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Comment by foxyv | Hacker News Reader

Table sugar is entirely made up of sucrose. A polymer which is composed of one glucose molecule and one fructose molecule. Fructose is also in most fruit sugars. Honey is one of the worst offenders from a natural source. Finally corn syrup is the absolute worst.

Avoiding refined sugars in general is a good thing, but removing fructose completely would require not eating any fruits or berries either. The rule of thumb is that whole fruits and berries are okay if you get the plant fiber along with the juice and don't eat too many. Fruit juice drinks and refined sugars should be avoided for sure. Especially corn syrup, honey, and maple syrup.

Right now I only use refined sugar to feed yeast in baking breads. Even then, it doesn't take much. I don't drink fruit juice and only occasionally eat whole fruit as a treat. That seems to work okay so far for me, so take it as you will.

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Honey appears to have some other beneficial properties. There is no real evidence that moderate honey consumption causes worse health outcomes.

Just don't give it to infants under 1yo.

I eat a lot of honey, and am a huge fan of maple syrup. I love maple syrup, but I eat it in moderation. I eat it in smaller portions of about half cup daily but can have as much as I want. It's good on it's own as an energy source, and can be used as a natural sweetener. Also, I like to eat my whole grain breads with maple syrup as well. It adds flavor to them, so maybe I should add some! It's easy to eat, and is easy to make with an electric mixer, and it tastes great. So for me that's a win.

That is a lot of pure carbs and no protein or fat. All of your comments seem to be suggesting this diet. "Whole grain" is the only healthy part of your comment.

I think (hope?) the user is trolling.

Honey in small quantities is probably just fine like table sugar or maple syrup. But keep in mind that it's 4:3 ratio of fructose to glucose. In addition is has a ton of minerals and organic compounds thought to be beneficial. But if you drink it in your tea every day you will be taking in a lot of fructose.

The thing with honey is that it is rare and seasonal in nature. Once a month/season/year is probably highly beneficial, daily is likely to be a slow suicide.

Rare and seasonal? It literally does not spoil on any timescale that matters.

Don't preppers keep it as an alternative to sugar or as a carbs calorie source?

Its production is seasonal. Availability follows. Ok?

My point is availability doesn’t follow. That it has a functionally infinite shelf life means that the seasonality of production is not relevant. I can go to my big box grocery store and buy several honeys that are produced within 50 miles of my Midwestern city. I can buy several more that are produced elsewhere. Year round.

> rare and seasonal in nature

I don't know what else to add. You've gone too far off the path. It's pretty simple what OP wrote. Makes a person think about nature, evolution, adaption, is-this-healthy. Ok?

You know what it makes me think? You're chasing extremely marginal gains in life expectancy.

Yes, there's a good chance that in the caveman days I would only have had honey in rare circumstance when I found a good beehive and had time to process it. It would have been consumed fairly quickly unless I had extremely advanced levels of time preference and self control.

I also would probably have been dead by my mid-30s.

Now, I can get high quality, delicious, dark local honey - a year's supply at a tablespoon a day, more than you need - for less than what the average HN poster makes in an hour.

I don't eat that much of it, usually just use it as a maple syrup substitute for a nice weekend breakfast, and should be able to live until my 80s as long as I keep in shape with some basic exercise on a regular basis.

> You've gone too far off the path.

What path, friend? Where is the path? Where are the markings, and who put them there?

There is no path.

> What path, friend?

A person says, "honey seems like a rare seasonal treat in nature for most humans. Should we be eating a lot of it?". Same question gets asked about soy, gluten, beef, etc. It's more of a nutrition observation. It just seems like you missed the whole spirit of the thought.

Curious: Rare and seasonal how? Most honey lasts for years or decades if willing to put up with some crystallization.

All things in moderation... . A dab of honey in tea once a day can't be that many micromorts.

Its production is seasonal. Availability follows. Ok?

Well, can't we buy some and keep it? I know the fresh stuff is tasty, but let's not go Winnie the Pooh. :)

> rare and seasonal in nature

I don't know what else to add. You've gone too far off the path. It's pretty simple what OP wrote. Makes a person think about nature, evolution, adaption, is-this-healthy. Ok?

It's pretty well known honey has an extremely long shelf life due to anti-bacterial substances not found in other sources of sugar.

I think most Americans are doing just fine with high fructose diets. However, there have been a lot of studies coming out, that seem to be suggesting there is some danger of obesity after a certain low carbohydrate diet or skipping carbohydrates altogether, as these diets tend to spike blood sugar rapidly. The most interesting is a study in humans, that showed a significant increase in blood glucose when carbohydrates were restricted . However, the more I look at it the more I feel like the results are definitely not true for me. I still get a pretty nice feeling in my mouth after eating sugar but I don't notice much of a difference in taste, taste just seems dull, bland, sour, and nothing much else, other than I don't feel I need as many carbohydrates as I did before.

>I think most Americans are doing just fine with high fructose diets.

Most Americans are overweight. I wouldn't call that doing fine.

Well, they're prepared for a famine, and since you can live till your late 60s or later while being horrendously out of shape, "fine" is a relative thing, no?

Sure, I guess that is technically considered living.

How in the world would eating less carbs lead to an increase in blood sugar? You must have something backwards. Eating more protein and fat instead of carbs should certainly lead to a decrease in blood sugar.

Which study are you referring to here?

Berries have very little sugar.

https://www.healthline.com/health/best-low-sugar-fruits

Yup! So enjoy them! They are one of my favorite treats. If you don't crush them and only drink the juice and you should be fine. Also don't eat more than 2 cups in a single sitting or drench them in sugar and you should be fine. They are also great with heavy whipping cream.

In addition to your comment, Sugar/Sucrose can be processed by your entire body. Fructose can only be processed by your liver. Consuming too much Fructose (easy to do), is not a good thing for your Liver.

Sugar is a bonded pair of fructose and glucose. In the stomach an enzyme breaks the bond and both sugars are absorbed. Glucose can be used by any cell but fructose is processed by the liver. It seems that fructose is what is disturbing blood and metabolism.

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