Is Honey Better For You Than Sugar?
By now, you probably got the memo that eating too much sugar is bad news for your health. An overly sweet diet is to blame for a whole host of health issues including diabetes, heart disease, and poor brain functioning. And taking in too many sugary calories surely won’t do your waistline any favors. But what about so-called “natural sugars”—is honey good for you, or at least better than sugar?
Natural sugars, like honey, are often said to be more nutritious and less hazardous to your health, but are they really? Certainly, you must have a little more wiggle room when it comes to consuming honey, maple syrup, and their ilk compared to more heavily-refined sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup. After all, isn’t this why the paleo crowd is always sweetening their foods with honey?
Let’s start with a little food science: Honey is a sweet and viscous fluid that industrious honeybees produce from flower nectar. The flavor and color varies depending on which blossoms the bees visited while foraging. So orange blossom honey, for example, is made from bees who pollinate orange plants. After the honey is extracted from honeycombs by beekeepers, it’s strained to remove any solids like remaining wax.
The good news for your sweet tooth is that honey may help you buzz through a ride. In a Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research study from 2004, nine competitive cyclists were given one tablespoon of honey, dextrose (a form of glucose), or a placebo gel prior to and at 10-mile intervals of a simulated 40-mile race. While riders performed worse when they consumed the placebo, honey and dextrose equally increased speed and wattage towards the end of the time trial. These results suggest that a natural sugar like honey can be just as effective at helping cyclists keep up the pace as an engineered one.
“In the end, any carbohydrate can be used to supply athletes with energy,” says Lori Nedescu, a sports dietitian and founder of Hungry for Results. “The trick is making sure you can tolerate the carb source under high performance stress, and honey is pretty well-tolerated by most people due to its ratio of fructose and glucose.”
Another instance where reaching for the bear-shaped bottle can work in your favor is following a hard ride. One 2015 study showed that gulping down a honey drink after a workout can bring about improved subsequent endurance performance compared to just drinking water. According to Nedescu, people need to immediately replenish their depleted muscle glycogen after a long, hard workout. “Simple sources that can be ingested quickly get the job done best, so having a spoonful of honey right after is an easy way to accomplish this refueling.”
There is some evidence, according to a 2017 study, that suggests a pre-exercise meal made up of lower glycemic carbohydrates like honey can bolster endurance performance, perhaps by helping to maintain normal blood sugar levels and altering fuel utilization during exercise. “Topping off energy stores at the start of a ride or race with a sugar source like honey is an easy way to ensure the body is ready to roll hard,” notes Nedescu.
German scientists also found in a 2016 study that male cyclists who supplemented with about 3 tablespoons of honey 90-minutes before their rides experienced less oxidative stress and DNA damage in response to training compared to cyclists who consumed no honey before exercise. The study authors surmise that the naturally occurring antioxidants in honey may play a role in helping to lessen some of the less desirable impacts that intense exercise has on the body such as inflammation. (Although, one could make a good argument that consuming any item that contains antioxidants like blueberries before a workout would bring about similar results.)
Now, just because honey can boost your ride doesn’t mean that you should be liberally slathering it on everything. That’s because it’s not as much of a healthy swap for regular sugar as most people would like to believe. A 2015 report in the Journal of Nutrition suggests that honey has basically the same metabolic effects in the body as much maligned high-fructose corn syrup. Researchers asked study participants to eat 50 grams of either honey, high-fructose corn syrup or sucrose daily for two weeks, with a two- to four-week period between each treatment. In the end, all three sweeteners had nearly the same impact on health measures including blood triglycerides, blood pressure, body weight, blood sugar control and C-reactive protein, which is an indication of inflammation.
The elevated levels of triglycerides and inflammation experienced with each sugar treatment including honey could raise the risk for health woes like heart disease over time. “While all calories aren’t equal, in general, the body responds to the sugar in honey the same way it does to sugar in other sources, and therefore outside of training, it should be consumed in small amounts,” explains Nedescu.
It’s important to remember that nearly 100 percent of the calories you get from honey hails from the simple sugars glucose and fructose—and it’s even higher in sugar calories per tablespoon serving than regular sugar. So instead of pitting different sweeteners against each other, the focus should still be on limiting our intake of them all.
Yes, honey, especially raw, unpasteurized versions, isn’t entirely empty sugar calories since it contains certain antioxidants including phenolic acids, along with trace amounts of minerals like iron, manganese and potassium. A 2009 investigation in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics found that honey has a higher antioxidant capacity than refined sugar, corn syrup or agave syrup (black strap molasses reigned supreme among sweeteners).
But you are still much better served sourcing your antioxidants from whole foods such as vegetables and fruits. “Honey should never be viewed as a source of nutrients,” says Nedescu. “In fact, you’d have to consume over 1,000 calories of honey to get a mere 10 percent of your daily iron, which is a very inefficient way to go about meeting your needs.”
Darker varieties such as buckwheat and pricey manuka may have a slight antioxidant edge, but any nutritional differences or impact on your blood sugar will be subtle among types. The good news is that since honey has a higher fructose content than regular sugar, and our taste buds perceive fructose as being sweeter, many people can use less honey in their cooking to get the same sweet fix.
The bottom line: Honey is neither a superfood nor a major nutritional villain. You can use it to boost your energy on rides, but on the whole, it should be treated like any other added sugar and eaten with constraint. The World Health Organization recommends we limit our intake of added sugars to less than 10 percent of daily calories and, yes, that includes honey. So go ahead and add a little to your tea or morning toast–just don’t let your honey pour too freely.
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