Honey vs Sugar

Honey is honey, it has been a part of the human food for millions of years, it is hard to find a kitchen shelf without honey. Men have mastered the art of beekeeping since the time of cavemen, Egyptian arts shows beekeeping around 4500 years ago, pure edible honey in jars was found in tombs of Tutankhamen. Have you ever thought what makes honey so special from other natural sweeteners? why honey is always associated with health benefits?. In fact honey and table sugar, both are made of two simple sugars glucose and fructose, then why white sugar is called as empty calories and white poison? To answer this we should understand what honey is really made of and how chemical nature of honey different from table sugar.

 

Sugar adds up 90% of honey's dry weight, sugar is nothing but glucose and fructose two basic ingredients of all sweeteners. Honey is a complete food which has 82% monosaccharide (fructose and glucose), 2% of vitamin, minerals, protein,organic acids and rest is water. Honey has vitamins which include Vitamin B,riboflavin, niacin, folic acid, pantothenic acid, and vitamin B6  and minerals such as calcium, copper, magnesium, iron, manganese, sodium, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. Honey is rich in antioxidants and proline (an amino acid found in most proteins).

 

Unlike honey, table sugar losses its inherent characteristics in the process of manufacturing, the organic acids, protein, nitrogen elements, enzymes and vitamins in the sugar cane are destroyed,whereas honey, on the other hand, a natural sweetener mostly used in raw state retains all its inherent nutrients. Also, honey possess certain beneficial antioxidant, antibacterial properties which are not present in table sugar.

 

Honey has more calories than sugar, according to National Honey Board, one tablespoon of table sugar or sucrose approximately contains 46 calories, whereas  one tablespoon of honey has approximately 64 calories. Higher concentration of fructose in honey makes sweeter. Even though honey is more expensive than sugar, it takes less amount of honey to sweeten food material compared to sugar, this makes honey economically affordable.