Antioxidant

Definition

Honey contains phenolic acids and flavonoids that register as antioxidants in laboratory assays such as ORAC, FRAP and DPPH, and darker honeys consistently measure higher than pale ones. These assays measure a chemical property of an extract: how quickly it quenches a reactive species in a tube.

Where the word gets used loosely

An antioxidant value is not a health claim, and the step from one to the other has not been made for honey. The compounds are present at a few milligrams per teaspoon, absorption of most of them is poor or unstudied, and no authority has approved an antioxidant health claim for honey. The US Department of Agriculture withdrew its ORAC food database in 2012 precisely because the values were being read this way. The phenolic profile is genuinely valuable — for identifying which flowers a honey came from.

Honey records that discuss this

• Buckwheat honeyMalt, molasses and wet straw, with a savoury, almost animal depth. The most polarising honey in general production.

Guide records that discuss this

• Why honey comes in different coloursHoney runs from nearly colourless to almost black, and the colour is set mainly by the plant. It correlates loosely with intensity, more strongly with mineral content, and not at all with quality.
• Honey compared with sugarHoney is a free sugar. Everything else about the comparison is real but small, and the gap between 'better' and 'good for you' is where most of the confusion lives.
• What is the healthiest honey?The honest answer is that no honey is a health food, the differences between types are small, and the question people are actually asking usually has a better answer than the one they are looking for.
• Dark honeysDark honeys are higher in minerals and phenolic compounds than pale ones, which makes them stronger, more savoury and — in laboratory terms though not in clinical ones — more antioxidant-rich.
• Antioxidants and phenolic compounds in honeyThe trace fraction that gives honey its colour, much of its flavour and nearly all of its marketing. What these compounds are is well understood; what they do in a person who eats a spoonful is a much shorter story than the labels suggest.

Question records that discuss this

• Is darker honey healthier?Dark honeys genuinely do measure higher in phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacity, and no clinical study has shown that this produces any benefit to a person eating them. All honey is about 80% sugar, the quantities involved are small, and the difference is a laboratory measurement rather than a health outcome.