Nutritive value of Honey

All about Honey

• Honey is a nutritious, healthy and natural food produced by the bees. Its benefits go beyond its use as a sweetener as it contains several minerals, enzymes, vitamins and proteins that confer unique nutritious and organoleptic properties.
• Honey can be monofloral if one specific plant nectar and pollen content prevails in pre-defined percentages or polyfloral if it contains an unspecified mix of different nectars and pollens.Worldwide there are more than 300 monofloral honey types.
• Honey ranges in colour – from water white to dark brown/black.
• Honey contains certain enzymes that act as a catalyst in the digestion process of humans.  It is used as a dressing for wounds and ulcers to speed up the skin’s healing process.
• Due to environmental, geographical and climatic conditions honey may vary in pollen content and relative humidity. Due to its specific botanical origin,
  tropical honey tends to have higher pollen and humidity content.
• Honey is produced in all five continents and its consumption varies from country to country also due to cultural reasons and eating habits.
• What is needed to produce 1 Kg of honey - 1 million flowers and 50,000 bee flights; 40 mg nectar for each bee flight (2g nectar=1g honey). Each beehive can produce about 20 kgs of honey per year

Composition

• Fructose - 38 %
• Glucose - 31 %
• Water - 17 %
• Disaccharides - 8 %
• Other sugars - 2 %
• Other substances - 4 %

Nutritive value

Vitamins (mg)

• Phyllochinon - 0.025
• Thiamin - 0.01
• Riboflavin - 0.01 - 0.02
• Pyridoxin - 0.01 - 0.32
• Niacin - 0.10 - 0.20
• Panthothenic acid - 0.02 - 0.11
• Ascorbic acid - 2.2 - 2.5

Energy

• Carbohydrates- 300 kcal
• Proteins - 0.5g
• Fats - 0g

Minerals (mg)

• Sodium - 1.6 - 17
• Calcium - 3 - 31
• Potassium - 40 - 3500
• Magnesium - 0.7 - 13
• Phosphorus 2 - 15
• Zinc 0.05 - 2
• Copper - 0.02 - 0.06
• Iron - 0.03 - 4
• Manganese - 0.02 - 2
• Chromium - 0.01 - 0.3
• Selenium - 0.002 - 0.01

Source : FAO