HONEY AS A FOOD 
471 
granulated sugar has made a very great 
change in the situation. The use of sweets 
has increased almost beyond belief. In the 
United States, for instance, the per capita 
consumption is about 85 lbs. per year—an 
enormous amount, viewed from any stand¬ 
point. People at large have not stopped 
to consider the probable effect of eating 
so much sugar; but it is a serious ques¬ 
tion nevertheless, whether the present gen¬ 
eration would not be benefited if honey 
were restored, at least partially, to its for¬ 
mer place in the diet. A study of dietetic 
values discloses at least two reasons why 
honey should be given a preferred place 
among the sweets. 
First, honey is more easily assimilated 
than any of the other sweets. Granu¬ 
lated sugar and allied products have a ten¬ 
dency, when eaten in more than small 
amounts, to produce irritation in the di¬ 
gestive tract. This sometimes results in 
nothing more than a hindrance to diges¬ 
tion,; at other times it is severe enough to 
cause real indigestion. Especially is this 
true with sedentary workers. Honey is re¬ 
markably free from this fault. To begin 
with, it does not require digestion at all; 
it is ready for absorption into the blood 
without change. In addition, it is much 
less likely to have the hindering effect on 
digestion noticeable in the case of cane 
sugar. This has been recently clearly dem¬ 
onstrated by Philip B. Hawk, of Jefferson 
Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa. Pro¬ 
fessor Hawk carried out a series of experi¬ 
ments, upon a normal man, to determine 
the influence of honey on gastric digestion. 
He first fed the man 40 grams of whole¬ 
wheat bread alone. The contents of the 
stomach were analyzed for acid and pep¬ 
sin at 15-minute intervals, and an accurate 
and detailed record was kept. The experi¬ 
ment was then repeated, adding to the 
bread half its weight in honey (20 grams). 
The following quotation tells the result 
of the work in Prof. Hawk’s own words: 
“An examination of the chart will show 
that the bread with honey was digested 
and left the stomach as quickly as the 
bread alone. Similar pepsin values were 
obtained; and, while there was a slight de¬ 
pression of acidity such as always follows 
the ingestion of foods containing much 
sugar, digestion was completed as soon as 
with the bread alone, altho the addition of 
honey had practically doubled the food 
value of the product from the energy 
standpoint. 
“The use of honey with bread and in 
similar ways would, therefore, appear to 
be generally preferable in the case of chil¬ 
dren to the eating of candies. Honey serves 
to make the highly nutritious bread far 
more palatable, leading to greater con¬ 
sumption of body-building foods instead of 
depressing the appetite, as is likely to be 
the case with candies which are eaten be¬ 
tween meals. At the same time, honey fur¬ 
nishes the body very considerable amounts 
of energy in the most available form. The 
high place given to it in the diet is there¬ 
fore well deserved.” 
There is a second reason why honey de¬ 
serves a preferred place among sweets. It 
is a reason the importance of which is sel¬ 
dom appreciated, but a reason which should 
be of vital concern to every one interested 
in good health. Honey differs from most 
of the other concentrated sweets, notably 
granulated sugar, in that it is not pure 
sugar. Granulated sugar is so pure that it 
is practically a chemical entity, sucrose and 
nothing else. It contains no mineral mat¬ 
ter at all. It is too pure, strange as that 
may sound. On the other hand, honey 
contains, besides its sugars, numerous “ac¬ 
cessory components.” From a dietetic 
standpoint, these accessory components are 
important because we have in them prac¬ 
tically all the mineral elements found in 
the human body. It is true that they do 
not occur in large quantities in honey, but 
the amounts are comparable to the amounts 
found in numerous other foods of impor¬ 
tance. It may be wondered whether the 
stress placed on the presence of mineral 
matter in our food is well founded or not. 
Some may be inclined to think that enough 
mineral matter is found in other foods to 
cover up the deficiency in white sugar. But 
it must be considered that white sugar is 
used in literally enormous amounts. This 
situation is most clearly set forth by Prof. 
Henry C. Sherman, one of the foremost 
authorities on food and dietetics in the 
United States. We quote: 
*“Dogmatic statements regarding the 
*“Food Products,” by Henry C. Sherman. (Mac¬ 
millan.) 
