Is Honey Always Better to Use Than Sugar?
We’re well aware of the fact that eating
too much sugar is bad for us. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to replace the
sugar we add to our coffee, oatmeal, or baked goods with a healthy
alternative like honey? The bad news is that merely swapping sugar for
honey will most likely not save you from the harmful effects of sugar.
Not to mention that, in some recipes and foods, replacing sugar with
honey isn’t such a good idea. To clarify how sugar and honey are similar
and different in this article, we decided to compare the health effects
and uses of honey and sugar.
Sugar comes in many forms: white, brown,
demerara, turbinado, and muscovado, to name just a few. Although each of
these varieties has different properties and its own use in cooking and
baking, all of these sugar varieties' chemical composition is roughly
the same. They only differ in the proportion of molasses to sucrose
crystals, and the size of said crystals.
As such, sugar is a processed food, which means that you won’t find
crystallized sugar anywhere in nature. Sugar, also known as sucrose, is a
combination of two naturally-occurring molecules - glucose and
fructose. Sucrose is derived from sugar cane or sugar beat plants, which
undergo several processing steps in order to become the white powder we
add to our morning coffee.
During this purification process, sugar is stripped of any nutrients
that occur naturally in sugar cane or sugar beets and all that’s left is
pure sweetness.
Nutrition and Health
Sugar is a product that’s quite low in calories and provides the body
with fast fuel - there are only 16 calories in 1 teaspoon of sugar. At
the same time, sugar is also virtually devoid of beneficial nutrients,
such as vitamins and minerals, so its beneficial effect on the body is
nonexistent.
Moreover, scientists have known for a while that eating too much sugar
raises one’s risk of obesity, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes. This
is why the American Heart Association recommends that you limit your
daily intake of sugar to 100 calories (6 teaspoons) for most women and
150 calories (9 teaspoons) for men.
Cooking and Baking
Sugar is a no-fuss ingredient that lasts in a pantry for years and it
plays well with other cooking and baking ingredients, so it’s virtually
indispensable. Unlike fruit and other raw ingredients, sugar is ready
for use and doesn’t require any preparation, which is why it is so
widely used in cooking and baking.
Truth be told, most of us can hardly imagine preparing any dessert
without sugar or a sugar substitute. This is also true about
store-bought baked goods and even savory foods that almost always
contain sugar in some shape or form, even if the producer is trying to
conceal it in the ingredients list.
What About Honey?
Unlike sugar, honey is a
naturally-occurring type of food that’s produced by honey bees. This
thick syrup ranges from a pale yellow to a dark brown color and comes in
a variety of flavor profiles depending on the type of plant a specific
bee population is pollinating. Like sugar, honey is mainly a mixture of
fructose and glucose, with some added water. However, honey also
contains several beneficial vitamins and other nutrients, namely:
- B vitamins
- Vitamin C
- Minerals
- Enzymes
- Antioxidants
- Amino acids.
Nutrition and Health
Although most of these beneficial nutrients only exist in trace amounts
in honey, it’s enough to impart raw honey with a variety of health
benefits. For example, honey is famous for its antimicrobial properties,
so much so that many wound-healing and burn-calming salves and creams
contain honey as the main ingredient.
In addition, many of us use honey to help with a cough and a sore throat
and swear by it. Finally, raw honey has trace amounts of pollen, so it
can help people with mild seasonal allergies become less sensitive to
pollen.
No matter which type of honey you favor - buckwheat, manuka, alfalfa, or
golden blossom - they all contain quite a lot of sugar. Just one
teaspoon of honey contains 22 calories, and most of those calories are
from the sugars present in honey.
You shouldn’t dismiss the sugar content of honey just because it has
health benefits. Even if you’ve replaced all the added sugar you consume
with honey, it doesn’t mean that your cardiovascular system will become
healthy, especially if you’re consuming too much of it.
For this reason, it’s useful to treat honey
as sugar and still not exceed your daily intake of honey to 100
calories for women (about 4 teaspoons) and 150 calories (about 6.5
teaspoons) for men. It also needs to be pointed out that infants are not
allowed to eat raw honey since it can contain potentially deadly
botulism spores.
Cooking and Baking
When it comes to using honey as a replacement for sugar in baked goods
and other recipes, you’ll need to tweak each recipe, which isn’t always
ideal. Since honey is a liquid, it means that you will need to reduce
the overall amount of liquids used in the recipe by ¼. For example, if a
recipe calls for 1 cup of milk, you’ll need to use ¾ of a cup of milk
instead.
Needless to say, this can affect the texture of the resulting food, and
not all recipes lend themselves to this replacement. In addition, honey
contains more fructose than sugar, so you will likely need to reduce the
amount of sweetener in the recipe by two if you’re using honey instead
of sugar. Lastly, you need to keep in mind that honey has a more
pronounced taste than sugar, so using it in a recipe or even a cup of
tea may alter its taste.
The Bottom Line is that honey and sugar are not so different in terms of
their health effects, especially to those who already suffer from
diabetes, cardiovascular issues, and other health conditions. Therefore,
you should use both of these sweeteners sparingly.
In addition, honey may not work as a replacement in all recipes because
of its properties and pronounced taste. With that said, consuming honey
within reason can offer some health benefits sugar doesn’t possess, so
replacing the added sugar you use with honey can be a good idea whenever
possible.
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