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Is Honey Toxic When Heated?

Home » GAPS Diet » GAPS Info » Is Honey Toxic When Heated?

honey in a cup with a spoon and bees crawling in

Is honey toxic when cooked? Every once in a while I have a commenter pops up  telling me that honey is toxic when cooked. The thought is that honey changes form with heating (this part is true) and that then it is toxic.

GAPS Diet and Heating Honey

I haven’t really given this assertion a second thought since Dr. Natasha briefly addressed this in the FAQ section of her website (here)

“I generally do not recommend baking with honey, I recommend using dried fruit as a sweetener in baking. Yes, I agree that natural good quality honey is “alive”, that is why I recommend buying unpasteurised, untreated honey, straight from the bees and collected in ecologically clean areas. However, in some recipes honey works quite well. From my clinical experience and the experience of Elaine Gottschall there have never been any “toxic” reactions.”

We do encourage the use of date paste as an alternative to honey in most baked goods in the GAPS diet. This is more due to flavor and cost than concerns about honey becoming toxic. Dates are a nice mild-tasting fruit that sweetens our muffins quite well.

Get the Recipe for Date Paste

In any case, we can look into the theory that honey becomes toxic a little more.

Where did the idea come from that honey is toxic when cooked?

Honey has long been a natural super food, used in both food and as medicine in ancient cultures through today.  When it is in its raw unprocessed state, it contains enzymes, pollen, and vitamins and minerals as well as fructose.

Honey is used to treat a variety of maladies:

  • It has been shown to lessen coughs and improve sleep in children who have coughs (source)
  • It is used to treat seasonal allergies (source) but a placebo-controlled study showed that this may not be effective (source)
  • It is used to help burns and wounds heal when applied topically (source)
  • It has antiinflammatory properties (source)
  • It helps improve memory in menopausal women (source)

Honey and Botulism

Honey comes with some warnings. It is not advised for children under the age of 1, due to the minor risk of botulism spores, even in pasteurized and/or cooked honey (source). That said, the risk is also present for corn syrup yet the advice to avoid corn syrup in infants isn’t as well spread as the advice to avoid honey (source).

Honey’s toxicity when heated

In alternative circles, there is an assertion that honey becomes toxic when heated.  Certainly, the enzymes present in raw honey are killed with high heat, just like they are killed in fresh fruits and vegetables when they are cooked. But this would not make it toxic.

The idea that honey becomes toxic when heated over 140 (or 104 – I’ve seen both numbers) degrees F comes from Ayurvedic wisdom.  It is said that heating honey will cause “Ama” or undigested matter in the body, which is thought to be the root of disease.  This idea would tie into the wisdom that all disease begins in the gut.

disease begins in the gut

More about Ayurvedic wisdom, honey, and Ama

The best way to make a truly informed decision is to look with an open mind at both sides of the argument before deciding.  There are many Ayurvedic recommendations for food, based on your constitution, you can see more here (pdf).

Sarah at The Healthy Home Economist talks about honey and Ayurvedic philosophy here:

While Ayurveda recognizes the many dietary and holistic benefits of honey, the dietary principles of this ancient system of health also strongly advise against heating it for any reason. The reasons are both practical and health-related.

First, Ayurveda claims that heating honey to 104°F/ 40°C orabove causes a negative chemical change that causes it to become bitter. This makes it undesirable to use from a culinary perspective in comparison with other natural sweeteners like unrefined cane sugar or fruit. (continue reading)

Scientific Studies

There is also a study that studies the properties of cooked honey on its own, and when mixed with ghee, when fed to rats (source)

There was a significant rise in hydroxymethyl furfuraldehyde (HMF) in 60º and 140°C heated honey samples. The browning and total antioxidant of honey mixed ghee samples was significantly higher when compared to ghee samples. Further, the authors have also evaluated the effects of consumption of heated honey, ghee, honey mixed with equal amount of ghee and heated honey mixed with heated ghee in rats. The feeding of heated honey and honey mixed with ghee for 6 weeks showed no significant change in the food intake, weight gain and relative organ weights. The study revealed that the heated honey mixed with ghee produces HMF which may cause deleterious effects.

What is  hydroxymethyl furfuraldehyde (HMF)?

Seeing the chemical names of compounds makes them sound scarier than they often are.  So let’s take a look at this compound that is found by heating honey.

“HMF is practically absent in fresh food, but it is naturally generated in sugar-containing food during heat-treatments like drying or cooking. Along with many other flavor- and color-related substances, HMF is formed in the Maillard reaction as well as during caramelization. In these foods it is also slowly generated during storage. Acid conditions favour generation of HMF.  HMF is a well known component of baked goods. Upon toasting bread, the amount increases from 14.8 (5 min.) to 2024.8 mg/kg (60 min)” (source)

It appears that HMF is caused by heating sweeteners, both honey and other carbohydrate sources such as dried fruit, and corn syrup.

HMF is toxic to honey bees, which is why corn syrup being fed to honeybees can cause problems (source) and it is is also found in coffee (source).

Should we avoid honey in cooked recipes?

Unless we are following other dietary recommendations from the Ayurvedic wisdom, there is not good reason to avoid honey unless we are also avoiding all other heated carbohydrates and coffee.

That said, I wouldn’t say that heated honey is a ‘health giving’ food, but rather something that should be used in moderation.  In my home, I keep both a jar of raw honey and conventional cooked honey from Costco. I don’t use the more expensive, healthier raw honey in cooked recipes such as Breakfast Cookies, candied walnuts, or egg white frosting.

I also use fruit to sweeten when possible.  Raw honey is wonderful to add to anything that will not be heated to more than 110 degrees.  I use it in popsicles, smoothies, and in salad dressings.

Find raw honey here

The Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS) diet allows honey in cooking due to it containing primarily fructose, which is digested higher up in the digestive system and allows us to still have sweets, while also not feeding the pathogenic bacteria lower in the digestive tract.

Some people following GAPS and other healing diets find that they feel much better and have better healing while avoiding all carbohydrates, I wonder if the HMF present in cooked foods may be part of the reason why a low carbohydrate diet works for some people.

I’m sure three is a lot more to this, and I welcome your observations and comments :)

(image credit)

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← 5 Foods That Harm, 5 Foods That Heal: Which of these foods are you eating? What is The Miracle Mineral Supplement and Is It Safe? →

About Cara

Cara is the main author here at Health Home and Happiness. She loves the health and energy that eating well and playing well provides and has a goal to share what she's learned with as many families interested in making healthy changes as possible.

She helps other families achieve health in simple steps through healing their gut with the GAPS Diet and helps them stock their freezer for busy days with the Allergy-Friendly Afternoon Freezer Cooking Class.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Liz

    March 25, 2016 at 1:00 pm

    This is an awesome post! Thank you for all your research and spelling it out so clearly.

    Reply
  2. Anna

    March 26, 2016 at 2:02 am

    Oh! this is a useful information. Thanks your post! I think a housewife as me, your article is beneficial. I often think honey is good entirely. At present, i have a value information.

    Reply
  3. Deena Sprague

    July 16, 2016 at 8:13 am

    what are your thoughts about putting honey in a hot cup of herb tea? Does that heat the honey to a point where it may become toxic or lose nutrients?

    Reply
    • Cara

      July 16, 2016 at 8:17 am

      I think you must have skipped part of the article- you can bring honey to a roaring boil and it will still be just fine :)

      Reply
  4. Michelle

    October 16, 2017 at 9:55 am

    I had switched to using maple syrup b/c I didn’t want to heat my honey. I enjoyed your article and now if I want to occasionally bake with honey it won’t be with any guilt,

    Reply
  5. Ashley

    October 13, 2018 at 6:23 pm

    Thank you, this is very useful information. It was an interesting read, especially with the explanation of what HMF is and numerous source links in the article itself.

    I read several other articles that cited the same study, but claimed that heated honey was toxic and consuming it has dire consequences. I was skeptical because of the obvious logical leaps (I mean, “HMF kills bees” -> “HMF kills humans” is a pretty big jump) and the way that they wrote about HMF as though nothing else contains it. I’ll definitely keep your article in mind when I continue researching this topic.

    Reply
  6. Roy K

    July 28, 2020 at 6:33 am

    Sorry, but didn’t the research pin point the temperature when the honey mixed with ghee, and not pure honey, turn toxic because of HMF above 140°C?

    Reply
    • Cara

      July 28, 2020 at 9:38 am

      HMF isn’t toxic- it’s also in any cooked or dried fruit or coffee.

      Reply
  7. Gary

    August 20, 2020 at 3:56 pm

    Hello,
    Can you tell me what is happening with my honey? It turned extremely viscous after being heated several times, and it stays that way. I even put it in the freezer overnight to see what would happen, and it is still about as fluid as a very thin cooking oil. This happened once before a couple of years ago. (I have been heating it to about 150 degrees in water. Didn’t know that there was anything detrimental about that until reading your article – Thanks.)

    Reply
  8. Isaac

    December 5, 2020 at 10:03 pm

    Hello, I have been boiling water in the kettle and pouring the boiled water into a mug filled with either coffee or tea and then mixed with honey as a substitute for sugar – This has been occursing for maybe a year or two regularly and apparently a kettle at boiling temperature is 100 c and honey at toxicity level is 60 c (140 f) … I guess I should switch to maple syrup or allow the tea to cool down before adding honey?

    Recently discovered that honey becomes toxic at a certain temperature,
    Thanks!

    Reply
  9. Laura

    January 14, 2021 at 1:50 am

    Hi great article. I thought I’d share as I’ve got personal experience in which I believe was down to heating honey. I was a fit 32 year old at the time & couldn’t understand why I felt so lethargic all the time as I ate a natural healthy diet rich in nutrients. After doing much research I came across the ayervedic theory that when honey is heated it changes the enzymes & forms a goop that sticks to your intestine walls, making it hard to absorb the nutrients from your food. I was having almost a teaspoon of it in my cup of tea on average of 3 cups a day for the last 10 years! I can honestly say after stopping that habit for over 6 months now, I feel fantastic! So much more energy, I feel energised from my food, the brain fog has gone, I sleep so much better. I can’t say if it’s toxic, but from my experience, I definitely believe the Ayervedic theory about heating honey. They say it’s fine know & again but if it’s consistent in your diet, thats when it builds up in the intestine & wreaks havoc on the body.

    Reply
    • Brian

      February 7, 2021 at 7:19 pm

      I agree with you there, its so american of people thinking that heating certain foods wont do anything harmful to the body. I would trust anything from ayervedic wisdom over some blogger any day of the week.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Just Honey & Cinnamon Lollipops - Health, Home, & Happiness says:
    October 2, 2018 at 7:27 am

    […] No, honey does not become toxic when you cook it. Read about that claim and the rebuttal here. […]

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