Honey

Taken from Here

Honey is considered unhealthy in many places, maybe because it contains suger "fructose"?! do you think it's bad for your health?! would you rather add suger or honey to your diet?! Does it matter though!

Today we will clearfy whether you should replace suger with honey or just ignore it's existance.
Honey is considered a real food that can be obtained in it's natural form. It's way more than just a fructose liquid. Honey bees collects Nectar from the environment which are a suger-rich liquid produced from plants then the honey production takes place in their hive where repeated cycles of consumption, digestion and regurgitation (expulsion from digestive tract) takes place to make honey.
There are many types of honey depending on the source of the nectar.
One cup of honey contains: (1,2)

• 1031 calories
• 279g carbohydrates of which 278g suger, 1g dietery fibers
• 1g protein
• Half of that suger is fructose
• Antioxidants
• Glycemic index ranges from low to high
• Trace amounts of Vitamins and minerals.

Antioxidants

Taken from Here

As we know from Coffee and Dark Chocolate articles, Antioxidants are very good for your health .

Unrefined honey contains different antioxidants which can improve your health and protects you from diseases. According studies, the best type of honey that can have this effect on your health is called Buckwheat honey. (3,4)

Relation between Honey and diseases

Taken from Here

There are some factors that may indicate if you are healthy or not and whether there is a risk of disease in the future or not (no not magic). Trigylicerides, blood glucose level and cholesterol, diabetic patients have problem with all of these factors.

A study in healthy diabetics showed that: (5)

1. Honey lowered LDL, triglycerides and increases HDL cholesterol. 
2. Lowered reduced C-Reactive protein (CRP) which is a marker of inflammation.
3. Raised blood suger but not as much as glucose "Dextrose" and fructose and glucose "Sucrose"
4. Lowered Homocysteine which is a non protein amino acid, when it increases it makes the person more prone to have inflammation in blood vessels.

In a controlled trial of 48 diabetic patients, those who were fed honey for 8 weeks lowered their

Trigylicerides, body wieght and total cholesterol while HDL cholesterol (High density Lipoprotein which is the good cholesterol) increased. But on the other hand, HbA1c which is a marker of glucose leve increased which is not GOOD. (6)

Honey for healthy Rats

Taken from Here

What in the world is that?! I don't know but rats should!

A study made on rats showed that honey lead to less fat gain, triglycerides and oxidative stress than either purified fructose or sugar. (7,8)

Well, i guess you want to be like the healthy rats? Right? (i think that's disgusting)

Honey for a healthy skin

Taken from Here

When you apply honey to your skin, it can actually kill bacteria and speed up the process of wound healing. (9,10) pretty amazing right?

To sum up, Honey can be GOOD or BAD as anything in this world. You should always be careful about what you are eating and more importantely the quantity of it (Too much of anything is bad). Honey is good for your health as we mentioned above but don't eat jars of it and just say, i'm healthier than ever! So should you eat Honey??

If you are healthy and active then yes go ahead and eat honey but if you are diabetic and struggle with the dietery load of fructose and carbohydrates then try to limit honey as much as possible. Still, honey is better than sugar so if you are overweighted and you love eating sweet things then try to replace sugar with honey. (don't eat too much though!)

Last but not least, consider to choose darker honey. Generally speaking, darker honey are better than lighter ones as it contains more nutrients like vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.(buckwheat honey are better than lighter varieties) 

As always if you found this article helpful. Well, don't be selfish and share it with everyone!

 "Be Healthy, Be Safe".