Issue No. 047 · Honey

Honey beat sugar on paper. Then I checked the spoon.

Honey scores lower on the GI chart. Spoon for spoon, it carries 36% more sugar.

I trusted honey for years.

My doctor told me to cut sugar, so I swapped the white stuff in my morning tea for a heaping spoon of honey.

I felt proud of that swap. Every morning I watched the gold ribbon fold into my mug and thought I had beaten the system. The label said natural, and the GI chart agreed with the label.

Then I read the back of the jar and did the math with a measuring spoon... and the numbers flipped.

GI values are published averages, and honey varies widely by flower source. Your own response may differ. This is not medical advice, so talk with your doctor before changing how you manage your blood sugar.

Here is the part the GI chart leaves out.

Glycemic index compares foods at the same amount of carbs, not the same spoon. Table sugar scores about 65 on that scale. Average honey scores about 58.

That gap comes from fructose. Honey holds more fructose than glucose, and fructose goes to your liver first, so less of it shows up in your blood as glucose right away. A small 2008 study in healthy adults found that basswood honey raised blood glucose less than a sugar water mixed to match it.

In other words, gram for gram, honey wins by a few points.

But nobody eats honey by the gram.

Honey is dense. A level tablespoon of honey weighs about 21 grams and carries about 17 grams of sugar. That same tablespoon of white sugar carries about 12.5 grams. So the honey spoon brings 36% more sugar to your mug before the GI discount even starts.

Multiply GI by grams and that lead disappears. A tablespoon of honey has a glycemic load of about 10. Sugar comes in at about 8.

Honey wins the chart. Sugar wins the spoon.

And the jar hides one more problem. Honey is not one food. The International Tables of Glycemic Index list honeys from 32 to 87, depending on the flowers and the fructose. I can’t tell you where your squeeze bottle falls, and neither can its label.

My doctor never mentioned any of this.

A fifteen-minute visit leaves no time to talk about spoons. That job falls to you, and to the measuring spoons already sitting in your kitchen drawer.

By the way, this is not a case against honey. Both sweeteners raise blood sugar. What matters is which spoon you hold and how deep you dip it.

So I kept the honey... and changed the spoon. A level teaspoon holds about 6 grams of sugar, for a glycemic load near 3.5. I also stopped stirring it into plain tea on an empty stomach. Now it goes on Greek yogurt, where the protein and fat may slow how fast that sugar reaches my blood.

You were told to give up sugar. You never had to give up the honey jar.

The jar was never the enemy. My heaping tablespoon was.

★ Welcome to the revolution

Jackie