Sugar is Sugar; Honey is Not More Healthful
by Gabe Mirkin, M.D.
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Many health writers make the topic of sugar so complicated that nobody
can understand it. It's very simple. Sugar is sugar is sugar. Your body
treats the sugar in an apple the same way that it treats all other sources
of sugar. The difference is that an apple also contains fiber that slows
the rise of blood sugar after you eat it.
Some people believe that honey is more healthful than sugar. They tell
us that honey is a quicker source of energy and a richer source of
minerals, and is less fattening. All of these clams are nonsensical. As
far as your body is concerned, there is no difference between honey and
table sugar. Honey contains two simple sugars called glucose and fructose.
Table sugar has the same two sugars, only they are bound together to form
a double sugar called sucrose. In your body, they end up in exactly the
same way. Once sucrose, the double sugar, reaches your intestine, it is
broken down into the single sugars glucose and fructose.
Honey and table sugar are processed in the same way by your body, and
honey cannot be a quicker source of energy. An advertisement for honey
claims that "ounce for ounce, honey has fewer calories than refined
sugar." This is true but deceptive because honey contains water which has
no calories and refined sugar does not. A tablespoon of table sugar has 64
calories while a tablespoon of honey contains water so that it has only
46, but they are both equally fattening. You add sweeteners by taste, not
by careful measurement, and you will use the same number of calories to
obtain the same sweetness using either sugar or honey.
It's ridiculous to claim that honey is an excellent source of minerals
such as iron and calcium, while sugar is not. To meet your needs for iron,
you would have to take in 10 cups of honey a day, and for calcium, you
would have to take in 40 cups.
By the same reasoning, your body handles white granulated table sugar
in the same way that it processes brown sugar, turbinado sugar, maple
syrup, fructose, and all other sugars. Brown sugar is slightly less
refined than white sugar, but the difference has no nutritional
significance. It makes no difference to your body whether extracted sugar
comes from beets, sugar cane, honey, apples or grapes, or maple trees. If
you are a diabetic, or store fat primarily in your belly, have high blood
triglyceride levels, have a very low blood levels of the good HDL
cholesterol that prevents heart attacks, or are trying to lose weight, you
should avoid all refined carbohydrates, and that includes all sugars that
have been extracted from any source.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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