The use of honey dates back to the ancient Egyptians, where honey was used as an offering to their gods and goddesses, for embalming the dead, and as a topical ointment for healing wounds and preventing infection. This viscous, syrupy food is a staple in many homes across the United States and can add the perfect amount of sweetness to a variety of different beverages, baked goods, and other dishes. While honey is a natural sweetener, it does contain sugar and, as such, has a relatively high carbohydrate content per serving. For those practicing the ketogenic lifestyle, is honey off-limits?
Honey is not considered keto. While all foods, in theory, can fit into a ketogenic diet approach, some high carbohydrate foods, like honey, can make it difficult to stay below the low daily carbohydrate targets. The best keto alternatives to honey are SweetLeaf Organic Stevia, Pyure Organic Harmless Hunny, and Llinea Monk Fruit Liquid Sweetener.
In this article we’ll discuss a brief overview and history of honey, nutritional content, some proposed health benefits, and several honey alternatives. Let’s get started!
Contents
What is Honey?
Honey is defined in the Encyclopedia Britannica as a “sweet, viscous liquid food, dark golden in color, produced in the honey sacs of various bees from the nectar of flowers.” There are over 300 different varieties of honey, each with its own unique texture and flavor profile. Honey achieves different flavors and colors based on the flowers from which the nectar is gathered. Most honey can be purchased in either raw or pasteurized forms. It is a delicious, all-natural sweetener made up of 80% sugar and 20% water.
Some common types of honey include clover honey, buckwheat honey, alfalfa honey, orange blossom honey, and sage honey. The nutritional profile will vary slightly depending on the type of honey, but generally 1 tablespoon of honey contains 64 calories, 17 grams of carbohydrate, with virtually no fat, protein, sodium, or fiber.
How is Honey Made?
Honey is made from the nectar of flowering plants. Honey bees use a long tube-shaped tongue to remove the nectar from the flowers. It is then stored in the bee’s extra stomach. Once inside of the stomach, the nectar mixes with enzymes to create a more chemically stable product to allow for long-term storage.
The honey bee returns to its hive and passes the nectar into another bee’s mouth by way of regurgitation. This process is repeated until the nectar is eventually deposited into a honeycomb. Here, the nectar is stored and the honey bees get busy fanning it to speed up the water evaporation process.
When most of the water is evaporated, bees will seal the honeycomb with a liquid from its stomach. This liquid eventually hardens and becomes what we know as beeswax. Once the honey is sealed away from air and water, it can be stored indefinitely and honey bees will use this stored honey as a primary food source during the winter.
Honey Harvesting
Honey is harvested first by collecting honeycomb frames from honey bee hives. After collection, the beeswax is removed from each honeycomb cell. The wax-free honeycombs are then placed into an extractor that spins them rapidly to force the honey out of the cells.
After the honey is fully removed from the honeycomb, it is strained to remove any wax that may be remaining. At this point, some honey producers will heat, or pasteurize, the honey before bottling and distributing for sale.
Is Honey Keto-Friendly?
While honey may be regarded as a healthier alternative to sugar, it may not be the best fit for those following a ketogenic diet. To get into ketosis, many will need to consume between 20-30 grams of net carbohydrate per day. With just 1 tablespoon of honey providing around 17 grams of net carb, it may make hitting that target very challenging. For many, the high sugar content in one serving of honey could consume more than half of their daily carbohydrate allowance. Because of this, honey should be limited or possibly avoided while following a ketogenic diet.
Proposed Health Benefits of Honey
Despite its high sugar content, honey has long been regarded as a healthier alternative to sugar because of its antioxidant composition and naturally occurring vitamins, minerals, and enzymes. These vitamins include vitamins B6, niacin, riboflavin, thiamin, and pantothenic acid while the minerals that honey contains include calcium, iron, copper, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and zinc. These nutrients are present in trace amounts, however, so it is not recommended that honey be consumed as the sole means for ingesting these vital nutrients. Honey truly shines when it comes to its bioactive plant compounds and antioxidants.
Heart Health
Furthermore, honey has gained a lot of its popularity from the many potential health benefits it may possess. Some research suggests that honey may be beneficial for heart health by way of reducing LDL, or “bad”, cholesterol, triglycerides, while raising HDL, or “good” cholesterol. Additionally, the antioxidant composition of honey may help fight inflammation, reduce blood pressure, and prevent blood clot formation reducing overall risk of heart attack, stroke, and heart disease.
Skin Conditions
Lastly, honey has been shown to aid in wound and burn healing as a topical agent as well as potentially improving certain skin conditions like psoriasis and herpes lesions. Many researchers believe that honey’s antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties are what make it an effective treatment for wounds, burns, and other conditions of the skin.
Raw vs Pasteurized Honey
Honey can be safely consumed either raw or pasteurized. It has a low water content and is relatively high in acidity which makes it inhabitable for bacteria even without pasteurization.
Raw
Raw honey can be described as honey in its purest form. It is extracted from the honeycomb and passed through a mesh cloth to remove any impurities like beeswax or dead bees. After this, raw honey is bottled and ready for consumption. Raw honey is considered to be the most healthful form of honey as its minimal processing allows for many of the natural vitamins, minerals, and enzymes to remain intact.
Pasteurized
To pasteurize honey, it is heated to 160 degrees Fahrenheit then quickly cooled. The process of pasteurizing honey is not done for food safety reasons, but rather to kill yeast found in honey. This promotes a longer shelf-life and improves its texture. Pasteurized honey is often filtered, meaning that impurities and debris are removed and the honey achieves a more clear color. Pasteurization also reduces the risk of fermentation and delays the granulation of sugar in the honey.
Let’s briefly examine the nutrient profiles of these two different types of honey.
Honey Nutritional Information
Nature Nate’s Raw Unfiltered Honey
Ingredients:
- Honey
Nutritional Information (per 1 Tablespoon):
- Calories: 70
- Total Fat: 0g
- Saturated Fat: 0g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
- Sodium: 0mg
- Total Carbohydrates: 18g
- Total Sugars: 15g
- Fiber: 0g
- Protein: 0g
Good and Gather Wildflower Organic Honey
Ingredients:
- Honey
Nutritional Information (per 1 Tablespoon):
- Calories: 60
- Total Fat: 0g
- Saturated Fat: 0g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
- Sodium: 0mg
- Total Carbohydrates: 17g
- Total Sugars: 17g
- Fiber: 0g
- Protein: 0g
While no glaring differences between the two, each still provides a different consistency as well as a different nutrient composition in regard to vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and enzymes.
Alternative Options
When following a ketogenic diet, it is important to choose food items that are low in sugar to ensure that the total carbohydrate goal for the day is not exceeded. Honey is considered a high-carbohydrate food with nearly 17 grams of sugar per tablespoon. With this in mind, those following a ketogenic diet may aim to stay away from honey altogether. Don’t worry, though. There are plenty of low-carbohydrate sweetener alternatives you can swap for honey. Let’s review just a few of these options together.
SweetLeaf Organic Stevia
Stevia is a great alternative to honey simply because it has zero calories and zero carbohydrates – perfect for those watching their carbohydrate intake! It does offer a sweetness that is anywhere from 300-400 times sweeter than real sugar, though, so a little goes a long way.
Ingredients:
- Organic Inulin Soluble Fiber
- Organic Stevia Leaf
- Silica
Nutritional Information (per 1 packet):
- Calories: 0
- Total Fat: 0g
- Saturated Fat: 0g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
- Sodium: 0mg
- Total Carbohydrates: 0g
- Total Sugars: 0g
- Fiber: 0g
- Protein: 0g
Pyure Organic Harmless Hunny
This honey alternative has the same flavor, consistency and look of real honey without all the sugar. It is vegan, plant-based, organic, and provides only 4 grams net carbs per serving. It achieves its low-carb status by being sweetened with organic stevia.
Ingredients:
- Organic Soluble Tapioca Fiber
- Water
- Natural Flavor
- Organic Stevia Leaf Extract (Reb A)
- Tartaric Acid
- Organic Caramel Color
Nutritional Information (per 1 Tablespoon):
- Calories: 30
- Total Fat: 0g
- Saturated Fat: 0g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
- Sodium: 0mg
- Total Carbohydrates: 14g
- Total Sugars: 0g
- Fiber: 10g
- Protein: 0g
Llinea Monk Fruit Liquid Sweetener
Monk Fruit is a small gourd that is similar to a melon and is native to Southeast Asia. Sweeteners are typically made using the fruit’s extracts and can be anywhere from 150-200 times sweeter than sugar. The extract, however, contains zero calories, zero carbohydrates, and no sodium or fat making it an excellent alternative to sugar-laden honey.
Ingredients:
- Monk Fruit Extract
Nutritional Information (per 6 drops):
- Calories: 0
- Total Fat: 0g
- Saturated Fat: 0g
- Cholesterol: 0mg
- Sodium: 0mg
- Total Carbohydrates: 0g
- Total Sugars: 0g
- Fiber: 0g
- Protein: 0g
Main Takeaways
Honey is one of the most widely consumed sweeteners in the world. Its first use dates all the way back to ancient Egyptians and has been used in a wide variety of ways across all continents and cultures ever since. There are over 300 different varieties of honey, each providing its own unique flavor and consistency. It is cultivated from the nectar of various flowers and the color and flavor of the honey is largely dependent upon which flower the nectar was harvested from.
Honey has been regarded as a health food for quite a while due to its vitamin, mineral, enzyme, and antioxidant properties. Much of the health benefit of honey is removed during pasteurization, so oftentimes raw honey is considered the healthiest form of honey. Despite the proposed health benefits, honey is a high-carbohydrate food that is not considered keto-friendly.
Related Questions
Is honey gluten-free?
Honey is a naturally gluten-free food and can be enjoyed by those following a gluten-free diet.
How much honey can 1 honey bee make?
In its lifetime, a single honey bee will only produce around 1/12 teaspoon of honey. Based on this statistic, it would take approximately 11,064 bees to make 1 gallon of honey!
Is honey Whole30 compliant?
The Whole30 dietary approach requires that no added sugar in any form, natural or manmade, is used. Therefore, honey cannot be used while following the Whole30 diet.