Sweeteners, though rarely used, are at times necessary.
An alternative view in Honey, not just a sweetener broken down into Glucose or Fructose,
but a whole food. (Raw, virgin, unprocessed honey - only.)
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See, as a general rule, I (MDA) 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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That is very interesting John! Good news for me since I have easy access to raw wildflower honey since a friend has honey bees.

I've come across a few recipes that call for fructose. Could I just use honey in its place? Would it be a straight exchange - 1 tsp fructose = 1 tsp honey?

This is good to know. All foods are not created the same. I suppose that once a person gets the inflammation under control by getting the crap out of the diet, that you could tolerate things like honey without throwing everything out of balance. I am currently curious about the difference between eggs from free-range chickens and factory kept chickens, and beef from pasture-fed cows.vs grain-fed cows. I don't think Dr. Sears has addressed this. Also, I am interested in the difference between raw milk, whole, unpasturized and unhomogenized from pasture-fed cows and 'processed' milk. The antithesis of GIGO is quality in, quality out. How much of the problems with the current world diet is due to grain-based animal feeding practices? And how much of the problem with grains is due to the incredibly selective hybridization practices used to create grains with unnatural physical features that serve the purposes of massive agribusiness? We have really messed things up.

Yes, I would swap 1 to 1.
We also use Natural, pure, organic if available, maple syrup.
20 natural inflammation, immune fighting compounds were found in PURE maple syrup last year.
And, 34 more were found this year, recently.
54 inflammation fighting compounds in PURE Maple Syrup make it a good, if not even better whole food.
not just a sweetener, like Honey, as well. We still limit and treat the use of sweeteners as an unfav carb;
but good to know.

(LONG- Warning}:
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54 Beneficial Compounds Discovered in Pure Maple Syrup
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ScienceDaily (Mar. 30, 2011) — University of Rhode Island researcher Navindra Seeram has discovered 34 new beneficial compounds in pure maple syrup and confirmed that 20 compounds discovered last year in preliminary research play a key role in human health.
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On March 30 at the 241st American Chemical Society's National Meeting in Anaheim, Calif. the URI assistant pharmacy professor is telling scientists from around the world that his URI team has now isolated and identified 54 beneficial compounds in pure maple syrup from Quebec, five of which have never been seen in nature.
"I continue to say that nature is the best chemist, and that maple syrup is becoming a champion food when it comes to the number and variety of beneficial compounds found in it," Seeram said. "It's important to note that in our laboratory research we found that several of these compounds possess anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which have been shown to fight cancer, diabetes and bacterial illnesses."
These discoveries of new molecules from nature can also provide chemists with leads that could prompt synthesis of medications that could be used to fight fatal diseases, Seeram said.
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"We know that the compounds are anti-inflammatory agents and that inflammation has been implicated in several chronic diseases, such as heart disease, diabetes, certain types of cancers and neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's," Seeram said.
As part of his diabetes research, Seeram has collaborated with Chong Lee, professor of nutrition and food sciences in URI's College of the Environment and Life Sciences. The scientists have found that maple syrup phenolics, the beneficial anti-oxidant compounds, inhibit two carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes that are relevant to Type 2 diabetes management. The irony of finding a potential anti-diabetes compound in a sweetener is not lost on Seeram. "Not all sweeteners are created equal," he said.
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Among the five new compounds is Quebecol, a compound created when a farmer boils off the water in maple sap to get maple syrup. It takes 40 liters (10.5 gallons) of sap to make 1 liter (2 pints) of syrup. "Quebecol has a unique chemical structure or skeleton never before identified in nature," Seeram said. "I believe the process of concentrating the maple sap into maple syrup is what creates Quebecol. There is beneficial and interesting chemistry going on when the boiling process occurs. I believe the heat forms this unique compound."
Seeram said he and his team chose the common name of Quebecol for the new compound to honor the province of Quebec in Canada, which leads the worldwide production of maple syrup. Seeram's research was supported by the Conseil pour le developpement de l'agriculture du Quebec (CDAQ) and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) on behalf of the Canadian maple syrup industry."Producers, transformers and partners of the Canadian maple industry believe that investing in maple syrup knowledge and innovation will bring the products to another level in a few years," said Serge Beaulieu, president of the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers and member of the Canadian Maple Industry Advisory Committee. "Quebec Maple Syrup Producers are especially proud to be leading this long-term innovative strategy on behalf of the Canadian industry and with the talented scientists of the Canadian Maple Innovation Network."
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Genevieve Beland, marketing director of the Federation added, "Maple products' composition is unique and we are at the starting point of a new era. Ten years from now consumers will appreciate 100 percent pure maple products because they are delicious, natural and have a number of healthy compounds." "As we continued our research in the past year, we were astonished when the number of beneficial compounds that we isolated is now more than double the original amount," said Seeram, who is now releasing his findings.
Seeram is the organizer of the daylong symposium on "Bioactives in Natural Sweeteners," and is joined by scientists from Canada, Japan, Mexico and the United States to discuss natural sweeteners. Seeram's collaborations with Angela Slitt, assistant professor of biomedical sciences in URI's College of Pharmacy and Professor Lee, will also be presented during the meeting.
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Seeram's findings will be detailed in his article recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Functional Foods. The title of the paper is "Quebecol, a novel phenolic compound isolated from Canadian maple syrup." In addition, Seeram and Lee's work on diabetes and maple syrup will also be published in an upcoming edition of the Journal of Functional Foods.
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"I can guarantee you that few, if any, other natural sweeteners have this anti-oxidant cocktail of beneficial compounds; it has some of the beneficial compounds that are found in berries, some that are found in tea and some that are found in flaxseed. People may not realize it, but while we have a wide variety of fruits and vegetables in our food chain, maple syrup is the single largest consumed food product that is entirely obtained from the sap of trees," Seeram said. Reiterating a statement he made last year, Seeram said no one is suggesting that people consume large quantities of maple syrup, but that if they are going to use a sweetener on their pancakes, they should choose pure maple syrup and not the commercial products with high fructose corn syrup.

Debbie,

Although I can't quote a specific source, I do believe that Dr. Sears has written about the differences in food quality between free range vs. factory and grass fed vs. grain fed. There is definitely going to be a difference in the amount of arachidonic acid (AA).

Good stuff, as always, John.

Though we do not eat much, I do eat whole eggs, not just the egg whites, but we purchase local Pastured eggs.
When you really read through all of the labels and what they mean (Cage Free, etc.) you realize the only one that
makes any real difference is real Pastured eggs.
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I would like to know, definitively; however, how much AA is reduced between regular store-bought eggs and real pastured eggs.
But I am not sure there is anyone who has a real handle on that. But if there were, it would be helpful.

You can't trust the labels on store-bought eggs. "Free-range" doesn't mean much, only that a door to the outside has to be open like for 5 minutes a day. Before I had my own chickens, I bought eggs from a local person, purchased from the local food co-op.I made sure that they were free-range or pastured chickens. The first time I drank raw summer milk from pastured cows, I could taste the flowers. A totally different entity than any store-bought milk I ever had had before in my life. But you have to be careful: an egg from a chicken that free ranges for an hour a day in a suburban grass lawn but mostly eats cheap Agway chicken-feed is not much better than factory eggs. I grow a garden specifically for my chickens and give them all the leftovers from my kitchen. I spike all their food with olive oil. If you feed chickens fish oil, the eggs taste fishy.

AA is not an inherently bad thing. But in the current common horrible American diet, it has become way, way too prevalent. If a person eats well, and eats moderate amounts of food from animals that have been allowed to eat naturally, I personally doubt that AA, in the moderate quantities that a good diet would allow, is all that bad. But Zone eating is still very rare. And most of us have years of inflammation to rectify, thus the need to avoid AA and to take high-dose fish oil. Maybe, sadly, we will never be able to completely rectify the affects of a lifetime of bad eating. I'm pretty amazed that Sue, after all these years of Zone eating, still is extremely sensitive to AA in her food. I, for one, do not plan on avoiding AA nor taking FO forever.

Hi Debbie,

I'm not sure that AA falls within the realm of a sensitivity issue. The dietary AA in omega 6 fat a body ingests, the more inflammation it will produce. Simply stated, AA is a basic buiding block on inflammation. Once you tip your AA/EPA beyond the ideal range needed for a healthy immune system, you're adding inflammation to you body. I chose not to do that. Coming from a family of multiple Alzheimer's victims and being a cancer survivor, I choose to maintain my AA/EPA as close to ideal as possible. I shudder at the thought of increasing my AA intake. It's not even worth considering in my mind. :)

Another typo, in my previous post.

The dietary AA in omega 6 fat a body ingests...was supposed to read: The more dietary AA and omega 6 fat a body ingests

And not to be lost is the fact that we do need some AA, that it IS a necessary building block.
BUT the SAD (Standard American Diet) truth is that for most, way too much Omega-6 and AA.
For most Zoners, probably not as much - but everyone has different tolerances/needs.
There are processes in the liver, etc that affect ... and all of us are different.
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If only the AA/EPA test were NOT so expensive!
Then more of us could keep a closer watch.
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Fortunately, since my wife and I are very healthy, last year we switched to a high deductible employer medical plan,
saving us some $$ out of my pay each month and we put some of that savings difference into an HSA.
So, for the first time now, after 8 years of Zoning, by using some of those HSA $'s, we were able to afford to have a blood test that covers not only the AA/EPA ratio, but more for only $99.00 each through LEF.org while it was sale priced. (Still waiting the 6-10 week results ...)
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By-the-way, I just read about how a diet higher in Cruciferous vegetables has one down-side, because of the inherent plant-goiters in cruciferous vegetables, and the break-down thereof when eaten, one of the by-products (insert biological name forgotten here) displaces and replaces Iodine at the receptor level. And since most Zoners typically do not eat the (unhealthy) standard (iodized) table salt, we typically ingest less iodine, which can cause Thyroid problems because of the lower iodine levels, especially when eatin a lot of Cruciferous vegetables. (Which also raises Total and LDL cholesterol.)
One remedy is to eat more iodine rich foods, more sea vegetables, Kelp being the richest source of iodine.
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BE VERY CAREFUL with supplementation! Too much Iodine can cause problems!!!
RDA is 150 mcg. I can not nor will I recommend any specific amount.
However, I have read that for most folks, no more than 1000 mcg (1 mg) per day from all sources.
ALWAYS consult your medical practitioner before any supplementation.

Speaking of insurances, I also have a high deductible health plan and have an HSA, and I am waiting for the day that I can use that money to buy my fish oil! Fish oil is currently considered a dietary supplement and is not considered an item that can be purchased with an HSA (unless this has recently changed).

And, until I get my kids out of braces and I am no longer taking them for monthly orthodontist visits, I am afraid that my HSA just keeps depleting rather than building up! At lease we are relatively healthy and not spending our HSA on medications or hospital bills.

Back to our regularly scheduled topic: HONEY.
From a Health Blog:
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Honey has for years been touted as a superfood with many nutrients and antioxidants, an ointment for burns and a natural antiseptic. But there is a big difference between processed honey and raw honey.
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Honey is made when honey bees gather nectar and it is mixed with their saliva. These bees go back to the hives and store the honey in beehives.
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PROCESSED Honey: In order to make processed honey, the honey is taken from the beehives and strained, filtered, heated and pasteurized. Some bottlers also add sugar or corn syrup to preserve the honey longer. This processing removes some of the nutritional content of the honey.
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RAW Honey is extracted from the beehive naturally and bottled. Raw honey has vitamins A, B, C, D, E and K, enzymes, amino acids, and trace minerals. Easily absorbed, raw unprocessed honey can enhance digestion, provide energy, calm nerves, promote sleep, and soothe sore throats.

I don't know if its been mentioned, but my friend who is a beekeeper also says that when the big honey distributors buy up honey from the smaller guys - not only do they filter and pasteurize it, they also water it down. There is a percent solids level that they can lower it to that allows them to stretch out what they get and make more money yet still retain the features of honey that allows it to keep and not go bad. Better for their pocket books but bad for customers who get even less of any remaining "good" stuff.

FYI: This out, recently:
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Honey was a conventional therapy in fighting infection up until the early 20th century, at which time its use slowly vanished with the advent of penicillin.

Now the use of honey in wound care is regaining popularity again, as researchers are determining exactly how honey can help fight serious skin infections.

According to their findings, certain types of honey might be more effective than antibiotics!
After any skin injury, bacteria that live on your skin can infect and penetrate the wound site.
One particularly common type of strep (Streptococcus pyogenes) can result in wounds that refuse to heal.
But honey, especially the kind made by bees foraging on manuka flowers, was found to destroy these bacteria.
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Scientific American recently reported:
"In lab tests, just a bit of the honey killed off the majority of bacterial cells -- and cut down dramatically on the stubborn biofilms they formed.
It could also be used to prevent wounds from becoming infected in the first place."
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According to the authors of the study,
"These findings indicate that manuka honey has potential in the topical treatment of wounds containing S. pyogenes." ii
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Should You Dress Your Wounds with Honey?
As long as you use the right kind of honey, science does back up its use for wound treatment, which is especially relevant today as antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections are on the rise.
Five years ago, the FDA authorized the first honey-based medical product for use in the US. Derma Sciences uses Manuka honey for their Medihoney wound and burn dressings, which can be found online from medical supply stores. Amazon.com also sells them. These products can also be found in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
When considering using honey for the treatment of wounds, it's extremely important to understand that there's a major difference between raw honey—and especially Manuka honey, which is in a class of its own—and the highly processed "Grade A" type honey you find in most grocery stores. The latter is more akin to high fructose corn syrup, which is more likely to increase infection, and should never be used to treat topical wounds! (It also will not offer you the same health benefits as raw honey when consumed.)
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Manuka honey, on the other hand, is made with pollen gathered from the flowers of the Manuka bush (a medicinal plant), and clinical trials have found this type of honey can effectively eradicate more than 250 clinical strains of bacteria, including resistant varieties such as:
MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus)
MSSA (methicillin sensitive Staphylococcus aureus)
VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci)
Compared to other types of honey, Manuka has an extra ingredient with antimicrobial qualities, called the Unique Manuka Factor (UMF). It is so called because no one has yet been able to discover the unique substance involved that gives it its extraordinary antibacterial activity. Honey releases hydrogen peroxide through an enzymatic process, which explains its general antiseptic qualities, but Active Manuka honey contains "something else" that makes it far superior to other types of honey when it comes to killing off bacteria.
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The level of UMF can vary between batches, so each batch is ranked and priced accordingly. The higher the concentration of UMF, the darker, thicker, and more expensive it is.
To determine its rating, a sample of the honey batch is placed on a plate with a bacterial culture. The area where the bacterial growth stops is then measured. This area is compared to a similar area produced by a solution of phenol and water. The UMF number refers to the equivalent percentage of phenol in water, so, for example, honey with a UMF rating of 10 has the same antibacterial strength as 10 percent phenol. A rating of UMF 10 or higher is recommended for medicinal use.

Thanks for that, John. I think that it would be wonderful if an MRSA (along with MSSA and VRE) infection could be treated with honey rather than top-line antibiotics!

Pediatricians are recommending that we use honey by the teaspoon for soothing coughs and sore throats, rather than cough syrup, for children under the age of 12. Of course, it is still not safe for babies under age 1.

You can get all the benefits of Manuka, without having to take honey, by buying Manuka essential oil. When diluted in a carrier oil, you can apply it topically. It's nice that there is more than one modality to benefit from plants. You can put a drop of Manuka essential oil in your tea. There are a number of essential oils that are strongly antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal. The concept of monoflower honey containing the unique chemical properties, aka essential oils, of the plant is fascinating. Who knew. There may be a Manuka hydrosol, which is the plant water product of the steam distillation process, which also contains the chemical signature of the plant. Plants have evolved over millenia. The plants essential oils have a survival benefit for the plants, tested through evolution. Indigenous peoples have been using plants for health, healing, and mood effects for millenia, also.

I would strongly suspect that the honey made from nectar from any of the plants with strong physical effects would act the same as the essential oil.. And the Unknown Manuka Factor is very likely one of the chemicals in the EO. With some essential oils, it is clear what the active chemicals are. With others, the major chemicals don't have effects that the EO has, indicating that there are many many active and undiscovered chemicals effecting the human body. I'll do some research on Manuka and let you know what I find out. The issue is not the HONEY, it's the chemicals in the plant which are also in the nectar. Which are also in the essential oil and the hydrosol and tea made from the plant and any other way you can think of to use a plant.

Although, it must be said: HONEY IS SWEET!!! Yay for honey!

We have a new wound care specialist at work, and she has now stocked our nursing units with honey dressings--cool!

John, I'm officially giving up Splenda. I bought myself some wild buckwheat honey and it is now my sweetener of choice. I don't need sweetner in coffee any more, well, it's really 1/3 milk and 2/3 coffee, because it is sweet enough even without splenda with just the milk. That is a big change. But I think yogurt is bitter and my yogurt meals are one place I put some sweetner. If the blueberries are really sweet, they are enough, but they often are not real sweet. I also put it in my oatmeal. Thanks for you for good info re: the difference b/w natural sweetners and others. My motto is GIGO: as long as the plant has chemical properties that are good for us, the nectar will also and so will the honey. And, like I've said before, different plants essential oils and waters and nectars have differing chemical profiles, having different physical effects in the human body. I'm playing close attention to what I feed my chickens.....

Debbie,

I think you are on the right track.

A tip for your yogurt, if you use frozen blueberries and then let them thaw, the juices from the berries will help permeate the yogurt. IDK but maybe that will help with sweetening up the yogurt.

Totally agree with the milk in the coffee, I find the same thing, it is sweet enough for me if I use milk. Only time it isn't is at Starbucks, I often need more sweetener when I drink their coffee (unless it is a latte, and I drink those plain, too).

The combination of honey and cinnamon has been used in oriental medicine for centuries and people have claimed that the mixture is a formula for many health benefits and a cure for many ailments including hair loss and bad breath.

[quote]
Posted By Nina on 09 Mar 2013 08:21 AM
The combination of honey and cinnamon has been used in oriental medicine for centuries and people have claimed that the mixture is a formula for many health benefits and a cure for many ailments including hair loss and bad breath.

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I agree with you. We often use honey as our first aid in cough too, in fact honey masking is good in treating acne.