At What Heating Temperature Honey Loses Its Useful Properties

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Video: At What Heating Temperature Honey Loses Its Useful Properties

Video: At What Heating Temperature Honey Loses Its Useful Properties
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At What Heating Temperature Honey Loses Its Useful Properties
At What Heating Temperature Honey Loses Its Useful Properties
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The mistake we make with raw honey

If you are striving to improve your diet and overall health through healthy eating, be sure to use it raw honey as an alternative to refined sugar. And that's great! But, like many people, you can use raw honey in your healthy cooking and baking as a "healthier alternative."

But think about it - heat kills all good enzymes and nutrients. This fact suggests that in this way we reduce honey to a concentrated form, which is only sugar, increasing the glycemic index.

Honey should not be heated directly and subjected to heat treatment.

In general, the hotter a food or drink is added, the greater the potential to reduce the nutritional value of honey.

Excessive heat can have a detrimental effect on the nutritional value and beneficial properties of honey.

Heating to 37 ° C (98.6 F) causes the loss of nearly 200 components, some of which are antibacterial.

At what heating temperature honey loses its useful properties
At what heating temperature honey loses its useful properties

Heating to 40 ° C (104 F) destroys invertase, an important enzyme;

Heating to 50 ° C (122 F) for more than 48 hours turns honey into caramel (the most valuable copper sugars become analogous to sugar).

Temperatures of 140 degrees up for more than 2 hours will cause rapid decomposition and caramelization.

Usually, any larger temperature fluctuation of 10 ° C (ideal degrees for preserving mature honey) causes decomposition.

Scientific laboratory studies have found that raw organic honey contains these valuable components: vitamins, minerals, enzymes, antioxidants, flavonoids, amino acids and probiotics (Lactobacillus Kunkeei). We certainly wouldn't get rid of them voluntarily, would we! ?

Pasteurized honey - avoid it

At what heating temperature honey loses its useful properties
At what heating temperature honey loses its useful properties

Although fermented honey does not necessarily pose a health risk, some honey sellers decide to pasteurize honey (up to less than 18% moisture) so that the honey has a longer shelf life without fermentation.

Most companies use the "flash heating" method through heating honey very fast to about 160 ° F / 71 ° C and then rapid cooling. This pasteurization kills any latent yeast cells that might be present to eliminate any chance of fermentation, which will reduce their sale of honey and hence profits.

Pasteurized honey it will also last longer in its liquid state compared to unpasteurized honey, making it a more attractive product for both traders and consumers. If you see crystallization in the honey bottle, you know that your honey is not pasteurized!

So, if we want to avoid pasteurized honey, why buy expensive raw honey just to take it home and prepare or bake it? In this way you "pasteurize" your own honey. Not only does home cooking destroy enzymes and nutrients, they actually do more harm than simple sugar!

Honey in Ayurveda

At what heating temperature honey loses its useful properties
At what heating temperature honey loses its useful properties

Photo: Iliana Parvanova

The honey is considered a staple medicine and food in Ayurveda, a 5,000-year-old system of traditional diet and holistic healing that originated in the Vedic culture of India.

In Ayurveda, honey is an important food used to promote heart and eye health. It warms the body by stimulating the metabolism, unlike other natural sweeteners. Ayurveda recommends adding a little raw honey to a glass of warm (not hot) water - the first thing in the morning to stimulate a healthy metabolism that lasts throughout the day. This helps to increase your weight loss efforts.

According to Ayurveda, heating honey to 104 ° F / 40 ° C or higher can cause a negative chemical change that causes bitterness in the taste of the honey.

Consuming warm honey over time can contribute to poor health. The Ayurvedic reasoning is that heated honey becomes like "glue". This ancient health system understood that prepared honey turned the molecules into "glue" and adhered to the mucous membranes in the digestive tract, producing toxins called ama.

The warmed honey is reduced to concentrated sugar

At what heating temperature honey loses its useful properties
At what heating temperature honey loses its useful properties

The honey that is prepared becomes one-dimensional. It loses the nuances of flavor that raw honey contains and becomes only concentrated sugar. The longer it is cooked, the more concentrated it becomes.

Consuming warm honey will increase sugar peaks, as your body's cells are no longer able to absorb the distorted molecules, thus increasing the glycemic index.

In this refined state, the pH level also changes and probiotics are destroyed, making its antimicrobial properties useless - the very health reasons we eat honey.

There is no doubt that a warm cup of tea creates a homely atmosphere, but if you want it to be sweetened with a healthy option - honey, it is best to let the tea cool to drinking temperature to help raw honey retain its nutritional value.

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