Honey nutrition: How does honey compare with other sweeteners?
My top honey customer of all time asked me how honey’s nutrition compares to brown sugar and conventional table sugar.
In addition to honey, brown sugar, and pure cane sugar, let’s also look at maple syrup, agave syrup, and stevia. I won’t go into the nutritional profiles of aspartame, Saccharin, and Splenda. Did you know all three of these were discovered by accident? Aspartame was identified in 1965 when researching antiulcer drugs, Saccharin in 1897 when a researcher studied coal tar derivatives, and Splenda while trying to create an insecticide. Where do all the other sweeteners referenced come from?
Origins of sweeteners
Original sweeteners in human history date back to prehistoric times and included honey and berries. Artificial sweeteners developed in modern times as a response to creating an alternative for people who aren’t able to safely digest or process sugars.
Honeybees create honey through a process that involves collecting nectar, sharing that nectar with other honeybees through trophallaxis, then packing the substance into comb where it rests and moisture evaporates. (Trophallaxis is an act between two honeybees where they share nectar back and forth between their honey stomachs. You may have seen this method caricatured in social media memes that tout honey as honeybee vomit. It’s not vomit in the sense that a human experiences it.) After the honey is shared between bees, it’s stored in a comb cell. When the bees notice the moisture has dropped to the right level (about 18%), they cap the cell with beeswax, which seals and protects the honey until they need to use it. When an entire frame is capped honey, you know this as honeycomb.
Brown sugar is created by mixing molasses with pure cane sugar. Simple as that. Molasses contains a significant amount of iron and magnesium. If you’ve baked with brown sugar you probably notice that it adds a degree of moisture to the finished product that standard table sugar doesn’t provide—which molasses gets credit for. You may have also noticed that brown sugar can turn into a brick if you don’t keep it sealed properly. I have a century old book from Good Housekeeping Institute and it includes a tip to add a date to your brown sugar container. Within a day the sugar is completely loose and usable again. I’ve tried it and it works beautifully! I’ve also substituted a handful of raisins when I didn’t have dates and those worked too.
Pure cane sugar is created from sugarcane. The tall stalks of sugar cane are stripped and boiled. The remaining syrup is treated so that sugars crystallize. The final crystals are the common omnipresent table sugar we’re all familiar with.
Maple syrup is made by boiling off the water in maple sap during a very particular time of year at spring thaw when the maple trees run hundreds of gallons of sap and start to prep for their first leaves of the year. After boiling off water from the sap, the remaining thick syrup contains manganese, zinc, and a considerable amount of potassium.
Agave syrup is a highly processed sweetener made from sap in the core of the agave plant. The method to create this syrup requires an intense amount of energy.
Stevia is a plant whose leaves taste sweet. The leaves can be used fresh or dried into flakes or a powder. Stevia is 300 times sweeter than table sugar (when processed), so a little goes a very long way.
Compare nutrients in different types of sweeteners*
*Most of the nutritional data collected from USDA’s FoodData Central database and the National Honey Board.
I intentionally didn’t include calories in the comparison table. I believe our culture places unnecessary focus on calories and misses out on what matters: the nutrients our bodies need to do the essential biological processes our bodies need. Foods always come with calories and energy, but what is in our food matters more than the energy.
Have you learned anything new from comparing different sweeteners? Let me know.