Honey Jar with SpoonHoney

I didn’t get it at first. Why had green tea become the rage? To me it tasted like liquid weeds. Then my boyfriend made me a cup with a teaspoon of honey in it. Suddenly I couldn’t drink enough of that pale green brew.
“Thanks, honey,” I said, after taking a sip, then kissing him on the cheek. It’s funny how honey has come to mean both sweetener and sweetheart.

As a sweetener, it is one of only a few pure, natural products you can eat. Though the grocery store brands are filtered and pasteurized, they are otherwise unprocessed, making honey a healthier and arguably tastier option than sugar.

The arguments to substitute sugar with honey are compelling. Though a tablespoon of honey (64 calories) contains nearly 40 percent more calories than sugar (46 calories), you need to use less of it to obtain the same degree of sweetness. In other words, if you use a half-tablespoon of honey rather than a full tablespoon of sugar, you’re helping your waistline.

Honey has a lower glycemic index than sugar, which means your body absorbs it more slowly, which keeps your blood sugar level on a more even keel. This can be particularly important to diabetics. If you’re active, eating honey rather than sugar will help you maintain a more consistent energy level.

Sugar is often referred to as containing “empty calories,” which means your body does not gain nutrients by eating it, and you expend nutrients to metabolize it. On the other hand, honey contributes antioxidants and trace amounts of vitamins and minerals to your diet. Honey is roughly 40 percent fructose and 30 percent glucose. The remaining 30 percent is mostly water, with small amounts of other sugars, such as sucrose and maltose, proteins and other nutrients, including several B-vitamins, iron and zinc. The actual amount of these substances depends on the flowers the bees used to produce the honey.

Beekeepers throughout the United States produce 172 million pounds of honey per year from 26 million bee colonies. With so many bees making so much honey in so many locations, you can see why all honey is not created equally. Honey varies in color from clear to dark brown, in taste from mild to strong, and in fragrance from appealing to pungent, but regardless of its characteristics, bees make all types of honey using one ingredient — flower nectar.

Though clover is perhaps the best known source of flower nectar, the blossoms of oranges, blueberries, apples, avocados and sage are only a few of the many other flowers that work. Blending honey from various flower nectars is an art similar to blending varieties of grapes for table wine. And like wine, the flavor from a particular beekeeper’s hives varies from year to year, though those nuances are neutralized through blending.

Blended honey, the kind most common in supermarkets, tastes simply sweet and honey-like, whereas honey “varietals,” made from a single type of flower, have a distinct flavor — though that flavor is not always what you would expect. Many flowers contribute only a hint of their fruit’s taste, and in some cases, an entirely different taste to honey, because the flavor comes from the nectar, not the fruit of the plant. To make a flavored honey, such as huckleberry honey, the honey maker must add flavoring, usually in the form of juice or extract, and must label it so. According to the National Honey Board, honey must be a pure product harvested from beehives without the addition of other substances including water and other sweeteners, though special flavoring if clearly labeled is OK.

Bees produce honey as a food source. Worker bees ingest flower nectar at the plant, partially digesting it, and then regurgitate it in the hive into honeycombs. They fan the full combs with their wings to evaporate most of the water, then seal the honey in the waxy combs. The lower water content prevents fermentation, giving honey its long shelf life. Beekeepers encourage overproduction of honey so that they can harvest the excess without affecting the well being of the bees.

The low water content in honey also inhibits bacterial growth, though unpasteurized honey may contain Clostridium botulinum endospores, which turn into a toxic bacterium in the immature intestinal tract of infants. For this reason, doctors do not recommend feeding honey to babies. But for everyone else, honey is heavenly.
— Lisa Densmore

SWEET HONEY RECIPES

Honey is a healthy substitute for sugar in cooking and baking. You only need to use half the amount of honey compared to sugar. In other words, if a recipe calls for a cup of sugar, use a half-cup of honey.

Turkey Sausage Breakfast Wraps
Photo by Lisa Densmore

The amount of sugars, proteins and nutrients in honey depends on the flowers the bees used.

Honey Grog

A warm drink that’s even more satisfying than hot cider after a cold day outdoors

Ingredients

Melt butter in a medium saucepan. Add orange juice, cider, honey, cinnamon and nutmeg. Heat to a simmer, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and add rum (optional). Serve warm. Serves 8

Island Venison Marinade

A tasty way to lose the gamey taste and enhance the flavor of venison (and other wild meat)

Ingredients

Combine all ingredients thoroughly. Marinate the meat for at least 30 minutes, longer if possible. Cook tazhe meat by grilling, in a frying pan or under the broiler, basting it on both sides with marinade each time you flip it. Serves 6

Honey Spice Turkey Glaze

A delicate way to enhance wild turkey or other game birds and domestic turkey too

Ingredients

Rub the turkey with oil and roast as you normally would, with or without stuffing. About 45 minutes before the turkey is done, paint the glaze all over it. Repaint it every time you baste the turkey until it’s done. Recipe covers a 15-pound turkey.