chemicals” added. Nevermind that there aren’t any “chemicals” to added sugar (aside from dihydrogen monoxide):
Sugar is processed by taking sugar beets, or cane sugar,
Cutting the foliage off themWashing them with high pressured water to remove stones and metalsChopping them up,Washing them again and filtering them with magnets to remove any remaining metalsThen they’re chopped to smaller piecesThe parts are then boiled and put into a centrifuge to separate the sucrose from the remaining partsMore impurities are removed by washing and filtering and they are then boiled down to leave only the sucrose crystals.
This process has been performed the same way for over 100 years, and is remarkably similar to how bees actually do it to make honey, through various processing steps of pulping, hydrolysis, enzyme treatment to actually create honey, we’ve just externalized the processes
Oh, also, Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn’t Honey and even “Raw honey” is “processed” in ways similar to how sugar beets and cane are, by filtering out the wax and dead bees.
Sugar is bad for you in large doses, particularly when you are inactive and are consuming large amounts of fat.
Honey is essentially sugar with some water in it, with trace levels of antioxidants: Will honey eventually spoil, even if it takes millions of years?Honey is just as bad for you in large doses as sugar.
Honey has a lower glycemic index than sucrose which means that less sugar gets into your system after eating it. Sucrose is rated a 65 on the GI scale. Honey ranges from 45 to 64, obviously in correlation to the amount of sugar and the proportion of fructose to glucose (more fructose, lower GI) found in the honey. The index goes down for honey the more impurities it has, and therefore less sugar, a worse taste and potentially more toxins. In any case, the level of insulin produced from a food is not a great indication of its healthfulness since insulin production is not a bad thing under all circumstances. Besides, if you’re taking on honey it’s because it’s sweet, and it’s only sweet because of the sugar.
Let’s dig down into the sugar content for a moment, also. Honey has a varying degree of sugar contents depending on the source of the pollen and the bees themselves making the honey. Most honey’s sugar contents are monosaccharides, glucose and fructose, on average with more fructose than glucose (very similar to HFCS, actually). The rest is mostly maltose, which is two glucose molecules bound together, and the final little bit is sucrose.[1]
Studies around obesity markers and risk factors find no difference between sugar, honey, and HFCS.[2]
Honey has a huge reputation for being a “natural cure” because it’s been observed to last, mostly because it dessicates the bacteria…because of the sugar…not because of a secret antibiotic ingredient within: If honey is antibacterial then does eating it not cause cavities?
Honey is simply sugar and water (with trace amounts of antioxidants and magic [*]). That’s it. You eat equal quantities of honey and sugar you’ll have mostly the same effects (mostly since honey has slightly less sugar than an equal quantity of sucrose and slightly more magic).
[*] This is sarcasm. There is no magic in honey, just bee vomit.
Footnotes
[1] Honey Composition and Properties
[2] The Not-So-Sweet Truth About Sugars
