The following information comes from the
Illinois study that was funded in part by grants from the Illinois
value-added Research program and the National Honey Board. SOURCE: Journal
of Apicultural Research, 1998;37:221-225.
 Honey
contains low-to-moderate levels of disease-fighting antioxidants,
according to a new report. The study authors also found that dark-colored
honeys seem to contain more antioxidants than do lighter varieties.
Honey may "play an
important (and as yet unrealized) role in providing antioxidants in a
highly palatable form," say researchers at the University of Illinois in
Urbana, Illinois.
 Antioxidants
are compounds found in cells that 'mop up' free radicals, the damaging
byproducts of normal metabolism. Experts believe diets high in certain
antioxidants (like vitamins C and E) may help prevent illnesses such as
heart disease and cancer.
Since fruits and
vegetables are an especially potent source of antioxidants, the Illinois
team speculated that honey, which originates in plant nectar, might also
contain high levels of the nutrients. They used laboratory tests to
measure the antioxidant levels of 20 different American honeys collected
by beekeepers across the country.
While all of the
honeys contained low-to-moderate levels of antioxidants, study co-author
Dr. May Berenbaum says "(not all honeys are the same." In fact, the
researchers found that honey from bees fed on Illinois buckwheat flowers
had 20 times the antioxidant content of honey from bees fed on California
sage. The authors found that darker-colored honeys had higher antioxidant
concentrations than did lighter-colored varieties.
Berenbaum notes
that the antioxidant concentrations of the highly-rated Illinois buckwheat
honey "...compares favorably, pretty much bite for bite, with the ascorbic
acid-related antioxidant content of tomatoes."
 Of
course, most consumers would be more likely to eat a whole tomato at one
sitting than the equivalent weight-worth of honey. Still, Atlanta
nutritionist Dr. Chris Rosenbloom, a spokesperson for the American
Dietetic Association, says she is happy to include honey as "...one more
food in the arsenal of foods that contain antioxidants and other chemicals
that are good for us."
She cautions,
however, that "...it is not safe to feed honey to infants," since honey
often contains spores of bacterium clostridium botulinum, the organism
that causes botulism. "An older child or an adult has the acids in their
stomach that can kill it off," Rosenbloom explained, "but not infants."
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