All about honey

This article regarding honey, its use and all of its benefits has come about thanks to the numerous questions you have sent us.
We decided to get together with our provider of honey, Mr. Petr Kořínek to answer your questions.

We will answer your questions in the following text. If you can’t find your specific question it’s most likely because we had a lot of similar questions and it’s probably answered in a more broad fashion. If you come up with some new ideas feel free to use the comments section below the article. 🙂

Questions and Answers:

Zuzana S.

Is there such a thing as Bio (organic) Honey and non-bio honey?

Is pine honey the best?

We buy our honey from the company MEDAR? Are you familiar with this company and would you recommend them?

Petr:
Yes Bio honey does exist. As a beekeeper though, I can’t say there is much of a difference. It depends on what beekeepers do to reach highest quality honey.
Which kind of honey is the best? There is none that is better than the others. Pine honey contains more minerals, compared to flower honey, it can contain as much as double the amount of complex sugars (sucrose, melezitose). Flower honey contains more vitamins and pollen, it’s easier to digest but also crystallizes more quickly. The best kind of honey is the one that you enjoy the most. We like spring honey paste the best, it comes from the widest spectrum of flowers. Unfortunately, we are not very familiar with Slovakian market and companies.

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gabina.j

…with honey I was wondering if it’s possible to tell whether sugar has been added to it. Also, I have heard that cooking transforms honey from healthy food to something even harmful to the body.

Petr:
When it comes to refined sugar, it most likely isn’t used in honey to “fake” it. More likely, it will be syrups and isosugars. Best fakes are hard to identify even in a laboratory setting. Look at honey paste, it has prominent white coloring, but it has no added sugar in it. Best source of honey would be honey directly from a beekeeper.

Radek:

Transformation of honey into a harmful or even toxic substance by way of cooking is a myth. Nothing major happens even if you put it in your hot tea. Before anything can really happen to it, you will have drank your tea anyway. There is some degree of degradation, but it doesn’t happen instantly. If we use it for cooking, we will diminish its benefits somewhat, but it still retains its function as the solitary sweetener that SCD can allow. If you really want all the benefits of honey, then your best course of action is to take a spoonful and put it straight into your mouth, that is easily the most reliable way. 🙂
Otherwise I think the myth about toxicity is based on connecting two unrelated facts. It’s true that honey may be toxic, but that doesn’t happen through heating or cooking, but bees may gather nectar from toxic flowers. But that is a question of the location of the gathering.
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aja

Can we use honey in spite of overgrowth of yeast?

Radek:
In moderate amounts yes, but only in the morning and hours before noon, when the body has a chance to use it all up and leave nothing to the yeast.

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Marko R.

1. What is the glycaemic index of honey?
2. Is it true you can discern the quality of honey by measuring its electric conductivity?

Petr:
1. Glycaemic index is around 35 to 58, depending on its structure.
2. Honey is mostly divided into two major categories: flower and pine. Using electric conductivity, you can discern between these two categories. Conductivity of honey has a wide spectrum. I don’t think it’s used to verify the authenticity of honey.

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Jana B.

Good day,
I read somewhere that honey is the only sweetener with which you don’t gain weight. Is this accurate?

Radek:
I believe you can gain weight eating anything as long as it surpasses the amount you burn throughout the day. If your metabolism is slowed, as is the issue of most uninformed people of today, you will probably gain weight eating anything even in minimal amounts.

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Mirek P.

I’m keen to know how is the honey paste made. Does the honey lose any of its common benefits?

Petr:
Only some kinds of honey are made into paste, most commonly spring honey (it crystallizes very quickly, within a week). The principle of honey paste is simple. During the crystallization process, the honey is stirred, which breaks the crystals of honey into smaller fragments, thus creating the paste. This is how the honey retains its creamy texture for a long time. Nothing is added to the honey. And it loses none of its healthy benefits or features.

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Martina K.

I would like to know if we can use honey on a daily basis. How is honey different from fructose? I was under the impression that honey also contains fructose.

Petr:
Honey is recommended for daily consumption. Besides sugars such as glucose and fructose, it also contains vitamins and minerals, enzymes and amino acids. Honey is therefore complex nutrition and belongs to the category of super foods.
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A.L.C.

I’m interested to know what is the ratio of simple and complex sugars in honey. I started sweetening my cooking and baking with honey, I’m convinced it’s the better way. What about honey and diabetes?

Petr:
The ratio of glucose, fructose and higher sugars is different for each honey. Czech guidelines state that sucrose should not exceed 5%. Analysis of our honey showed that our spring honey contains less than 0,2% of sucrose, second sample was around 1,1%. You can find basic analysis on our site www.medkorinek.cz/o-nas/oceneni (available in Czech language only). In recent years we had a newcomer in the form of melezitose, also known as “concrete honey”. I don’t dare to estimate what percentage of trisaccharide is contained within it. It can be mostly found in pine and mixed honeys (pine with flower).

Radek:
Regarding diabetes, if we google around we can see it’s an interesting topic. We can find a lot of information and articles that speak positively of the benefits of treating DM not only from doctors specializing in the field but also from people’s own experiences. Such experience has been even shared with us over the years from our SCD community.
On the other hand, there are still some that advise to maintain the traditional model of treatment and nutrition, despite the fact that they do not lead to recovery.
My opinion is… when I wanted to deal with my health, although it wasn’t DM, I went and looked for available information and verifiable cases of successful recovery. I think this attitude can be used for most conditions. And the only thing that can really prevent you from healing is your own resistance to new information…

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Gabriela H.

What is a healthy amount of honey in a day?

Radek:

Such that you can manage to use for your benefit.

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Petra S.

Greetings, I was wondering if beekeepers feed bees with sugar and if it has any effect on the honey itself?

Petr:
It can be safely stated that we feed bees with sugar in the autumn months 100% of the time. If beekeepers maintain proper techniques and procedures (I will not estimate what is the percentage of such beekeepers), the sugar stores cannot reach the honey. Sugar stores in the autumn are only for the benefit of bees and the coming winter and early spring months. They should not be able to get into the honey.

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Andrea V.

Hello, here are my honey questions.

1. I buy honey from a beekeeper. It’s firm and white, slightly creamy. Why is it white and what kind of honey is it? Is it suitable for SCD?

2. I’m not sure what to look for, if I have to buy honey from a regular store. What’s the price to look for or containing substances to watch out for?

3. Can I tell how much sugar is in honey?

4. What vitamins does honey contain?

5. How much can I heat honey so that it doesn’t lose its vitamins?

Petr:

1. It’s better to ask your beekeeper directly. It’s most likely spring honey, either crystallized or paste. As I stated above, such honey will have this color. For SCD best suited honey would be flower honey.

2. If your beekeeper is no longer available, find another one. It’s best to have at least two such sources.

3. Containing sugars, be they simple or complex can only be identified through laboratory analysis.

4. Vitamins will differ based on the kind of honey. Possible vitamins would be B1, B2, B3, B5, B6 and C.

5. There is a lot of misinformation regarding the heating of honey and avoiding the diminishing of its effects. Oftentimes it’s overlooked how long has the honey been exposed to the heat. There is a difference whether you exposed the honey to 50 °C for the duration of 10 hours or 2 weeks. If you want to know more about honey and heat, you can check out this article.

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jodehnaljojo

How is forest honey made? What is pine honey?

What does it mean when honey has slightly sour taste?

Petr:
Pine honey (which is sometimes called forest honey, but forest honey may also be flower honey) is chiefly made using insect filtered sap of flowers (aphids feed on the sap from flowers and the excess sugar from this sap is secreted in the form of honeydew) which the bees gather and process.

Sour taste may indicate fermentation of the honey.

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Zuzana P.

Hello, I’d like to know how to verify the authenticity of honey. Why do some honeys crystallize quickly and some don’t do so even after a long time. Thank you, Zuzana

Petr:
Each honey will be different when it comes to crystallizing. It’s a natural feature. The speed of which depends on the honeys structure, mainly depending on the amount of pollen. Honeys with lower amounts of pollen will crystallize more slowly (more than a full year even). From our honeys, spring honey crystallizes the fastest. It can be as quick as one week. This honey is used for honey paste. The slowest crystallizing honey would be pine honey (they should contain no pollen at all). From flower honeys the slowest would be acacia.

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Janinka S

Good day, I get my honey from a beekeeper. And have been doing so for years. I was wondering which honey is better, liquid or solid (white)?

Petr:
I am not certain what do you mean by solid. If you are talking about honey paste, it’s simply a matter of light processing of the honey. Nothing should be ever added to honey. So it’s really your run of the mill honey, but in a paste form. It’s common for this honey to be purchased in families with kids, since it doesn’t drip and doesn’t make nearly as much mess. Another benefit of honey paste would be that it doesn’t crystallize further and is easy to use as a spread.

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Kamila V.

I’m keen to know if replacing sugar with honey can help with losing weight. So how does it look from caloric perspective as a sweetener.
Also, how necessary is sugar for kids and are there cases where it’s better to avoid honey. Are there instances where it can be harmful. Thank you very much. :))

Radek:
You can start losing weight if you secure lower intake of nutrition compared to your energy output. You cannot lose weight by slowing down the metabolism completely with long term starvation or other means of miracles. It’s about directing the body to start correctly burning calories and then it’s a question of coordination of input and output. There is nothing more to it.

As for children, there is a general guidelines – start introducing honey from third year of age, but I’m not sure where did it come from to be honest. I have not been able to find any research on this topic…

Avoiding honey is advisable to people whose lifestyles have developed an allergy to it.

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Tatiana

Good day :-),

I know that good quality honey can crystallize, but is it possible that honey doesn’t crystallize at all? I have my honey from a beekeeper and it’s still perfectly liquid. No signs of crystallizing. Is this OK?

Petr:
Some honeys can crystallize more slowly even exceeding a full year. For example acacia flower honey or pine honey.

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If you have more questions regarding honey, feel free to use the comments section below, we will be looking forward to your inquiries 🙂