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Comment by electrograv | Hacker News Reader

Question: Does this mean honey and high fructose corn syrup are approximately equally [1] unhealthy? Or is honey an anomaly/enigma [2] in this respect?

[1] Apparently honey contains ~40% fructose, which about the same as “HFCS42” (a standard 42% fructose corn syrup product).

[2] I ask this because I’ve read many claims that honey is among the healthiest forms of sugar, with many studies cited that show all sorts of health benefits of honey (at least versus table sugar or HFCS). Is this pseudoscientific bunk that I’ve been mislead to believe?

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[1] Honey is bad if you've got issues digesting fructose. For someone with IBS, or another digestive issue, the FODMAP diet recommends no more than 1 teaspoon of honey with a meal (ie every 4 hours). The FODMAP diet tracks fructose-in-excess-of-glucose as that is one of the common triggers of digestive issues. Its not saying that honey is unhealthy, but rather honey causes issues for some folks.

Here's more about sweeteners on the FODMAP diet (RN reviewed too!) https://alittlebityummy.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-low-fodmap...

It sounds to me like fruit itself is implicated, so honey certainly would be. My rule is, anything that tastes sweet is probably bad for me, but I have some digestive issues. I would like to do nothing but greens, oily fish and some roots to round out the calories, but I am weak willed.

Use pure Glucose?

Its not the sweets that I break down for, its cured meats and cheeses, and occasionally I want grains really badly.

> occasionally I want grains really badly

Is that because you are in a low carb diet? A few friends went that way and mentioned some craving for grains

Not terribly low. I eat plenty of root vegetables. Sometimes sourdough just smells really good.

Don't worry about fruit.

If I recall, studies of holistic health almost always find that eating fruit is good for you.

I'm sure the quantity and concentration of fructose matters too.

This depends a great deal on the quality of honey. Most honey at the supermarket is adulterated [1]. If you can find raw, unfiltered honey, then it will contain additives such as pollen, beeswax, and parts of bees. The additives have nutritional value, yes, but the overwhelming majority of honey is the nutritional equivalent of simple syrup.

Probably the "best" sugar you can use is date sugar, which is just dried, ground-up dates. But if you really want to eat healthily, then you should eat plants instead of rich foods.

[1] https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store...

My brother keeps his own bees who pollinate wild flowers. His honey still triggers an auto inflammatory response in me.

It’s not the source of the fructose that matters (at least not much). My autoimmune processes go into overdrive due to biome activity that is exacerbated by all sugars including carbs. The source of the sugar is of second order importance.

Fluid honey mainly is fructose, the one which crystalizes easily is mainly glucose.

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