Honey is everywhere in our daily lives:
Many sugar friends have constipation, a cup of honey water in the
morning;
When the sugar friend has a cold and cough, the oral cough syrup contains
honey, and it also feels that the syrup is cool and cough, and the effect is
very good;
Sugar friends eat Chinese medicine, which is a honey pill that is transferred
with honey and Chinese medicine;
In daily life: bitter gourd with honey, honey hydrolyzed wine, honey water to
improve sleep, etc.;
When a sugar friend travels abroad, foreigners often provide a small package
of honey labeled "honey".
Honey is so sweet, can diabetic patients eat it, this article will tell you
the answer. Honey is sweet, it will affect blood sugar, is this the case?
Sweetness, currently not measured by physical or chemical methods, can only
be judged by people's taste perception. Typically, the sweetness of sucrose is
100 (white sugar has no direct sweetness, but it contains 95% sucrose), glucose
has a sweetness of 74, and fructose has a sweetness of 170-180.
Don't take it for granted. The sweetness of the fruit is generally 10 degrees
(the sweetness of the apple is 6-8), the 15 degree is very sweet (the sweetness
of the peach is 10), and the 18 degree is rare and sweet. For example, the
sweetness of cantaloupe is 19.7, which can be described as sweet as honey.
However, the main components of honey are fructose and glucose, the total
content of which is about 70% to 80%, and the amount of sucrose in natural honey
is very small, not more than 5%, so the sweetness of honey is mainly caused by
fructose with a sweetness of 180.
As we all know, fructose is like a glucose, it is also a simple sugar, it is
easy to digest and absorb, but after absorption, it does not directly become
blood sugar.
Part of the fructose will increase blood sugar after the liver is converted
to glucose. Therefore, fructose raises blood sugar very slowly, and the fructose
index of pure fructose is only 23.0, which is much lower than that of cotton
(83) and honey (73).
Do you understand it? In the case of equal sugar content, the honey
containing the fructose component is sweeter, but the blood sugar is lower.
Common sugars, honey has the lowest energy.
Among the sugars, honey is also the lowest in calories. Honey contains almost
all the nutrients in vegetables and contains minerals such as potassium, calcium
and phosphorus.
The main component of honey contains two kinds of monosaccharides, glucose
and fructose, which can be directly absorbed without the secretion of digestive
enzymes. But direct absorption does not mean that all directly affect blood
sugar. In Table 1 below, among several common honeys, fructose is even higher in
honey than in glucose, so it affects blood sugar and honey less than white
sugar.
Choose sugar substitute, why not choose honey?
Sugar substitutes, or sweeteners, are a class of substances that only provide
sweetness and do not provide calories. They are not involved in the metabolism
of sugar and therefore do not affect blood sugar. Fresnel syrup, which is often
added to foods, is a common sweetener. Its main ingredient is fructose (42% to
90%).
But the sugar substitute is not as good as imagined. The sweetness of the
sugar substitute is significantly higher than that of the sucrose. The long-term
use of the sugar substitute may change the taste habit and eat more sweet,
especially it contains a high concentration of fructose. Fructose can not be
eaten because it is not conducive to blood lipid control. Excessive fructose
will synthesize fat in the liver, leading to an increase in triglycerides.
The honey contains fructose which is natural and is processed by the bee
itself. The sugar is processed from sugar cane and sugar beet. The fructose
syrup is processed from grain starch.
Therefore, it is not advisable for sugar friends to eat sugar instead of
eating honey.
How to choose honey
It is recommended that diabetics choose honey with high fructose content. How
do you judge which honey is glucose and which is fructose? There are two tips
here - temperature and ratio:
Generally, honey will crystallize below 13 degrees Celsius, and crystals will
be produced by glucose. The part that does not produce crystals is mainly
fructose. If it is placed outdoors when the weather is cold (the heat is put
into the refrigerator), the honey slowly crystallizes, and the non-crystallized
part is naturally fructose.
Secondly, the higher the proportion of fructose, the less likely the
crystallization is (the ratio of glucose to fructose is 1:0.9, the
crystallization is fast, the 1:1 is slow, and the crystallization is generally
not observed at 1:2). The nectar (glucose to fructose ratio of 2:3) is not easy
to crystallize, and rapeseed honey (glucose to fructose ratio of 2:3)
crystallizes quickly (the quality of honey may vary slightly).
Knock on the blackboard:
As a diabetes educator, diabetics are not recommended to eat honey.
Exclude hypoglycemia, if you can't get rid of honey, in the case of blood
sugar, diabetic patients can use natural honey instead of sugar (a teaspoon, no
more than 5 grams, 16 kcal), it is not recommended to eat white sugar, eat less
Sugar (sweetener).
In addition, in the case of eliminating fake honey, it is more suitable for
sugar lovers to choose honey that is not easily crystallized (high in fructose
ratio and low in glucose content).