I run into people every other day, telling me proudly how they quit sugar by switching to a healthy option: honey. Well, as I would tell them, honey is just like sugar. Honey affects your body much like sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. The proportions of glucose and fructose in honey, sugar (combined as sucrose) and high-fructose corn syrup are actually very similar.
When the National Honey Board set out to substantiate honey’s healthy reputation by funding a clinical trial comparing it to sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, however, the results stung. Scientists at the USDA’s Grand Forks (ND) Nutrition Research Center found that the metabolic effects of honey and those sweeteners were “essentially the same”.
I think of honey as sugar and only use it occasionally. Keep in mind, honey is denser than granulated sugar, so one teaspoon (7 grams) contains 21 calories compared to 16 calories in one teaspoon (4.2 grams) of sugar.
An article on this subject was published on Tufts Nutrition Letter 12/2015
