Jan. 14, 1904. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



21 



[ Ccntributed Articles | 



Honey the Best Food— Digested Nectar. 



BY PROF. A. y. COOK. 



THE quotation from Gleanings in Bee-Culture, regarding 

 Dr. Kellogg's opinion of honey, interests me. I read the 

 original article with satisfaction, as I al\yays feel that 

 truth. is safe, and if I am sure a thing is true, I always feel 

 that any counsel to suppress it is ill-advised and mischiev- 

 ous. Dr. Kellogg says, " I consider honey as much prefer- 

 ab e to cane-sugar as a food. It is practically a fruit-sugar, 

 and is ready for absorption." Again, " Digestion of cane- 

 sugar converts it into honey, so honey is practically cane- 

 sugar already digested." 



It will be remembered that when these sentiments were 

 stated some years ago, there was a great furor created. The 

 writer of the article was denounced in unmeasured terms by 

 many, and even by two of the prominent editors of the 

 country. 



I remember, a few years ago, that a serious disease at- 

 tacked the fruit-trees in a region of very profitable orchards 

 near one of the cities of the country. The watch-cry was, 

 "Hush up! Say nothing; property will be injured." I 

 regret to say that this advice was followed, and I regret 

 even more to say that many of the largest orchards changed 

 hands. The presumption was that the purchaser knew noth- 

 ing of the dangerous disease. Soon the orchards of this 

 special fruit in that region were utterly ruined, and the 

 place suffered a great back-set. Another city not far dis- 

 tant, adopted a very different, and, I think, a much wiser 

 course. The cry was— not hush, but ;!>k4/zVz7_)'. The people 

 said, " Let us learn all we can, and combat the disease the 

 as best we may." A few years afterwards I knew the fruit 

 of a single orchard, in this latter place, to sell for many 

 thousands of cloUars. 



It seems to me that one of the blessed uses of our Chris- 

 tianity is to teach and persuade people to let in the light. 



Even if the fact, as given in the last statement above 

 from Dr. Kellogg, were unfavorable to the bee-keeper's in- 

 terests, I would not hide it. I am very strongly convinced 

 that the bee-keeper, and also the editor, is wisest who takes 

 for his motto, "Let on the light." I always admired Mr. 

 Root in this respect. He never denounced this little piece 

 of truth-telling. He, perhaps, might have been louder in 

 urging that the truth never ought to injure any honest busi- 

 ness. I think it might be put stronger — never will injure. 

 Yet I did not feel like blaming him, for it may be better, 

 sometimes, to be conservative even in matters of such im- 

 port as stating truth. 



The truth of the matter is just as Dr. Kellogg puts it. 

 The nectar of the flower is not honey. It is virtually cane- 

 sugar, slightly flavored with some organic extract from the 

 flower. The bee gathers this nectar, mixes with it, as it 

 passes the mouth, some digestive ferment from the large 

 glands of the head and thorax, and thus converts it into a 

 mixture of dextrose and levulose. This is honey. Dr. 

 Kellogg says, " practically into fruit-sugar." I dare say 

 this is correct, yet it is quite possible that this sugar of 

 digestion is more suitable as a food, and may have impor- 

 tant nutritive difference from the other sugars usually called 

 glucose. If we eat starch or cane-sugar, we have to digest 

 them. I know some very excellent phjsicians, other than 

 Dr. Kellogg, who think that we are injured by eating so 

 much cane-sugar. In the early days of mankind the prin- 

 cipal sugar was honey. This was a great favorite. It was 

 greatly relished, and for two important reasons : First, the 

 body needed it ; and what we need we crave. When we are 

 thirsty we need water in the blood, and how we long for it, 

 and are almost crazy if it is not forthcoming. The fact that 

 children, especially, so long for sugar is reason sufficient 

 that some kind of sugar is absolutely requisite in our food. 

 The child craves candy because the body needs sugar. A 

 very important function of the great gland — the liver — is 

 to form liver-sugar. This is very like honey, and may be 

 quite identical. It is, without doubt, just what the body 

 needs. Before birth, we need even more sugar than the 

 liver, then enormously large, can furnish, and so a pre- 

 natal organ — the placenta — helps the liver in this office of 

 providing sugar. Thus, as I stated, our ancestors in the 



days before maple and the sufj.ir from cane were produced, 

 depended upon honey, and relished it, and could say noth- 

 ing better of a country than that it produced richly of 

 honey. How often we have in the Bible the words, " A land 

 flowing with milk and honey," as the best thing that could 

 be said of a land. 



Again, honey was the only sweet at that time, and thus 

 for a second reason our forefathers prized greatly this, the 

 only sugar. 



As the races of early times did not have to digest their 

 sugar as the then sugar (honey) was already digested, the 

 body was not fitted to digest cane-sugar. We can see, then, 

 that very likely the eating of a very large quantity of this 

 new product might cause functional disturbance. The body 

 had to adapt itself to this new food. We know, to-day, that 

 cane-sugar must be digested, as it is not found in the blood, 

 and if injected into the blood, passes out unchanged, as the 

 body seems unable to use it. There is some doubt as to just 

 what digestive liquids do this work. It has been supposed 

 that one of the elements of pancreatic juice — amylopsin, the 

 same that digests starch — does this. Some think that it has 

 been proved that the intestinal juices from two important 

 kinds of glands in the walls of the intestines do this work. 

 In either case there had to be adaptation to this new food. 

 I do not feel, then, to take issue with the very able physi- 

 cian who once remarked to me that he thought Bright's 

 disease was much more common than of old, and he believed 

 the reason that this very fatal disease was victimizing more 

 people than formerly was because of this inordinate use of 

 cane-sugar. 



Should not the bee-keepers, then, be quick to acknowl- 

 edge the truth, that honey is digested nectar, and it is with- 

 out doubt the safest sugar that we can eat? that in case we 

 eat honey we are saved digestive efforts because the bees 

 have done it for us 7 In their evolution, the bees were 

 developed to do just this work, and thus are uninjured in the 

 process. Indeed, the great glands in the head and thorax 

 which secrete this digestive juice add materially to the argu- 

 ment. If we keep on eating cane-sugar as we are doing, 

 and as we doubtless will continue, we will in time become 

 perhaps as able as the tees to perform this function. We 

 may not be so yet. Let us, then, urge that there is no 

 sugar so suitable as honey for food. Let us urge that it be 

 on the table at every meal, and let us encourage the children 

 to eat it ad libitum. I think the bee-keeper is wise who 

 makes free use of honey in his own family. 



I thus feel assured that Dr. Kellogg is equally correct in 

 the first quotation given above, and that honey is a very 

 safe food. 



THB GLUCOSE SUGARS. 



There are several sugars that may be classed with 

 honey. Chemically they are all alike, and in my lectures to 

 my classes I speak of them all as the glucose group of 

 sugars. In composition they are all alike, and are composed 

 of 6 atoms of carbon, 12 of hydrogen, and 6 of oxygen. While 

 they are chemically the same as honey, I feel certain that 

 they have differences, possibly important ones. These 

 sugars are liver-sugar, honey, sugar of digestion, honey- 

 dew, fruit-sugar, and commercial glucose. I believe that 

 the best of these are liver-sugar and honey. Probably the 

 sugar of digestion would be equal except for the efforts in 

 the body to produce it, especially if produced from cane- 

 sugar. I am not sure but that fruit-sugar — the common 

 sugar of all our fruit — and honey-dew, are not equally safe 

 and valuable. The honey-dew from some insects is rank, 

 probably from some other substances excreted by the insects 

 that form it. Commercial glucose, or corn glucose, on the 

 other hand, I do not believe wholesome, and, if I could avoid 

 it, I would tfever eat any. I proved years ago that it was 

 unwholesome to bees. We know that bees are not attracted 

 to it if they can get other sweets. If there is much of it in 

 our candy or syrups, or if honey is adulterated with it to 

 any considerable extent, it leaves a brassy taste in the 

 mouth, which is very offensive to me, and which, I think, 

 would create general distaste for these adulterated articles, 

 if the taste could be associated with the article. I often find 

 candies that leave this objectionable taste in the mouth after 

 they are eaten. The high-priced chocolate drops often 

 give this taste, and I have been told by dealers that they 

 are not favorites, though a little less cost may sell large 

 quantities of them. 



I said above that liver-sugar and honey were probably 

 the best sugars of this group for human consumption. There 

 is physiological ground for this opinion. These sugars are 

 more readily soluble and assimilable than are some, if not 

 all of the others. I hope that some day we will have a pure- 



