It’s an old story that sweeteners can be bad for our health if we use them excessively, but the question is which one is better for our health – sugar or honey?

While the effect of honey is similar to sugar’s effect, honey is well known for being more nutritious, and therefore healthy. But the truth about that is about to be revealed in today’s post in which we’ll discover if honey is indeed the better option.

Similarities and Differences

Both honey and sugar are carbohydrates and consist of two types of sugar – fructose and glucose. Both of them are digested fast by our body. Fructose is associated with obesity, diabetes, and Fatty liver disease.

While sugar consists 50% sugar and 50% fructose, honey consists only 40% fructose and 30% glucose, the rest of 30% consisting of minerals – magnesium, potassium – water, and pollen (the reason why honey is considered healthier).

Because of sugar’s higher level of Glycemic Index, the blood sugar levels are rising faster than if you consume honey because it lacks minerals and has more fructose. On the other hand, honey has more calories than sugar but it compensates because it’s sweeter, which means that you can use less honey to make your tea as sweet as one spoon of sugar would.

Honey

Honey is well known for two things: its proprieties as sweetener and medicine. Honey is considered to be a natural product since is resulted from the work of the bees, but the truth is that if you buy it from the supermarket you shouldn’t rely on that.

Most people know of 3 or 4 varieties of honey but there are around 300, the main ones being: alfalfa, tupelo, wildflower, golden blossom, and eucalyptus, each having a different color and distinct flavor. But no matter which honey you choose, if you overuse it can spike the blood sugar levels.

Pros’

• Sweetness can be attained with a lesser amount of honey.
• The more natural it is, the more nutritious it is.
• It can help you mend your allergies.
• It is less processed than sugar.
• Natural way to ease your cough.
• It’s a great wound healer for burns, chronic wounds, and ulcers.
• The digestive system prefers honey over sugar because it has less to process.

Cons’

• Honey has more calories than sugar, so it can lead to weight gaining faster than sugar.
• If used by infants, children younger than one year, the bacterial spores from honey can lead to a life-threatening illness, botulism.
• It can be problematic for people with insulin resistance and diabetes.
• Overusing can lead to type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Sugar

Sugar, even though it’s supposed to be natural since is the product of a plant, it goes through a lot of unnatural processes until it reaches in our homes. Sugar comes from sugar beet or sugarcane.

Sugar has absolutely no nutrients or vitamins and the most common types are white, brown, muscovado and raw.

Pros’

• Naturally occurring substance.
• It has fewer calories than honey.
• It’s a low-cost product, so is accessible.
• Long shelf life.
• Makes the food palatable.

Cons’

• Increases the risk of many diseases.
• It spikes blood’s glucose levels faster, which means a deep sensation of energy which wears off fast and leaves you with headaches, tiredness, and difficulty to concentrate.
• It’s more difficult to digest than honey because it lacks enzymes.
• It’s the main cause of cavities and dental caries.
• It’s associated with gut bacteria diversity.
• Increases the risk of some chronic diseases.

Which is Best?

Both sugar and honey can be harmful for our health if we abuse them, but at the end of the day, honey is the better choice. Of course, sugar can’t do so much harm if we barely use it, but, of course, the best would be to not use any sweetener at all.

If you can’t commit right now but want to choose the healthier alternative, always look for the darkest raw honey which has more enzymes, nutrients, and antioxidants.

Cutting Down Sweeteners

Almost every food you can find in supermarket today contains sugar or traces of sugar and it’s obvious that they don’t use a qualitative sugar. So we already use a noticeable quantity of sugar daily – more than recommended – so we should stop adding sugar in the things we can control like tea and homemade cakes.

Here are some steps to follow if you want to cut sweeteners off from your life:

• Start cutting the portion of sugar/honey in half.
• When you bake reduce the sweetener by one third.
• Opt for extracts/sweet spices.
• Substitute the sweetener in baking with homemade applesauce or mashed bananas.
• Whenever you feel the need to eat sugar replace it with a fruit

 

Conclusion

With all of these things being said, there’s no winner when it comes to sweeteners because no sweetener is the best sweetener for our health. But this is a life-changing decision that one has to make and the first step is to choose the healthier option which is obviously honey, but not the one from supermarkets.

Of course, trying your best to replace sweeteners by eating more fruits that are high in fructose like bananas to satisfy your need would be a great starting point.

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