It’s common knowledge that honey is one of the healthy and accessible substitutes for sugar, but along the way to prove that it’s better than refined sugar several myths passed as truths in many people’s minds.
Today, we are going to name all the myths regarding honey. In other words, we’ll be clearing honey’s name. Therefore, with no further ado, let’s go to the subject and break down all honey myths.
1. All Bees Produce Honey
Many people don’t know that there are many different species of bees. As well, they consider that all the bees can produce honey for consumption but they couldn’t be more wrong. While all bees are able to make honey, it’s the quality they are able to produce that matters.
2. Bees Don’t Need Honey to Survive
There’s this theory that says bees don’t need honey to survive but it couldn’t be more wrong. Bees depend on honey to survive, that’s why they produce it in the first place, not for our consumption.
3. Honey Never Spoils
This is the most common myth out of all I think – honey doesn’t spoil. While in some condition it is true, in others is very wrong because it has the capacity to be spoiled. If you preserve it well and you never let the jar open for extended periods of time it can last forever. On the other hand, if you do let it open for extended periods of time it will spoil because it sucks the moisture.
4. Crystalized Honey is Spoiled Honey
After a long while honey might change its texture, but its composition remains the same. In fact, it’s due to its composition the change of texture, but even after crystallization, honey remains the same – the same taste and nutrients.
5. Honey can not be heated, because when it is heated, it releases toxins and becomes toxic
When heated, natural honey cannot emit poisons and toxins, because they are not initially present in it. If we are talking about honey with the addition of artificial fillers that turn the product into a fake, then anything can happen to such a product. It is important to separate the concepts of “nutritional value of honey” and “bactericidal properties of honey”. Natural honey during prolonged heating, for example, in the oven as part of baking, does not lose its nutritional value, but it says goodbye to bactericidal properties instantly. So you can safely add honey to porridge or hot tea if you want to add sweets.
6. It’s Suicide for a Bee to Sting
This is probably the first myth I ever heard about bees, it is not particularly about honey, but it’s about the ones that produce it. This myth is a half-truth – not true and not wrong either.
You see, the bee dies only if it can’t manage to get its stinger out of your skin so it breaks along with its abdomen, so it dies. But the bee can still sting you and manage to get its stinger out of your skin so nothing breaks and the bee survives.
Therefore, the bee doesn’t die because it stings you but because your skin is too thick to get its stinger out of your skin.
7. Honey on Metal is Destructive to the Metal
It is well known that honey is a bit acid, and the same as any acid edible, if it stays long enough on metal it can destroy it a bit. But it has to stay for quite a while to see some damage, so at the end of the day honey can be destructive to the metal is some circumstances, so it’s not a fact.
8. “Honeymoon”
The term “Honeymoon” came to us from ancient rites, in which honey was also directly involved. Then it was decided that in the first month the newlyweds must have eaten honey and drink honey drinks. Now, unlike past centuries, the “honeymoon” is associated primarily with a trip, during which you can plunge into a romantic atmosphere, forgetting about workdays and small things.
9. Foamy Honey and Has a Different Color than Light Brown Has Gone Bad
Honey comes in many shades of colors and even its texture may vary. But its color has nothing to do with it being spoiled or not. Honey comes in different colors because it comes from different flowers – the color is dependent on the flower is coming from.
10. Sweeteners and Table Sugars are more Delicious than Honey
Those who believe this: have you ever tasted honey? Honey, it’s not only healthier but also sweeter and has fewer calories than sugar, so with less honey, you’ll obtain the same sweetness as you used to with sugar.
Honey is basically the same as sugar because is composed mostly of glucose and fructose, but it also has the nutrients and vitamins, which make it healthier. So whether is more delicious or not is just a matter of taste, it’s not a fact.
Conclusion
Honey is so much better for your health than sugar is, and you can ask anyone about this. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you can overuse it because it can still lead to obesity, which leads to a lot of health issues.
Anyway, it’s important to know the truth about anything, and breaking the myths is the first step. Now that you know the truth about honey you can feel free to use it but you should make sure is natural or as natural as possible.
Justin Osborne is a writer at dissertation service and paper writing service, he loves to share his thoughts and opinions about education, writing and blogging with other people on different blogs and forums. Currently, he is working as a content marketer at bid4papers review and 99papers review.
9 Comments
I live in Nelson Mandela Bay, (Port Elizabeth) Republic of South Africa.
Our bees are the African variety; what the Americans call killer bees. They produce a full super or more per season but you have to always work fully suited. A friend only wears a head veil & gets dozens of stings regularly. He says afterwards that he feels “warm”
I have3 hives in my backyard.
I have diabetes does the sugar in honey have an effect on me or is it not high in sugar as to effect me. Thanks Ed
Hello Ed,
Sadly, honey has slightly more carbohydrates than sugar does, so yes, if you’re diabetic, you have to moderate your honey intake as well. If you prefer the taste of honey to sugar, use it, but be sure to count the carbohydrates in your eating plan.
An interesting article but because of so many typos and mixed up edits, I’m not entirely sure the information you wanted to present was as clear as it could have been. The wording of point #9 was particularly confusing. “Foamy” was not addressed at all in the answer and I was curious as to what was meant by the word in the heading.
Frank, Thank you for your feedback. We have recently switched some things around here in terms of personnel so that we can spend a little more time copy editing everything that appears on the site.
Thank you for #6, so few know that the European honey bee does not die when it stings, but you did get the dynamics slightly wrong.
Rare is the sting when the stinger does not come off the body of the bee. How it comes off is what determines living/dying. Usually, the slightest touch of the stinger, it comes out, and if you watch the stinger, it has a separate “pump” and will visibly pulsate as it pumps the venom, usually for about 30 seconds.
A clean separation from her body assures that she will live a normal long life as if she has not stung at all, and will even be welcomed back into the hive.
But the “suicide” aspect is also 100% accurate if she gets slapped to death for the stinging.
In the course of using Apitherapy (bee venom and the other “dozen” products from the hive for health and healing) I have administered 50 or so stings a week for 15 years (I personally use BVT…Bee Venom Therapy…mostly for pain management…but also for healing)…so, maybee 35,000 stings. At first, I lost almost all of them (bees), their stinger “pulled their guts out”. Within a year, I was at the point of losing only 1 in 50 bees or so.
When getting my bees in the mail, (yes, there are several companies that will mail 20-100 bees to you, once or on a schedule) and some have been around in America for 20-30 years doing so) I kept them in a homemade “bee hotel”. The bees that stung me were placed in a separate residence, and those live to an identical length of time as those that had not stung yet. (I did have to learn how to feed and keep them comfortable).
When I got my own hives a dozen years ago, I took bees out year around, and in the summer observed the ones I released fly back into the hive, past the guard bees without notice. After that, my best guess, because I cannot tell at a glance or sometimes looking closely whether the stinger is in place or not when I see a random bee.
I loved this article and think it is one of the most accurately written ones I have read out of thousands (I assisted in gathering and “vetting” articles for the free monthly newsletter for the (non-profit) American Apitherapy Society (AAS), as well as their quarterly…for members only…for about 13 years). For more information, see Apitherapy.org
I have now “retired” from my volunteer work for the organization, and the publications are now being handled by very competent, expert editor(s).
Honey as among the lowest of “glycemic index” of sugars, the best to use if a tendency for sugar sensitivities. The American Apitherapy Society (non profit) Offers information as well as courses for using honey for all types of heath problems, and using a few hive products like honey, propolis, BVT (bee venom) to moderate effects and symptoms of diabetes. This area of Apitherapy is just now entering the arena of offering multiple (free) options of controlling this autoimmune condition. Many of the (volunteer) instructors for the AAS are Internationally acclaimed MD’s,
This is TERRIBLY badly written! Usually the standards of writing on this site are poor – it’s written by bee-keepers, not by professional writers. But in this case, I was sure I was reading the writing of a non-native speaker of English or a google translation of an article from another language. It’s just extraordinarily bad.
Incredible that something of this low quality not only is published, but is attributed by someone styling him- or herself an ‘editor’ and a writer.
As a former college writing instructor, editor and ghost-writer with advanced degrees in English from Berkeley and Oxford, I’m appalled. And I’m cancelling my subscription. For awhile, the information was worth plowing through clumsy writing, but with this article, you’ve hit rock-bottom. Not only is the writing abysmal, the ‘information’ is banal and useless.
Before you start writing, it’s safe to sketch. A plan will help you take care of things. Write down any important key points so that you don’t forget to add them to your essay. A decent outline will help you write a logical and clear analysis of your chosen topic. The outline is the same as for traditional compositions.