Honey or sugar - Which one is healthier?

Nutrition is considered an important part of our pole fitness training. In this Pole in Style's blog, we discuss whether honey is a better and healthier alternative to white sugar.

Many of us are aware that white sugar, also known as sucrose or table sugar, is not the healthiest thing we can eat. But what about honey – is it a better option?

Natural sugar White sugar or table sugar is often mentioned and talked about on a daily basis. There are many claims about different sugar varieties and in recent years there have been many sweet options available to choose from. Products such as coconut sugar and honey are often referred to as a more natural alternative to white sugar. However, remember that white sugar is extracted from sugar cane or sugar beet and thus actually comes from nature. Healthier? Some of these natural sugar alternatives have become popular and tend to be advertised as a healthier option than the traditional white sugar, based on nutritional content per 100 grams. Nevertheless, the nutritional content does not necessarily determine how healthy certain types of food are. Health is about more than just the nutritional content per 100 grams. How much and how often you consume the food are more important. Of course, honey has higher content of vitamins and minerals than white sugar, but in practice we are using such a small amount of sugar and honey on a daily basis that it has little nutritional difference between the two. Most people consume honey and/or sugar for the sweet taste and not for nutrients. Honey is sweeter than traditional sugar, so a benefit of honey can be that you only need a smaller amount of honey to achieve the same sweetness than if you use regular sugar. But again, this is about the sweet taste and not everyone who likes the taste of honey.

What about the glycemic index? Many believe that honey is a better choice because it has a lower glycemic index (Glycemic index or glycaemic index (GI) is a number associated with a particular type of food that indicates the food's effect on a person's blood glucose, also called blood sugar level). In theory, the GI system may seem like a good tool to use. In practice, it would be difficult to measure as people often combine various food together during meals, such that the whole meal is the factor having the greatest impact on blood sugar.

Healthy for you? Honey has for thousands of years been considered as an important ingredient in medicine with healing effect. Some believe it has wound-healing and antiseptic properties and many use honey to cope with a cold. But Preben Vestergaard Hansen at Copenhagen University Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences believes that the benefits of honey, as well as several other plants and herbs, have been over exaggerated.

“They do have medicinal benefits, but using honey in your tea does not help against diseases,”said Vestgaard Hansen earlier this year at an interview with Danish newspaper Politiken.dk. It is also known that many vitamins are destroyed under heat, so that it is debatable whether honey loses its nutrients when it is heated up. Summary Many agree that eating less sugar is good for your health, but to replace white sugar with honey is not necessarily healthier. Honey, like sucrose, is listed as a source of added sugar when added to a food or beverage during product production. A useful tip is to simply choose the sugar option you think tastes best when you sweeten your food. It is ultimately the amount and how often you use will decide whether it is healthy for you or not.

Original article written by Silje Bjørnstad.

Klikk her for å lese på norsk.