Eating Honey Continous 30 Days
Today we’re gonna talk about what would happen if you started eating honey every day for 30 days. And honey is very, very popular. For starters, it’s part of our language. We talk about the land of milk and honey.
We talk about things being as sweet as honey and we say, Hey, come here honey. And honey has been around for a very long time. It’s part of our culture. And it goes back thousands of years.
It used to be known as the food of the Gods. Honey was also the original sweetener because our ancestors didn’t have anything else that was really sweet besides honey.
They used to have some occasional fruit, but honey was way, way sweeter than that. And when I say ancestors, I’m not talking about your grandpa, I’m talking about going back tens of thousands of years prehistoric humans who were hunters and gatherers.
They did not have any other sweetener. And the other thing about honey is that it’s the first processed sweetener.
It’s the first processed food really. And even though it is completely natural in the sense that we find it in nature and we don’t do anything with it, the bees have processed honey.
So we start out with a flower and flower nectar and then the bee comes to visit that and sucks up the flour nectar.
And then they have enzymes that break down that nectar into simple sugars and then they concentrate it and evaporated and it turns into honey.
And these little bees, they really deserve some respect. They work like nobody else.
As a result in our language, again, we have the word worker bee or busy bee to denote someone who works very hard all the time.
And did you know that in order to make just one pound of honey, which is 454 grams, it takes over 2 million flowers.
So the bees have to make 2 million trips to gather nectar, to make even just one pound of honey. And in the process of gathering all that nectar, they travel the equivalent of more than once around the world.
Not only that, but you should think about this when you enjoy that little jar of honey that a single bee makes less than one gram of honey in a lifetime.
But this goes way beyond just honey because we actually depend on bees for our survival.
They pollinate over 130 different fruits and vegetables and different plants.
And even if you don’t eat vegetables or fruits, if you’re a carnivore or you don’t just eat processed food, you need to realize that the thing you’re eating might depend on the bees to pollinate their food.
But even just for humans, what they pollinate represents about one third of the food that we eat.
So overall, we have this idea of honey as being liquid gold. It’s very precious. It’s a very, very good thing. But then on the other hand, with rising awareness, we now know that sugar is really, really bad.
So how does that fit together? If honey is good but it’s mostly sugar, how can that be? So we’re gonna figure out which ones are true and which ones are false and which ones can maybe somewhere in between.
So I’m gonna show you some screen captures along the way here to show you that I didn’t actually make this up, that someone else published this.
And some of these may seem crazy, but they’re very representative of what people believe and what’s being written out there.
So first thing they said in this video was that everything in their video was unbiased, fact checked and reviewed by qualified health professionals.
So that makes you feel really good upfront, like very, very reassuring that this has to be top notch stuff. So let’s take a look. So one of the claims was that if you eat honey, you will sleep better.
And then again on their slide they said, eating honey right before bed may spike your insulin levels.
And I’m like, that can’t be good because if you watch this channel, you know that that’s not something we’re going for.
But here they mention it as a positive and they say that this increased insulin can stimulate tryptophan, which will stimulate serotonin, which turns into melatonin and therefore would help you sleep.
But it doesn’t work like this. Trust me, if you create even a smidgen of a benefit, which is pretty far reached because if you increase insulin, you also bind up some of the tryptophan.
So it’s less available. But even if it did work, you do not want to try to create health benefits by increasing insulin, by creating insulin spikes because even if this worked, you would create a dozen bad effects along the way.
So please don’t do this. And the next claim was that if you eat honey, you will learn faster and be more relaxed.
And the mechanism proposed for this was that the glucose in honey is quickly absorbed again, like before it creates a blood sugar spike and an insulin spike, which is not something that we’re looking for, but they suggested that this will lead to this will cause a powering up of your neurons, which will ease anxiety and other psychological disorders.
Now these are pretty strong claims, but they’re completely false. Or 99.99% false because if you’re hypoglycemic and you create a blood sugar spike, yes you will feel better temporarily, but that high from the glucose spike will soon drop and be followed by a low.
And then you eat again and you’ll get a high and followed by a low. So it’s actually the blood sugar spike that creates the low because it creates blood sugar rollercoasters.
And what you’re really looking for is stable blood sugar. That is how you get stable mood and feel good. And the way to do that is to not eat things that spike glucose but rather slow foods like fat and fiber and meat.
And when I first saw this, I’m thinking, Hey, I bet that’s why all the kids are so calm when you feed them a bunch of sugar, right?
And then they made a few more claims that we’re gonna cover in the little bit here.
They said that honey will improve gut health because it contains prebiotics that you will lose weight because honey is so full of good nutrition.
In fact, a good portion of your daily nutrition can be found in honey. And we’ll get to that in a second.
But first of all, I just wanted to point something out about lists and summaries because we’re all tempted to look for shortcuts to learning ’cause we’re busier than ever.
And there’s a tool that has been developed called AI or artificial intelligence. I wanted to get a quick idea of what, what are they claiming, what are people thinking about it, etc.
And the AI in the summary told me that honey can be used to prevent botulism in infants when in fact it can cause botulism in infants.
So if you have just a quick superficial understanding, then you may read through this and accept that at first glance you may not stop and think, Hey, that doesn’t seem right.
And here one little word, the difference between prevent and cause could be the difference of life and death in a baby. So I urge you to take a little bit of time to actually understand how the body works.
And another way to look at this is the artificial in artificial intelligence. Artificial can also have a synonym as unreal, bogus, counterfeit. And it can also mean faked mock phony and sham.
So keep that in mind before you hand over your health. Just to some superficial understanding, some other claims that these qualified health professionals made in the video was that honey is an excellent source of energy, that you should eat it every day.
And that honey has none of the damaging effects of plain sugar or white sugar. And they said this was because honey contains completely different sugars. And this is a very common belief.
So this is something that we really need to understand What are the sugars in honey? So we’re gonna compare honey with sugar.
And first of all, the percentage of sugar in honey is about 82% because it has some water, whereas the white sugar, it’s crystals, it has no water at all or maybe just some humidity from the atmosphere.
So when we compare these numbers and we go from here, we’re gonna take the water out of this.
So we’re going to only consider that sugar portion and we’re gonna adjust the numbers accordingly. And honey high is a number of different sugars in it.
And these are not for you to memorize, it’s just to help you understand the structure and the mechanisms of these.
So there is sucrose, there is fructose, there’s glucose, there’s maltose and galactose.
Okay, we’re not gonna get super technical here, but next time you hear someone saying something about sugar in honey or agave, then you’ll know what they’re talking about.
So the most basic sugar molecule is called glucose. That’s what’s floating around in your bloodstream and that’s how we measure blood sugar or blood glucose.
And the next one is fructose, which is very similar in many ways. It has the same number of carbons total, the same number of everything total, but the basic ring is five. And we put an F for fructose.
So these are the two most basic ones and they’re called monosaccharides ’cause it’s a single ring of sugar. And then there is another one that is also a six carbon ring and it’s called galactose.
And even though it’s a six carbon, it actually behaves more like fructose. It’s identical except one of the groups attached to one of the corners is flipped.
Again, you don’t need to memorize, but we need to kinda get the picture of this. But because of this flip, galactose works more like fructose in that it can only be processed by the liver.
So glucose can be used by any cell in the body. Fructose and galactose are almost a hundred percent processed through the liver.
And then if we take these sugars again and we link them up, so now we have one glucose and we link it together with one fructose.
Then now we have something called sucrose. It’s two rings, it’s a D saccharide, and there’s one more sugar in honey, which is when we have two of the glucose molecules.
So these are two of the same, but they’re linked together. And now this is called maltose maltose. And again this one is called sucrose.
So these are really all the different sugars in honey. And if you look, there’s really just three different rings, but one acts very much like fructose.
So again, all we’re really talking about is glucose and fructose because everything sort of condenses down to that in the end. So now let’s look at how much of these things are in honey.
So the sucrose, which again is this one half glucose, half fructose is 1.1 grams, there’s very little of that one, whereas in white sugar it’s all sucrose. Table sugar is 100%.
And by definition, if you understand that there’s one molecule of one and one of the other, by definition there’s going to be 50% of each. So when sucrose breaks down, it becomes 50% fructose, 50% glucose.
But in honey it’s a little different ’cause it’s not bound, it’s floating freely. And there’s 49.8% of the fructose versus 50 in table sugar. So pretty close I would say. And glucose is 43.6 versus 50. So again, very, very close.
And the difference here is that honey also has something called maltose, which is two of the glucoses, but that’s only seconds away from breaking down into glucose that the maltose, there’s two of these.
So that’s seconds away from becoming glucose. So therefore this sort of has to be added to the glucose. And then there’s the galactose that we talked about that acts more like fructose.
So when we put all of this to, we wanna focus in on here and when we add back the glucose and the fructose in here, we get 54% of fructose in honey and 46% of glucose in honey when we account for these odd ones.
So what that means again is once we take the water out of honey, it is 100% sugar just like sugar.
And it’s not very different. It’s off by a few percent, but it’s pretty much exactly the same thing.
And a lot of people also say that honey is great for diabetics. It’s so much better for diabetics because the glycemic index is completely different. And no it’s not glycemic.
Index for honey is about 58 to compare with about 60. So depending on the source you find it’s gonna be off by a few points and honey is gonna be off by a few percent based on what flowers they gather the nectar from.
But in the end, when you remove the water, it’s gonna be 100% sugar give or take a a decimal point. And now with that understanding, let’s get into the next claim, which is that it can improve gut health.
And here they do have a point. So there’s something called FOS or fructose oligosaccharides. And what is that? I’m glad you asked.
So now if we start off with sucrose and we just start tying more of these fructose units, this now has turned from sucrose to a fructose oligosaccharide.
And even though we can break down sucrose, we cannot break down FOS because this is considered fiber, but it is excellent food for our gut bacteria and these can get longer as well.
So typically when we talk about fructose oligosaccharides, we’re talking less than 10 units. And another name for this or another form that this exists is called inulin, which we extract from chicory root.
So in chicory root as much as 60% of that is actually different forms of FOS. So typically in the chicory route there are between two and 60 of these units.
So the shortest would be two, the longest would be 60 on average. And then they can process this and they can separate out the portion that has less than 10. And then they often use those as an alternative sweetener.
So this is a sweetener, it’s not as sweet as sugar, but they add it to different products ’cause it’s a great prebiotic. It’s food for your gut bacteria, but it’s not calories and it’s not fructose ’cause you can’t break it down.
So your bacteria can chop off these little fructose units, but they are earmarked for the bacteria, they’re going to use it themselves.
So this does not increase your blood fructose levels and the shorter these molecules are, so if it’s two or three or four, then it’s quite sweet.
It’s almost like sugar. Whereas if they get longer up towards 60, now they’re barely sweet at all.
And you can buy this inulin separately and it’s a good prebiotic. You can use the chicory root often as a sweetener.
And if you’re making your own yogurt, you can feed the bacteria, you can make more bacteria in the yogurt by giving them some extra food.
They’re gonna be living to a large part from the lactose in the milk, but you can give them a little extra by giving them some inulin.
So FOS is a great prebiotic food for your gut. And honey contains a fairly large percentage. So one tablespoon, which is 21 grams has point 15 grams. And that doesn’t seem like a whole lot.
You could get a lot more just by supplementing some inulin, but even a little bit still can make a difference ’cause you’re looking for a variety of these. But FOS can also be found in other foods.
So point 15 grams, you can find in 60 grams of onion in 25 grams of garlic, which is a couple of decent cloves or 30 grams of rye.
And that’s the pure rye, not the stuff mixed up with wheat flour. But you also don’t wanna limit yourself just to one type of prebiotic fiber.
So there are many other foods like chia is, has a massive amount of fiber. So there’s one point 15 grams, almost seven times more prebiotic fiber in just one teaspoon.
But again, it’s not FOS, they’re different types and that’s the whole point. Your gut bacteria are looking for a wide variety of fiber. Another thing you often hear is that honey will help you lose weight.
And they also said along with that, that you’ll get a good portion of your antioxidants and your nutrients, your daily nutrients.
So let’s go to a site called nutrition value.org and look up and see what sort of nutrients we have in honey.
So when it comes to vitamins, the vitamin content of one tablespoon, which is 21 grams of honey, we see the different nutrients of vitamins. Here we see zero, zero, 1%, 0, 0, 0.
So that’s the first half of the vitamins. Second half of the vitamins we have 0, 0, 0, 0, 0 and zero. Well you know, I’m not all that impressed. I don’t think I wanna trust my nutrition to that sort of content.
Well maybe it was the minerals they were talking about. So we go look at minerals and here we have calcium is zero, copper is one, and then it’s 0, 0 1, 0, 0, 0, 0 0. Maybe it’s the healthy fats.
Maybe it’s all the fats in honey that these health professionals were talking about. So fat we have zero saturated fats, zero.
And as you can tell in these columns, not only is it 0%, but even going down to the third decimal points, they’re not even a trace of fat in there.
There is no monounsaturated fat, there is no polyunsaturated fat in honey.
So I’m just curious based on that, a good portion of of what, what are you getting a good portion of? So the fact is there’s really nothing in terms of nutrition that we can get from honey except sugar.
And when enough people keep repeating their claims, now all of a sudden it becomes a common truth. So after all that, is there anything good about honey?
Well absolutely there is. First of all, it tastes really, really good. Humans really love that sweet flavor. And if you’re gonna have something sweet in moderation, honey is definitely one of the best things you can have.
Secondly, even though I mentioned all the similarities to sugar, honey is absolutely better than sugar in every way.
Honey is a live product, it has certain things in it and we’ll talk about some of the benefits. Sugar is absolutely dead. It has no benefits, no nutrients whatsoever.
So one thing that we know about honey that can maybe provide some of the anecdotal benefits, all of the things that people are reporting is the fact that honey is antibacterial. It can kill off bacteria.
So because of this, some of the strongest benefits are probably reports that it can soothe a sore throat. There’s a lot of people that use it as a cough remedy, as a sore throat remedy.
They give their kids instead of cough drops or cough medication. And in that sense, I’m all for it. If you can have something natural to keep medical chemicals outta your body, then absolutely go for it.
But there’s also a large body of anecdotal evidence, anecdotal reports, and a lot of these have to do with immunity and allergies.
People say that after they start consuming honey that their airborne allergies, their seasonal allergies go away.
People talk about general immunity that they haven’t had a cold or a flu in 20 years since they started eating honey. And I do believe that can be something to that.
I don’t think that you should rely exclusively on honey. And I don’t think the people who have these anecdotal reports, I don’t think they do that. I think they do have a pretty good lifestyle in general.
But one way that this can work is that honey contains different chemical compounds from the flowers called polyphenols.
And these are very mild plant toxins that plants use to defend themselves, but in very small amounts they can actually be be beneficial and contrary to popular beliefs, these are not nutrients, they are not for you, they are for your gut bacteria and they can affect your biome, your balance of bacteria positively.
And because that has a lot to do with your immunity, it’s possible that that’s a mechanism by which it can actually improve immunity and help allergies.
So even though I spent a good portion debunking crazy claims, it was mostly the mechanisms and the way things are presented.
They’re presented as a cure for something and you don’t want to think about it that way.
You want to think of it as part of an overall healthy lifestyle. And you want to understand what kind of claims are crazy and which ones may have some validity.
So if you’ve had some benefits, if you’ve noticed some of these benefits we just talked about, please let us know in the comments ’cause we’d love to hear more about that.
So how much should you take? Well, it depends a lot on the person. In some of the studies they were using up to 70 grams a day before they saw any noticeable effects and 70 grams a day is already way over the limit.
Even the general recommendations from the USDA limits sugar intake at 50 grams. And like we said, even though honey is way better than white sugar, it’s still sugar and the quantity is a problem.
So USDA recommends 50 grams. I would say keep it much lower than that, especially if you have tendency to a fatty liver or insulin resistance.
And realize that the vast majority of modern people have insulin resistance and some degree of fatty liver.
And fructose is the biggest problem for a fatty liver. And honey has 54% of that. So again, if you’re insulin sensitive, you can have a certain amount. If you have insulin resistance, you wanna really keep it down.
So I would probably suggest that you eat less than 20 grams a day. So that’s about one tablespoon of honey. And again, if you have some metabolic issue, then that is 20 grams total.
That is not in addition to ketchup and muffins and barbecue sauce, that’s the total. So I don’t think we need to be absolutely fanatical about sugar.
I don’t think everyone has to be zero in every regard, but we need to understand these numbers so we can keep it in proportion that if you eat 20 grams of this and then you eat barbecue sauce and ketchup and all the other stuff before you know it, you’re up to 70, 80, 90 grams a day anyway.
And that will give you or maintain that fatty liver. So that said, a lot of people claim that honey will fix diabetes and I really don’t see how it would do that.
I think if you cut out all other sugars and you stay low carbs, I think that you could probably have up to 20 grams a day and still have good progress with reversing your diabetes.
And there may even be some components in the honey that will assist you, but more is not going to be better.
And if you want to use honey, if you have a sore throat or a cold, you wanna understand that it probably works best as a topical.
So you want to take the honey straight and you want to use small amounts and let it dissolve in the mouth and swallow it slowly and use a tiny little bit several times a day.
So maybe like a half a teaspoon, three to four times a day or maybe even less, even more frequently.
And one more thing that most of the beekeepers and most of the people who stay up on this and most of the people who use honey as part of a healthy lifestyle, they really emphasize that the honey must be raw.
If it’s been pasteurized, if it’s been processed now they have killed off and removed just about everything that would give you any benefit, uh, as far as health.
And that also means that this very popular idea of putting honey into a hot tea or hot coffee is probably not a good idea that you are probably killing off a lot of the benefits.
So if you do that, you want to make the coffee or the tea and let it cool down to approximately body temperature and then you can put the raw honey in and still have those benefits.
But there’s one more thing that you could try if you wanna get some of the benefits without all the sugar.
And that’s something called propolis or propolis, I’m not sure how that’s pronounced, but bees really make two things.
They make honey, which is their food reserve, and then they make this propolis, which is their, it’s, it’s a building material essentially and they use it as spackling or mortar to seal up their beehive.
And it contains a lot of the same compounds that are potentially beneficial as what the honey has in it. So you could take that as a supplement and not have any of the sugar with it.
So I’d love to get some reports, even if they’re anecdotal from you, you can leave the comments.
But when you read those and when you leave them, keep in mind who are the people who use honey on a regular basis, especially the raw honey.
And I would contend that there are different there, people care about their health at different levels.
So the people eat honey are probably more into a natural lifestyle than someone who is wolfing down energy drinks and playing video games, for example. I would pretty much bet money on that.
So if you give us an anecdotal report, please also tell us your overall view of health and and other things that you’re doing so we can help people put that in perspective because those people into the more natural lifestyles, they probably move more, they probably get more fresh air, they probably appreciate more whole foods.
They’re not just seeking out honey instead of sugar. They’re probably looking for better quality foods overall.
And they’re probably getting a whole lot less sugar, not just by replacing sugar with honey, but they’re probably eating way less sweet stuff overall.
And as a result, they probably also eat way less processed food. So they’re keeping a lot of bad stuff out.