heated honey - a hidden health harmer?
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honey has so many well known health benefits, so why wouldn’t it be a great alternative to sugar when cooking? Right?
Pick up any cook book and you might find at least one recipe with honey being used as a replacement to white sugar to sweeten food in baking and cooking.
On paper, honey is notably a more natural and supportive alternative.
Ayurveda reveres the medicinal properties of honey, using it as an annupan , mixing honey with herbs to carry herbal benefits into the body.
Ayurveda notes it’s ability to:
Support skin health and healing
To boost Ojas ~ life force
To help reduce excess kapha and support gut healing
To soothe sore throats
And loads more!
However in Ayurveda, honey is never heated.
You won’t pick up a true Ayurvedic recipe book and find honey being used as a sugar alternative, goodness no.
In Ayurveda’s main text Charaka Samhita it says “There is nothing so severe as the Ama (toxins) caused by the improper intake of honey. Honey if heated can be fatal due to its association with poison”.
The text also explains the many wonderful benefits and medicinal uses of honey when not heated.
Although reading this sentence today it may seem a little extreme when it points toward fatality from honey, but maybe we could perceive it as a long term risk?
For it’s assumable that repeatedly ingesting anything that causes toxins in the body could cause significant harm over time.
As Ayurveda was born from nature’s intelligence there is a chance that this knowledge originally came from the observation of what happened to bees when ingesting heated honey.
scientifically speaking,
Studies are confirming that HMF is perhaps the main contributing factor of ‘why’ heated honey may be harmful. HMF is a toxic substance that can occur in honey if it is exposed to heat/cooking and even in long term storage under certain temperatures. HMF at low, safe doses may already be present in honey but can arise to toxic levels for bees and humans when the sugar and the fructose in honey change their chemical composition due to heat.
Referring back to the Ayurvedic text stating the dramatic risk of consuming heated honey, perhaps that line was in regard to high levels of HMF consumption. Again, Ayurveda thousands of years ahead of current research knew what science is now confirming. Take one study for example where mice were exposed to a dose of 250 mg/kg of HMF, most of those exposed died after 5-11 days due to kidney damage with the surviving mice later developing kidney and/or liver damage.
In humans, HMF has been reported to cause many health concerns like: cytotoxicity in mucous membranes, skin, and upper respiratory tract; mutagenicity; chromosomal aberrations; and carcinogenicity. (J.Douillard)
Wowsers !
If you’ve been a heated honey eater, (me too haha) I bring this information not to cause fear or frustration, simply awareness of an Ayurvedic and now a scientific perspective.
This story seems to be a reoccurring pattern I can see, in society we may take something that has such wonderful properties for our health but misuse it with or without knowing and it can have the opposite effect. Knowing how to consume something might bring that back to balance.
So, do i have to stop taking honey now too?
It’s not about removing it, like most things in Ayurveda, it’s about possessing the “right knowledge” to have it in the “right” way or time that is agreeable and beneficial for the body.
Some honey tips to enjoy this nectar’s benefits:
Try to avoid honey that has been heated in processing, opt for raw honey.
Try to avoid honey that has been stored for long lengths of time in a warmer temperature climate.
Opt not to use honey in cooking/baking/boiling or frying as these methods will expose honey to temperatures that can increase HMF.
Putting honey in your tea is ok provided the water is warm not boiling.
Check labels, honey is often used in health products, in chai blends, snacks, pre made meals, be mindful of it added into items that you are going to have to heat to a high temperature or cook before eating or products that it may have been cooked into already.
References:
“ At What Temperature Does Honey Become Toxic? “ by Dr John. Douillard.
“Honey- Nectar or Poison” by Dylan Smith.