Produced by bees, honey is a natural sweetener that can be used in place of sugar. In addition to being a healthy replacement, it can bring many health benefits.
This is what a new study points out, published in the scientific journal Nutrition Reviews in November last year. Research has linked honey consumption to lower cholesterol levels, as well as improved blood sugar control.
To assess the benefits of eating the food, University of Toronto researchers conducted a systematic review and analysis of 18 clinical trials, involving more than 1,100 participants.
The daily dose of honey ingested by these people was 40 grams. The results showed that the group had lower levels of fasting blood glucose, reduced bad cholesterol and triglycerides, increased HDL or “good” cholesterol and a decrease in a marker of fatty liver disease.
Participants, in addition to consuming honey, followed healthy eating patterns. One such pattern was sugar consumption, including honey, accounting for 10% or less of daily calorie intake.
The researchers even observed benefits of ingesting raw honey and honey from monofloral sources.
advantages of honey
The great nutritional advantage of honey compared to refined sugar, according to the professor and founding beekeeper of Cia da Abelha, Armindo Vieira, is the fact that the sucrose from the nectar of the flower has already been digested by the bee, saving human beings from carry out this process.
This means the bee that digests the honey. And if it digests the honey, the free radical resulting from this process stays in its body and it releases glucose and fructose molecules missing radicals back into the food. Thus, honey, when ingested, has the function of scavenging free radicals in the human body, explains Vieira.
“Sugar has oxidizing power in our organism, while honey has antioxidant power and antibiotic activity against bacteria, fungi, yeasts and viruses”, he says.
honey quality
On the other hand, it is not all honey that, when used in place of refined sugar, is beneficial to the body. Beekeeper Armindo warns of the quality of industrialized food.
Industrial honey has not passed through the bee, so it is a counterfeit product. In this case, the bee did not visit the flower. “In industrial honey, the nectar is simulated and the enzyme used is synthetic, made from a laboratory process”, says Vieira.
Another tip given by Vieira is the preference for darker honey, since its color is determined by its mineral salt content. The more mineral salts the honey has, the darker it is.