472 
HONEY AS A FOOD 
propei' place of sugars in the diet are apt 
to be seriously misleading. The problem 
is complicated and the evidence in many 
respects is still obscure. 
“Until relatively recent times sugar was 
too expensive to be used freely by most 
people; but, with the development of the 
industry and the cheapening of the prod¬ 
uct, the consumption of sugar has in¬ 
creased at an exceedingly rapid rate. 
“The thoughtful student of food prob¬ 
lems must regard this development with 
mixed emotions. The cheapening of a sta¬ 
ple article of food, which is almost uni¬ 
versally popular and which, like the re¬ 
fined sugar of commerce, is of uniform and 
well-known composition and practically 
free from danger of adulteration or harm¬ 
ful deterioration, would be a source of 
great satisfaction but for the fact that re¬ 
fined sugar constitutes an extreme case of 
a one-sided food, its sole nutritive function 
being to serve as fuel so that, as the en¬ 
ergy requirement of the body is met to a 
larger and larger extent by the consump¬ 
tion of refined sugar, there is a constantly 
increasing danger of unbalancing the diet 
and making it deficient in some of the sub¬ 
stances which are needed for the building 
and repair of body tissue and for the reg¬ 
ulation of physiological processes. 
“The fuel value of sugar is about 1800 
calories per pound, so if, as estimated, the 
consumption of sugar in the United States 
now amounts to 85 pounds per capita per 
year, the energy obtained from eating 
sugar must amount to about 420 calories 
per capita per day. If the per capita en¬ 
ergy requirement be estimated at about 
2000 calories per day it follows that about 
one-fifth of the energy requirement is be¬ 
ing met by eating sugar (of course not all 
of this sugar appears on the table as such) 
and that the intake of protein, phosphorus, 
calcium, potassium, iron, and other essen¬ 
tial elements and of such important tho 
imperfectly understood substances as the 
lipoids and vitamines, is on the whole about 
one-tenth lower than would be the case if 
the sugar were reduced one-half and the 
energy now derived from sugar were sup¬ 
plied by an increased consumption of the 
other articles of food. Are we to assume 
that the ordinary dietary of the people of 
the United States furnishes such an abun¬ 
dance of all the essential elements and 
each specific necessary compound that a 
difference of 10 per cent in the intake is of 
no consequence? The investigations of re¬ 
cent years indicate clearly that no such 
assumption is justified. 
“The objection to the too free use of • 
sugar, on the ground that it serves only 
as fuel and may replace to an undue ex¬ 
tent other food materials which meet other 
nutritive requirements, applies equally to 
commercial glucose and to most candy. It 
does not hold to the same extent as re¬ 
gards molasses and those syrups which con¬ 
tain the natural ash constituents of the 
plant juices.” 
Before closing the discussion of the food 
value of honey, it is very important that 
mention is made of the vitamine content of 
honey. The reading public has learned a 
great deal about vitamines in the last two 
or three years, and nearly everyone has 
been educated to a realization of the im¬ 
portance of these almost intangible “food 
accessories.” For those who do not feel 
sufficiently acquainted with the subject it 
is suggested that the article Vitamines, 
further on in this volume, be read. The 
matter may be summarized here by say¬ 
ing that Prof. Hawk, mentioned above, 
has proved the presence of what many 
scientists consider the most important class 
of vitamines, Fat Soluble A, in comb hon¬ 
ey. This places comb honey in a class en¬ 
tirely apart from all the rest of the sweets, 
none of which have any vitamine content 
at all. 
In concluding, it may be said briefly that 
honey is preferable to other sweets, from a 
dietetic standpoint merely (if from no 
other), for the following reasons: First, it 
is far easier to assimilate than the other 
sweets, especially white sugar, in that it 
taxes the digestion not at all; second, it is 
not super-refined, and utterly lacking in 
accessory food components, like white 
sugar; and third, comb honey contains the 
rarest and most important of the vita¬ 
mines, Fat Soluble A. See also Sugar, 
and Vitamines. 
THE USE OF HONEY IN COOKING. 
The simplest way to serve honey is the 
most common—just spread it on bread or 
rolls, either in the form of comb or liquid. 
