People with diabetes are adviced to avoid eating sweets as well as other foods that contain sugar. This leads to the question on whether someone who has Type 2 Diabetes can eat honey.
The amount and the type of carbohydrates that one would consume can affect ones blood sugar level as well. In order to keep blood sugar on a safe level, a diabetes patient must limit the total intake of carbohydrate to about 60 grams for every meal.
What Is Honey?
Raw honey will usually start out as nectar. Right after the bees collect it, the nectar will naturally break down into simple sugar and then stored to honeycombs. The honeycombs will trigger the nectar to evaporate and this leads to a thick and sweet liquid, which is the honey.
Honey, like other sugars, is a condensed source of carbohydrates. One tbsp. of honey is equivalent to at least 17 g of carbohydrates. However, unlike sugar, honey not only contains carbohydrates, it has other beneficial nutrients such as, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and enzymes.
Similar to sugar, honey is a sweetener and contains glucose/carbohydrates and calories. Honey has around 64 calories while sugar has 49 calories in 1 tablespoon. It contains more calories than sugar in 1 tablespoon due to its higher density. Although it is comparatively higher in calories, honey is much sweeter than sugar and hence people tend to use less of it. However, this is not its only benefit.
