honey vs. sugar

[Guest guest]

HI,

I am not an expert on this but as a beekeeper I have long been interested in

this topic.

Basically, sugar as we know it is pure sucrose. Brown sugar is the same

thing. It just isn't completely refined.

When we eat a big bunch of sucrose it will digest all at once and we get an

energy burst. I may be a little off here, but it can also affect the need

for insulin and the body's reaction to that may be an overdose of insulin.

I think that causes one to get tired or drowsy or something.

I have found, after a lot of years, that I cannot eat a sugary or starchy

meal on the road without getting overpoweringly sleepy in just about 45

minutes. I struggle to keep awake or pull off at the nearest spot where I

can and sleep for 15 minutes or so and then I can go again.

IIf it isn't too bad I can fight through it and before long I can be driving

again with the drowsiness gone. I much prefer to fly or go by bus and sit

back and relax.

Honey, on the other hand, is a combination of a lot of different sugars that

do not digest at the same time and enables one to avoid the energy burst.

Some may digest in a short time and some much longer.

Honey is also quite variable from flower source to flower soure in the make

up of the sugars. Some honeys granulate quickly. Those are much higher in

dextrose than those which do not. While diabetics have to be very careful

with honey, the sugars that make up Tupelo honey enable most diabetics to

use it with care. It is not a cheap honey.

This is not a learned or complete treatise on honey. I am just giving some

ways in which it is dirrent from table sugar.

It is not low in calories. There are some enzymes in honey that has not

been heated. The darker the honey the higher in minerals it is and the more

nutritious.

If you would like an excellent honey that really grows on one, try

Buckwheat. There is not as much of as there used to be because Buckwheat

acreage is declining. It is a dark brown, strong tasting, delicious honey.

Folks that live in Buckwheat country don't think anything else is honey.

Most of the stuff you find in stores with a commercial label has been highly

refined, clarified, filtered and heated high enough to prevent granulation.

I like the " raw " honey better but that is personal. However, I like it all.

Of course, today a lot of it is coming from the Orient, South America, etc.

Cliff