Honey sits in this weird cultural spot: simultaneously “ancient medicine,” “superfood,” and “better than sugar.”

When you actually look at the data, you get a much more sober picture:

• Most commercial “honey” is partly fake or heavily processed
  
• Even the best raw, organic honey is still mostly sugar
  
• Pasteurization and ultra-filtration strip away a lot of what people think they’re paying for
  
• At the end of the day, honey belongs in the “minimize” bucket – especially next to truly non-glycemic sweeteners like MonkVee monk fruit and MonkVee stevia
  

Here’s the full breakdown.

1. What Honey Really Is (Chemistry, Not Romance)

Typical composition of real honey:

• 80–85% carbohydrates
  
• 15–17% water
  
• Trace proteins, minerals, organic acids, and bioactives
  

Sugar profile (averages vary by floral source):

• ~39–41% fructose
  
• ~32–36% glucose
  
• Small amounts of sucrose and other sugars
  

Calories:

• About 43 kcal per tablespoon (14 g) – essentially the same as other concentrated sugars.
  

Micronutrients:

• Trace minerals and vitamins are present, but no micronutrients in meaningful amounts per serving.
  

So chemically, honey is a high-fructose, high-glucose sugar syrup with a little bonus chemistry on top (acids, phenolics, enzymes) – not a nutrient-dense food.

2. The “Real Honey” Problem: Adulteration Is Massive

A huge chunk of “honey” in global trade is not what people think it is.

• A 2020 review described honey as one of the most commonly adulterated foods worldwide, often cut with cheaper sugar syrups like HFCS, corn syrup, inverted sugar, cane sugar syrup, rice syrup, etc.
  
• An EU-wide investigation (2021–2022) found 46% of imported honey samples “suspicious” for sugar adulteration, with particularly high rates in certain exporting countries.
  
• Another analysis estimated global honey fraud at 10–30% of traded honey, depending on the market.
  
• Apimondia (International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations) halted honey awards because testing keeps uncovering widespread fraud with sugar syrups and blends that evade basic tests.
  

What this means in practice:

• A lot of “honey” on shelves is effectively flavored sugar syrup: blended with HFCS, rice syrup, or other cheap sugars.
  
• Ultra-filtration removes pollen – which not only strips some value but also makes geographic origin and authenticity harder to verify.
  

So step one: even before we evaluate honey as a food, we have to admit that much of the commercial product isn’t even genuinely good honey.

3. Raw vs Pasteurized Honey: What Processing Destroys

People intuitively know “raw honey” is closer to what they want. They’re not wrong – but there are caveats.

3.1 What pasteurization does

Honey is often heated to ~60–70°C (140–158°F) to:

• Kill yeasts and delay fermentation
  
• Improve clarity and slow crystallization
  

But heat has a cost:

• Glucose oxidase (an enzyme that produces hydrogen peroxide and contributes to antimicrobial activity) starts degrading at relatively modest temperatures; heating to ~55°C (130°F) for 15 minutes can reduce its activity by ~30%.
  
• Heat treatments for liquefaction/pasteurization can reduce certain phenolic compounds (like caffeic acid) and alter antioxidant profiles, depending on the honey.
  
• Pasteurization, filtration, and creaming steps change pollen content and other markers used to authenticate botanical origin, undermining both traceability and some of the “raw plant” character.
  

Net effect:

• Pasteurized, ultra-filtered supermarket honey is less enzymatically active, often lower in certain phenolics, stripped of pollen markers, and closer to “pleasant-tasting sugar syrup with a history” than to a complex raw hive product.
  

3.2 Raw/organic honey

Raw, minimally processed honey retains:

• More enzymes (like glucose oxidase, diastase)
  
• More phenolic compounds and flavonoids
  
• Live pollen and some microbial signatures
  

Those compounds do have documented antimicrobial, antioxidant, and even wound-healing effects in certain contexts (especially specific varieties like Manuka).

But critically:

• None of this changes the fact that raw honey is still ~80–85% sugar, high in fructose and glucose, and ~43 kcal per tablespoon.
  

Raw honey is better than pasteurized honey from a bioactive standpoint, but metabolically it is still sugar-dense.

4. Honey vs Sugar in Human Studies: “Less Bad” Is Not “Good”

There are trials comparing honey to sucrose. Often, honey comes out “less bad” – which is not the same as “health food.”

4.1 Lipids and glycemia

Randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses show:

• In one RCT in healthy young adults, honey reduced total cholesterol, LDL, and triglycerides and increased HDL compared with sucrose, which worsened the lipid profile.
  
• A meta-analysis of mostly RCTs found that honey consumption (vs sugar or other controls) was associated with reductions in fasting glucose, total cholesterol, LDL, triglycerides, and CRP, and increases in HDL – especially with raw, mono-floral honey.
  
• Another trial where 25% of energy came from honey vs pure fructose–glucose mixtures found honey led to slightly lower postprandial glucose but similar insulin and triglyceride outcomes overall.
  

For diabetes:

• Small human studies in type 1 and type 2 diabetes show lower postprandial glucose rises with certain honeys compared to equivalent carbohydrate from sugar – but honey still raises blood sugar, and guidelines remain cautious.
  

So stacked against sucrose:

• Honey looks metabolically “less bad” – likely due to its mix of fructose/glucose, bioactives, and slower absorption in some contexts.
  
• But it is still an added sugar with real glycemic and caloric impact.
  

4.2 Public health guidelines

Major guidelines don’t carve out a big exception for honey:

• WHO and other bodies recommend limiting all “free sugars” (added sugars, honey, syrups, juices) to <10% of calories, ideally <5%, due to risk of obesity, diabetes, CVD, and NAFLD. Honey is explicitly included as free sugar.
  

So even with the “better than refined sugar” data, the correct classification is:

Honey is still in the sugar category; at best it is a less harmful sugar, not a metabolic enhancer.

5. “But It’s Natural and Medicinal” – True and Misleading

Honey does have legitimate medicinal uses:

• Antimicrobial and wound-healing effects (especially certain honeys like Manuka)
  
• Relief of cough in children and adults; RCTs show small amounts of honey can reduce cough frequency and improve sleep compared with placebo or some OTC syrups.
  

Those uses are therapeutic, short-term, and low-dose.

Where the narrative goes off the rails is when that evidence is used to justify:

• Daily large spoonfuls of honey “for immunity”
  
• Honey-glazed everything as a wellness hack
  
• Pouring honey into hot drinks constantly (which also degrades enzymes and some antioxidants as temperature climbs)
  

And again, you’re often not even getting high-quality raw honey – you might be getting adulterated or overprocessed product.

6. Hidden Risks and Misconceptions

A few things that rarely show up in the glossy wellness posts:

• Infants under 1 year should never be given honey due to the risk of botulism spores; this is standard pediatric guidance.
  
• “Organic” and “raw” on a label do not guarantee non-adulteration; fraud has been detected across many categories and origins.
  
• Heating honey above moderate temperatures (in cooking or hot drinks) wipes out much of the enzyme advantage and modifies phenolics; at that point, you’ve kept most of the sugar and discarded much of the nuance.
  
• For people with metabolic issues (T2D, NAFLD, high triglycerides, insulin resistance), honey still contributes:
  
  
  Significant fructose load (liver burden)
  
  
  Significant glucose load (glycemic impact)
  
  
  

Even if the spike is a bit gentler than sucrose, in that population it’s still gasoline, just with nicer packaging.

7. Honey vs MonkVee Monk Fruit & Stevia

Now put honey next to what you’re actually basing your sweetener strategy on.

Honey

• ~80% sugar: mostly fructose + glucose
  
• ~43 kcal per tablespoon; contributes to free sugar intake.
  
• Moderate glycemic index (often ~50–60) – lower than some sugars, but still raises blood glucose.
  
• Shows some advantages vs sucrose for lipids and glycemia in RCTs, but still firmly in the “limit this” bucket.
  
• Widely adulterated in the global supply chain.
  

MonkVee Monk Fruit (mogrosides)

Monk fruit sweeteners, in general:

• 100–250× sweeter than sugar, used at tiny doses.
  
• GI ~0 – they do not raise blood sugar or insulin at normal use levels.
  
• Monk fruit extract (mogrosides) is GRAS per multiple FDA GRAS notices; no adverse effects at high doses in animals.
  

MonkVee’s formulations:

• Pure monk fruit extract (~150× sweeter) – no sugar, no fructose, no HFCS, no agave, no honey.
  
• Golden / Original 1:1 blends – monk fruit + erythritol for sugar-like volume and behavior in recipes, still essentially zero-glycemic.
  

MonkVee Stevia (Reb A)

Stevia/steviol glycosides:

• 200–300× sweeter than sugar; no calories and no carbs at typical doses.
  
• Pure stevia (refined steviol glycosides) is GRAS; multiple human trials show no significant rise in blood glucose or insulin – often neutral, sometimes modestly beneficial.
  

MonkVee advantage:

• Uses pure stevia (Reb A) without padding it with dextrose or maltodextrin, so you’re not secretly reintroducing sugar.
  

From a metabolic-design standpoint:

• Honey = caloric, high-sugar, partially beneficial but adulteration-prone “less bad” sweetener.
  
• MonkVee monk fruit & stevia = non-glycemic, essentially zero-calorie, GRAS-recognized sweeteners that actually decouple sweetness from sugar and fructose load.
  

They’re not even in the same category.

8. Practical Positioning

For a high-standard, evidence-based sweetener strategy:

• Honey
  
  Can be used therapeutically in tiny doses (e.g., cough, certain wound-care and niche uses). As a daily sweetener, especially in people with metabolic issues, it’s still sugar and should be treated like sugar. If someone insists on honey, the best you can say is: Use small amounts of verified raw, local honey. Count it as added sugar.
  Keep total free sugars <5–10% of calories.
  
• MonkVee monk fruit & stevia
  
  
  Should be the default sweetness backbone when the goal is metabolic repair, glycemic stability, and longevity-style nutrition.
  
  They let you reformulate recipes—coffee, tea, yogurt, baked goods, sauces—around protein, fiber, and healthy fats, while removing the honey/sugar/fructose burden entirely.
  

In other words:

Honey is not the enemy, but it’s not a hero either. It’s an occasionally useful, biochemically interesting sugar in a world where you now have truly non-glycemic, non-fructose alternatives like MonkVee monk fruit and MonkVee stevia.