Honey is a true superfood because it is rich in beneficial and nutritious properties. However, we often find ourselves making trivial mistakes that cancel out all these nutrients: the most common is adding honey to hot drinks. Never do this: honey is as rich as it is delicate, and its archenemy is precisely heat. Let's see why we should not make this mistake.
What the Temperature, Says the Expert
Honey is the first sweetener discovered by humans: an invaluable source of nutrients. It seems magical because it never expires, has a low environmental impact, and is a great preservative, yet we often make simple mistakes that negatively impact the product. Above all, adding it to hot drinks. A mistake that should never be made, according to Giorgio Poeta , one of Italy's leading beekeepers, because "boiling drinks, above 122°F/50°C, significantly and immediately increase a honey quality indicator: HMF."
HMF is a dehydration product of fructose and is used as an indicator of honey's freshness and shelf life. In practice, "it indicates the product's shelf life," Poeta tells us. High temperatures "lead to the enzymatic deterioration of the honey itself, somehow causing it to lose its organoleptic characteristics." To avoid any type of "decay," simply " wait a few minutes and then add it to a tea or herbal tea," concludes the beekeeper. The result will be the same, but we'll have the benefits of both the beverage and the sweetener. Of course, we'd like to point out that adding honey to boiling hot beverages doesn't make it harmful to humans: it just makes it "useless."
If we add honey to a very hot drink, the only property that remains unchanged is its sweetening effect. It's more or less the same concept as pasteurized honey, which is also found in supermarkets: in this case, the product is heated to a temperature of around 172°F/78°C for a few moments, but that's enough to cause it to lose all its nutrients. The next time you find yourself with a delicious herbal tea in your hands, be firm enough to wait a few minutes before drinking it and enrich it with honey: you won't regret it.
;Resize,width=767;)
