Feel like sweetening up that holiday ham or turkey with a honey glaze? Go ahead. It could add antioxidants to protect your heart and health.
How about tea with honey and lemon for that sore throat? It might do you some good, beyond soothing your throat.
What about honey before and after your workouts? Yes again. It's a good source of carbohydrates for athletes, before and after training.
Hard to believe, after all these years of passing up honey as glorified sugar, that now it's good for us. But it's still sugar, so count the calories.
Honey Baked or Half-Baked
Honey, reports the American Chemical Society, has antioxidants-natural chemicals in foods that help protect against heart disease, cancer and aging. For foods cooked at high temperatures, such as grilled or fried chicken, a honey marinade can minimize the creation of heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs), the World Congress of Food Science and Technology learned last summer. Other marinades can have similar effects, but if you like the taste of honey, enjoy. Marinate the meat or poultry for four hours, refrigerated. The darker the honey, generally the more antioxidants.
Bacteria Fighter
Honey has a reputation for another health capability-killing bacteria. It has long been a folk remedy for healing wounds. Some research supports its bacteria-fighting effect, but it wouldn't be a drug of choice for serious infection. Of course as a bacteria fighter, it can't destroy viruses, which are the culprit in most colds. But it can soothe your sore throat, so add some to your tea or hot lemon water.
Sports Energy
Honey appears to be a useful energy source for athletes. Research funded by the National Honey Board at the University of Memphis, for example, found that as a preworkout energy source, honey produced only milk increases in blood sugar, making it better than dextrose and maltodextrin for avoiding rebound drops in blood sugar.
For the post-exercise glycogen push, a UM study with resistance athletes found that honey plus protein produced a more sustained blood sugar level than protein with sugar and with maltodextrin. A third study with cyclists found that honey compared with dextrose for endurance energy.
Don't Steal the Hive
Good as honey may be for you, you can't eat it by the cup. As researcher Nicki Engeseth, PhD, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, points out: Eating an amount of honey equal in size to a serving of fruits or vegetables might be excessive. However, she states, "People could incorporate more honey in places where they might be using some sort of sweetening agent, like sugar, and this might contribute a significant amount of dietary phenolics." Phenolics, or phenols, are plant compounds that may help combine disease and aging processes.
The University of California, Berkeley Wellness Letter makes a similar point: "Several studies, funded in part by the National Honey Board, have found that honey contains protective antioxidants." But you shouldn't eat honey the way you do fruits and vegetables, says the newsletter. "While a 4-ounce carrot or orange has 40-50 calories (plus fiber, vitamins and minerals) 4 ounces of honey has 350 calories." A normal serving of honey would be a tablespoon, with 64 calories.
As athletes, though, you can have more than a tablespoon, but you will need to exercise portion control and time your intake of simple sugars wisely in particular shortly before or after training to provide energy and glycogen replacement.
Not for Babies
However wholesome honey may be for most of us, never give honey to an infant less than a year in age, either directly or in food or drink. Spores in some honey can cause a serious illness in infants.
