How Honey Becomes Toxic?

We know how beneficial honey is. It has innumerable health benefits as it is abundant in various important vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, amino acids and sugars. Honey is used as a replacement for sugar by many health enthusiast and diabetic patients. It is also an important ingredient for the food industry, which further allows beekeeping firms to grow and prosper. But, sometimes this honey becomes toxic due to some factors. Let us know what the reasons behind its toxicity are.

Reasons Behind the Toxicity of Honey

Whenever honey is heated, it destroys all the beneficial minerals, enzymes and probiotics contained in it. During the heating process, the amount of hydroxymethyl furfuraldehyde increases, which is also known as HMF. It is obtained after the dehydration of sugars that means in the initial stages of caramelization. But HMF acts as a poisonous substance both for bees and humans.

After several researches, it was found that when honey is taken with ghee leads to enhancement in weight, changes in food intake and a significant increase in the relative organ weights. In fact, HMF is considered carcinogenic in human beings. Therefore, its use is restricted in many countries.

Unknown Facts

Honey has always been used in various processed foods. During the processing of food, it is heated several times, which damages its quality and make it toxic enough to deteriorate our health. It is seen that when beekeepers feed high fructose corn syrup to their bees to increase the growth rate of honey bees, it tends to harm them instead of benefiting. The moment high fructose corn syrup is heated at a temperature of 48 degrees, it raises the amount of HMF. With the passage of time, the level of HMF rises further, thus making old corn syrup unhealthier than the new one. The plain old sugar would be considered a better replacement for high fructose corn syrup.

Effects of Heat On Honey

·         Hydrogen peroxide and non-peroxide activity, which is present in honey, are affected due to the heating effect. When it is stored under light or heat, it damages the antibacterial and antioxidant qualities. Therefore mishandling of raw honey can destroy 86% of the peroxide capabilities, which are known for fighting different microbes.

·         When honey is heated at 90 degree Celsius for a duration of 8 hours, it damages all the essential enzymes present in it. It happens due to the changes occurring in carbohydrates present in honey, thus reducing its antimicrobial properties.

·         Magnesium is the only mineral present in honey which is tolerant to heat but the amount of other decreases when honey is heated for prolonged periods, ultimately making it useless as well as harmful for human consumption.

·         Effect of heat on the proteins present in honey is also a matter of concern as studies show that the amount of amino acids reduces to 50% when honey is exposed to overheating.

Due to all research works, it is confirmed that prolonged heating can make honey harmful for consumption both for honey bees as well as for humans. Therefore if a food is supposed to be heated for a long period of time it is important to replace the honey with some other substitute.