Summer is unofficially here, and if you’re planning a cookout, consider adding honey-barbecued racks of ribs to the menu. The honey in your barbecue sauce is more than just delicious. It’s great for your health, with benefits including protection against allergies and better oral health. At least that’s what some clinical data (and beekeepers) suggest.
These benefits can be pricey, if you go for the rare and imported honeys that can cost hundreds of dollars per pound. But before you grab Splenda for your iced tea, here’s the buzz on how honey can make your life richer.
Honey 101
The average individual consumes 1.3 pounds of honey a year, according to the National Honey Board, compared with 47.2 pounds per year of sugar, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And sugar, at around a dollar a pound, is significantly cheaper than clover honey, which costs about $4.64 per pound.
The cheapest honey is most likely wildflower honey, a term that can be used regardless of what flowers nectar comes from, says Dr. Nicki Engeseth, an associate professor of food chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Beekeepers don’t have to tell you what floral source they use,” Engeseth says. For example, much of the honey in Illinois comes from soy.
Increasing your regular dose of honey and cutting your daily dose of sugar, or switching to other types of honey, like raw or imported honey, can mean paying more, but it may pay off by boosting your health.
The general rule is the darker the better when it comes to health benefits, especially in terms of antioxidant levels, says Engeseth. Buckwheat honey, a dark, rich, and heavy scented honey that’s great for barbecue sauce, is one of the healthiest types you can get, but you may have to go to Whole Foods or a specialty foods store to find it.
Manuka honey from the manuka bush in New Zealand is another type of dark honey, and it’s shown to have strong healing properties. It costs about $19 for a 17.5 ounce jar. When you’re looking more locally, you’ll likely find both your average processed honey, which has been heated and filtered, and raw honey, which is unfiltered and sometimes contains a little extra bee pollen.
