Honey Diabetes and Heart

[Klpville]

Hello guys,

I would like to share with you some calculations I had to go through. It's not a secret that honey is very useful for people who have cardiovascular (heart) problems. Honey is the one of the well-known natural antibiotics as well. But how do you go about it when you're also diabetic or pre-diabetic? You cannot pretty much eliminate all the carbs from your meals, you simply have to calculate their intake instead and keep them under control as far as I understand it now. Mathematics to the rescue!

My honey label says it contains 80 carbs per 100 grams and the entire pot is 370 grams. If we divide 100 by 80 we'll get 1.25 carbs per 1 gram of honey. Now how many carbs would I eat if I put just one teaspoon of honey into my tea? Any regular teaspoons are 5 milliliters (ml) or 5 grams (g). However, the tricky thing here is to take into consideration density. Honey's is 1.4 g/ml therefore my portion becomes: 1.4 g (honey in question per 1 ml) x 5 ml (teaspoon size) = 7 grams of honey per teaspoon. Since we have 1.25 carbs per 1 gram of honey in question then we have 7 grams in our teaspoon thus we get 8.75 carbs in a teaspoon of honey (1.25 x 7 = 8.75).

Do you guys always go through these kinds of calculations each time you eat? This is just one product. Although I am OK to calculate though all the foodstuff that I eat but I was just wondering how do other people do it? For example I have a big piece of prepared (boiled) and ready to eat turkey meat. It has a label on it with all the carbs, sugars, fats, etc. mentioned. Now if I cut off one slice out of it for just one serving how many carbs would it contain? It also smote me that I might need to go guy some high precision food scales to control my intakes.

Would appreciate any comments at all. Many thanks!

 

[Rokaab]

My honey label says it contains 80 carbs per 100 grams and the entire pot is 370 grams. If we divide 100 by 80 we'll get 1.25 carbs per 1 gram of honey.

Actually you got it the wrong way round , its 80 divided by 100 to work out how many carbs per gram - so it is therefore 0.8 carbs per gram of your honey

I suspect you'll find most diabetics who are doing LCHF just don't really have honey as it may end up being a arge part of how many carbs they caa tolerate each day

Do you guys always go through these kinds of calculations each time you eat?

Well there are always calculations on how many carbs there are, I don't measure by teaspoon/volume though - but then I never have honey, just tend to measure by weight so density doesn't come into it. However it does get to a point where you can make a rough estimate on what is in something dependent on what it is and how much you can see based on previous experience of weighing.

 

[Klpville]

Actually you got it the wrong way round , its 80 divided by 100 to work out how many carbs per gram - so it is therefore 0.8 carbs per gram of your honey.

Right, exactly. That's the other way around. Oops. I am just getting started on my new "journey" so carried away doing my research on how to calculate it all and stuff. But then again, in that case it's even less carbs, 5.6 only. Will that be real bad if you eat just one teaspoon of honey of 5.6 carbs once a while? You do eat carbs anyway, I haven't heard of anyone yet who manages to eat 0 (zero) carbs per month and lasts like this for years. Or... is that actually possible?

 

[Diakat]

I think @NoCrbs4Me and @bulkbiker moght be trying...

 

[briped]

For the time being I weigh almost everything till I feel I get a better hang of it. I eat 16g of carbs per day at the most, and use a carb calculator where I can save all the foods I normally eat for next time I want the same food again. I calculate the item as per the declaration pr. g., so next time I want to have 76g. of Greek youghurt, I just add 76 g. to the calculator and I get the total og the various macros. It gets easier and easier the more foods I add, of course.
Yesterday I had meatballs made with a mix of ground pork and beef, 4 cloves of garlic, 1½ red chili, 2 eggs and 3 tsps of almond flour. I had a bit less than a 4th of the total portion. The only ingredient that was slightly carby was the almond flour, but the amount was so small that I didn't bother to calculate the carbs for that meal.

 

[Krystyna23040]

I haven't heard of anyone yet who manages to eat 0 (zero) carbs per month and lasts like this for years. Or... is that actually possible?

I think it is possible to almost do zero if you do a carnivore diet. I have thought about doing that but know that - for me - I couldn't do it long term so I stick with 15 to 20g a day which I know I can effortlessly do forever.

So to have a teaspoon of honey I would have to ditch something and I would find it very hard to ditch the asparagus, advocado, mushrooms, kale, greek yoghurt etc in order to have the honey. Also, over the 2 years of absolutely never eating any of the sweet stuff (I know that this is a bit obsessive as has been pointed out to me by my sister recently) I would find the honey just too horribly sweet. Actually - this is a very helpful side effect of strict keto.

 

[bulkbiker]

I think @NoCrbs4Me and @bulkbiker moght be trying...

Very trying for many I’m sure! .. I tend to have about 10g of carbs per day from cream in my coffee and milk in my tea and incidentals like high cocoa chocolate.
If you work out how much carbs is in a teaspoon of honey then you do it once. Then you know. Just record it. Personally I hate honey and have never heard about it being good for heart health. If it is 80% carbs no way would it go inside me.

 

[Member496333]

The human body has no requirement for carbohydrate. Unlike fat and protein we will not die without it. It’s perfectly possible, in theory, to live on zero. Whether or not one chooses to do so is another matter.

 

[hankjam]

Right, exactly. That's the other way around. Oops. I am just getting started on my new "journey" so carried away doing my research on how to calculate it all and stuff. But then again, in that case it's even less carbs, 5.6 only. Will that be real bad if you eat just one teaspoon of honey of 5.6 carbs once a while? You do eat carbs anyway, I haven't heard of anyone yet who manages to eat 0 (zero) carbs per month and lasts like this for years. Or... is that actually possible?

If you're going low carb, say 10-20g a day, then 5 g is a very large part of it.... which reduces the scope for the remainder.

The thing about "sugar" I found is that it destroys your sense of taste, so having been low carb for sometime, a number of food items are becoming "sweeter" than they were... broccoli and courgettes come to mind...

 

[Member496333]

Honey will also help keep you addicted to carbohydrate, which is probably why it’s been “shown” to be good for you

 

[Tophat1900]

You might want to look into the fructose

Very trying for many I’m sure! .. I tend to have about 10g of carbs per day from cream in my coffee and milk in my tea and incidentals like high cocoa chocolate.
If you work out how much carbs is in a teaspoon of honey then you do it once. Then you know. Just record it. Personally I hate honey and have never heard about it being good for heart health. If it is 80% carbs no way would it go inside me.

I think honey is half glucose and half fructose.... so yeah, I wouldn't touch it, let alone eat it.

 

[lucylocket61]

It's not a secret that honey is very useful for people who have cardiovascular (heart) problems. Honey is the one of the well-known natural antibiotics as well.

do you have any links to this information please?

 

[JohnEGreen]

" research shows that bees make a protein that they add to the honey, called defensin-1, which could one day be used to treat burns and skin infections and to develop new drugs that could combat antibiotic-resistant infections."

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100630111037.htm

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ben/cmc/2013/00000020/00000005/art00005

https://www.ajol.info/index.php/ajtcam/article/view/56693

https://www.hindawi.com/journals/tswj/2008/961837/abs/

 

[Geordie_P]

I would imagine the detrimental effect of honey on your blood sugar would grossly outweigh any beneficial effect on cardiovascular health. If you take a blood test and it turns out you can handle the honey, then I suppose you can try, but I can't think of many foods more perfectly designed to change pre-diabetes into full-blown type 2.

 

[Klpville]

The human body has no requirement for carbohydrate. Unlike fat and protein we will not die without it. It’s perfectly possible, in theory, to live on zero. Whether or not one chooses to do so is another matter.

Hmmm.. perfectly possible in theory. How about for real? There are a lot of things possible theoretically but when it comes down to real life situations a lot of these theories appear to be ineligible and inapplicable. I am not an expert of course but to exclude all the carbs from your meals for good looks a bit too harsh for me. That would mean no fruits and no vegetables at all as they all contain carbs. I guess you can eat meat and fish only but don't you think you will turn into a lion or a tiger after let's say 10 years of this type of a diet?

 

[Brunneria]

@Klpville
Do you have any links to info about honey being good for the heart? I would be interested to read it.

You may be meaning the small amounts of antioxidants? But there are other, better, lower or no carb options for antioxidants, such as green tea that can work very well instead.

I hazard a guess that it won't be the fructose, galactose, maltose and sucrose that is considered good for the heart, at 82g of carbs per 100g of honey.

 

[Klpville]

I would imagine the detrimental effect of honey on your blood sugar would grossly outweigh any beneficial effect on cardiovascular health. If you take a blood test and it turns out you can handle the honey, then I suppose you can try, but I can't think of many foods more perfectly designed to change pre-diabetes into full-blown type 2.

Yes, absolutely. Good point.

 

[Klpville]

If you're going low carb, say 10-20g a day, then 5 g is a very large part of it.... which reduces the scope for the remainder.

How long would you be able to last on 10-20g of carbs per day? Let's say you lose 2 pounds a week on this diet and then eventually, for example, after a year, you will lose all your weight, all your muscles, everything except for bones. Is that not right?

 

[Klpville]

Very trying for many I’m sure! .. I tend to have about 10g of carbs per day from cream in my coffee and milk in my tea and incidentals like high cocoa chocolate...

Hmmm... How many years have you survived on 10 g of carbs per day for?

 

[Klpville]

For the time being I weigh almost everything till I feel I get a better hang of it. I eat 16g of carbs per day at the most...

How long have you been going on 16 g of carbs per day for? Does it make you lose weight at incredibly high speeds or is your weight stable on 16 g of carbs per day?