Honey: It’s natural. Mom probably gave it to you, either straight or in tea for a sore throat when you were a kid. Even today, honey is touted as possessing almost supernatural qualities for promoting health.
Honey contains B vitamins, minerals, and a handful of antioxidants. It also contains . . . fructose. 60% of honey, in fact, is fructose.
While the average per capita intake of honey is only a modest 1.29 lb per year (National Honey Board; 2008) and therefore contributes only 0.77 lb of fructose per year, there are people who, believing honey to be healthy, use it to excess and use far more than 1.29 lb per year.
How does that compare to table sugar, or sucrose?
Sucrose is 50:50 glucose to fructose. How about high-fructose corn syrup, the sweetener found in virtually all processed foods that has replaced sucrose as the most common sweetener? Depending on the variety, high-fructose corn syrup is generally 42-55% fructose. Many of us (including me) believe that the proliferation of high-fructose corn syrup in processed foods is a big part of the reason Americans are fat and diabetic.
Yes: Judged by its fructose content, honey is worse than high-fructose corn syrup . It is also worse than sucrose.
It means that honey can also contribute to the adverse health effects of fructose, as detailed in this prior Heart Scan Blog post.