Is Cooking with Honey Healthier?

A joke in beekeeping circles is, “Ask four beekeepers a question, and you will get five answers.”

I find beekeepers a congenial lot, but it’s true they hold conflicting opinions on many subjects. Like, how best to house bees, mite control—natural or chemical? —and frequent hive inspections vs. leave-bees-the-heck-alone. It is not surprising that the bee community, which includes bee researchers, disagrees about whether using honey in cooking and baking has health benefits.  

I don’t think anyone disputes that dishes and baked goods made with honey taste better. Custards made with sugar taste fine; custards made with honey taste glorious. Same for granola, and vegetable and meat glazes made with honey.

Many frontier recipes call for honey. Our great-grandmothers cooked with it because rural people kept bees.

When sugar was cheap, natural food advocates wanted to give people a reason to use expensive honey in cooking. Honey had antibacterial properties and antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. Beekeeping sites and honey producers run food recipes that call for honey, along with recipes for honey-based beauty products like facial scrubs, and health remedies like wound ointments. But many people believe that the good properties in honey don’t survive heating.    

Practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine, an ancient health system still honored in India, claim that heating and cooking honey changes its natural composition. This, they believe, allows for toxic molecules to stick to mucous membranes of the digestive system, which can convert to a toxin called Ama, which leads to upset stomach, affects respiration, insulin sensitivity, skin diseases, and weight gain. For those who do not buy that, Ayurvedic proponents still advise—don’t heat honey, because it wastes honey’s health benefits. Don’t even put it in hot liquids. What? Morning tea without honey?

But what about the university research that validated the old-time remedy of honey in hot liquids? They found it beneficial for coughs and sore throats.  

It gets confusing. An article circulated by extension services laid down guidelines for heat and honey. Honey should not be heated rapidly over direct heat. The hotter the heat, the more potential for reducing nutritional value.

Honey begins to lose its healthful properties at 113F, and worsens at 122 F. It doesn’t say how long it takes for that damage to occur. One site recommends letting tea or coffee cool to a drinkable temperature before adding the honey.

As with most arguments, we can find evidence to support the theory we like best. Some articles say heat destroys the beneficial elements in honey, some say honey has a multitude of healthful components, some of which survive cooking. Some people point out that honey, even cooked, has a lower glycemic index and is better for people with diabetes and hypoglycemia. Some concede that honey loses some of its bioenzymes with cooking, but still imparts a nice aroma and flavor to baked goods.    

We may wish to consider the Placebo Effect and the Happiness Factor, too. When we believe a substance or pill helps our body, it does, even if the pill is worthless. Machines and tests have measured that in labs. And when we enjoy something, it triggers all sorts of health benefits, also verifiable in the lab. A recent study proclaimed ½ cup of ice cream per day as a surefire way to bolster health.

Take that, naysayers!