Can we really only eat honey for three meals? And keep yourself young forever?
To answer this question, firstly, we need to know the main nutrients in honey.
Honey is simply a sweet substance that bees brew and store in their honeycombs by collecting nectar from the nectar glands of the flowers of the plant where honey is produced and mixing it with secretions from their salivary glands. Since it’s a sweet substance, we intuitively know that it’s a sugary substance. Indeed, after determination, the main nutrients in honey are also mainly sugar, but specifically, it can be used for many kinds of sugar, including monosaccharides, disaccharides, oligosaccharides and polysaccharides.
Besides sugar, honey contains a variety of amino acid, sucrose, vitamin, mineral, enzyme, aromatic substance, pigment, hormone, enzyme and biological activity substances etc, and nutrient species is very rich.
It’s not enough to know the types of nutrients; we also need to know the amount of each nutrient. Honey contains fructose (38%) and glucose (31%), the two main sugars found in natural honey, along with small amounts of disaccharides and oligosaccharides, glucosaccharides and acids, other acids, and small amounts of proteins, enzymes, amino acids and minerals, which account for about 1%, while the rest is water (about 17%).
Honey is relatively low in amino acids and protein, but contains important amino acids for physiology, of which proline is the most important. Potassium is the main mineral in honey, and it’s an important mineral for the body to function properly.
Of course, honey produced by different bee species varies in nutritional content, so the fructose content varies between 30 and 44 percent, and the glucose content between 22 and 40 percent. Chinese standards require honey to contain at least 60 percent glucose and fructose.
Overall, nearly 60 percent of honey is sugar. If we eat honey as a staple food, it is equivalent to eating only carbohydrates. You may ask: What’s the difference, from eating only sugar? There are differences, first of all, in addition to water, honey has 10% other nutrients, which is different from pure sugar; Secondly, honey tastes better…
So how many nutrients do we humans need to survive?
For human beings, there are six main nutrients that keep us alive, including sugar, fat, protein, vitamins, water and inorganic salts. Different nutrients have different functions, sugar is the most important source of calories in the human body, fat can not only provide calories, but also store energy, protein is an essential component of building cells, vitamins are necessary to maintain the normal physiological functions of the human body, water can transport a variety of substances necessary for life…These functions are only a small part of the 6 nutrients, there are many functions here will not be described, want to know can see high school biology textbooks, or learn nutrition-related knowledge.
Just looking at the types of nutrients, you’ll find that honey meets five key nutrients: sugars, protein, vitamins, water, and inorganic salts. Fat alone is not enough. Although fat should not be eaten more, but still more or less to supplement. No matter what is the lack of several nutrients, as long as there is more than one, it can not meet the nutritional needs of the human body. Therefore, in terms of its nutrients alone, honey cannot be eaten as a staple of three meals.
This is just in terms of the types of nutrients. If you were to look at the amount of each nutrient to be provided, honey would not be enough. For humans, men, for example, need around 1,800 calories a day. The daily intake of sugar depends on the individual’s calorie needs, 45~55% of the total calories;The recommended amount of protein is 55 to 65 grams;Fat is about 50 grams…
Originally honey besides sugar, other nutrients account for a ratio not much, 100 grams of honey is estimated to be less than 1 grams of protein, say so, if drink honey only, you are just to supplement protein to have to drink 5500~6500 grams of honey, estimate you have not drunk half of the intensity to die.
Consider from healthy Angle, cannot regard honey as staple food more. We all know you shouldn’t drink too much Coke, partly because the carbohydrates in coke are bad for your teeth and can cause tooth decay. What’s more, coke contains a lot of sugar, eating more is not good for health. Because eating too much sugar can lead to obesity and an increased risk of diabetes and other cardiovascular diseases. So if you drink only honey to achieve your nutritional needs, you’ll not only kill yourself, but you’ll fatten yourself off, setting yourself up for a host of cardiovascular diseases.In addition, honey can be contaminated with botox spores, which are harmless in adults but can grow in babies with immature immune systems and release botox, causing disease. So the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that children under the age of one avoid honey.
At this point, you should understand that normal people can’t eat honey as a staple food for long. From a human calorie requirement and health perspective, adults are advised to use no more than 20 grams of honey per day.
Of course, we eat honey to keep the appearance of youth or have a certain scientific reason. Because in addition to the nutrients mentioned above, honey also contains some antioxidants.
Honey, as a natural nutrient, contains a variety of phenolic compounds. These phenolic compounds can be used as hydrogen suppliers, which can directly combine with oxygen free radicals to scavenge oxygen free radicals, and can also inhibit the activity of some enzymes, thus inhibiting the activity of oxygen free radicals.
Honey contains a variety of amino acids may be involved in scavenging free radicals. It was found that the content of proline in honey was significantly correlated with the ability of scavenging free radicals. In addition, honey contains SOD (superoxide dismutase) is also one of the reasons for honey’s antioxidant..
Honey contains tocopherol (vitamin E), ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and beta-carotene (Crane, 1975), all of which are antioxidants. In addition, honey contains catalase and peroxidase, which, under certain conditions, can remove hydrogen peroxide and also have antioxidant effects.
In a 2002 paper, Engsis and McKibben, professors in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at the University of Illinois, reported that honey contains 3 to 17 units of antioxidants per gram, and 0.5 to 16 units per gram of fruits and vegetables, suggesting that honey contains the same amount of antioxidants as fruits and vegetables.
In a 2002 paper, Schramm and Keene, both professors in the Department of Nutrition at the University of California, reported that honey carries antioxidants and protects human health. They point out that free radicals and reactive oxygen species promote aging, leading to diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular disease.Humans can protect themselves from reactive oxygen species by absorbing antioxidants in food. Honey provides up to 2mg of phenolic antioxidants per gram.
In addition, many kinds of honey also provide a small amount of vitamin antioxidants, such as vitamin C. Studies have shown that honey’s phenolic antioxidants are bioavailable and can protect human health, and it is recommended that honey be used as a substitute for some sugar in food processing. Honey specifically improves the total amount of antioxidants consumed by the body.
In addition, manuka honey has greater antioxidant capacity. Peter Molan, a professor at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, has discovered that manuka honey contains an active substance, known as umwheat (UMF).
Monomelsin has strong and unique antibacterial and antioxidant capacity, and is not affected by light, high temperature, digestive enzymes and other external factors, and remains stable for a long time.
