Have a sore throat?
Skip the trick of using honey in your tea for it’s healing properties! Honey may be less refined and more natural than white sugar, but honey is still high in calories and fructose. It contains sugar and calories just like any other sweetener. One teaspoon of natural honey contains 22 calories. Honey actually contains more calories than sugar, as one teaspoon of sugar contains 16 calories. The biggest problem with honey is that it is roughly 50% fructose.
One of the big contributors to the aging process and the development and perpetuation of degenerative diseases is Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs). Glycation is when a chemical reaction occurs between proteins and either sugars, lipid peroxidation products (free radicals from oxidative damage), or the breakdown products of sugar. So sugar plays a big role in glycation as does oxidative damage (think PUFA oils and sugar inflammation).
Glycation is the forming of sort of a crust around our cells. Many different studies have shown that this crust contributes to a wide range of diseases including diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, asthma, stroke, cataracts, glaucoma, PCOS, autoimmune disease, and much more.
So what role does fructose play here? Studies have shown that fructose enables glycation reactions ten times more rapidly than glucose![35]
Sure, honey does provide some nutritional benefits that are lacking in white sugar. Honey contains niacin, riboflavin, thiamine and vitamin B6, though it contains only traces of these minerals. Additionally, honey doesn’t even get close to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s recommended daily standards. Although these trace vitamins might make honey a slightly better choice than white sugar, it’s still not a healthy food. Despite the fact that several websites claim honey to be some kind of miracle food, most of these statements are mythical and unproven. If you still think honey is worth using in your baked goods because of the vitamins, let me put it another way: only 2% of honey contains vitamins! And in most cases, store bought honey doesn’t even contain the pollen that is claimed to have health benefits.[36]
Honey without pollen is a watered down, synthetic scam. The majority of honey on supermarket shelves is made from an ultra-filtering process that heats honey to high temperatures, using high levels of pressure to force it through exceptionally small filters to eliminate pollen. Why are they doing this? It is so manufacturers can hide where they are getting the honey from. And why would they want to conceal the honey’s source? Well, because most of the honey comes from Chinese markets that are responsible for allowing dangerous antibiotics and ample amounts of heavy metals to enter imported honey products.[37] Makes you want to throw away those athletic “Honey Gel Packs” doesn’t it!
You might be thinking, “OK Maria, then I will only buy honey from my friends who make their own.” In that case, remember that by weight, a homemade batch of honey is 82% sugar. Half of that sugar (40% of the total weight) is fructose, and the honey still contains only trace amounts of vitamins and minerals.[38] Your body doesn’t care whether you ingest honey or table sugar; once they enter your bloodstream, you produce an abundance of insulin. To your body, sugar is sugar. All types of sugar should be consumed cautiously, even if it is honey. http://mariamindbodyhealth.com/ Read more on glycation, natural sweeteners, coconut sugar and much much more in Keto-Adapted.
Healing a Sore Throat without Honey
Author: Maria Emmerich Recipe type: Drinks Serves: 1
Ingredients
1 chamomile tea bag
1 cup boiling water
1 tsp gelatin
1 TBS coconut oil
Davinci Sweetener or stevia glycinate (to desired sweetness)
Instructions
Place a tea bag in a cute tea cup. Add in a cup of boiling water Stir in the gelatin, coconut oil and natural sweetener. Enjoy.
Traditional Honey Tea = 134 calories, 0g fat, 0g protein, 34.6g carbs, 0g fiber “Healthified” Tea = 124 calories, 13.6g fat, 1.7g protein, 0g carbs, 0g fiber (98% fat, 2% protien, 0% carbs)