Talk:Honey

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Honey article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: Index, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6: 3 months

This article is written in American English, which has its own spelling conventions (color, defense, traveled) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Agriculture Mid‑importance

	Agriculture portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Agriculture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of agriculture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.AgricultureWikipedia:WikiProject AgricultureTemplate:WikiProject AgricultureAgriculture articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Materials High‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Materials, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Materials on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MaterialsWikipedia:WikiProject MaterialsTemplate:WikiProject MaterialsMaterials articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the importance scale.

Food and drink Top‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Food and drink, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of food and drink related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Food and drinkWikipedia:WikiProject Food and drinkTemplate:WikiProject Food and drinkFood and drink articles

Top

This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Food and Drink task list:

To edit this page, select here

Here are some tasks you can do for WikiProject Food and drink:

Help bring these Top Importance articles currently B Status or below up to GA status: Agaricus bisporus (i.e. mushroom), Beef, Bread, Curry, Drink, Food, Ham and eggs, Soy sauce, Sushi, Yogurt
Bring these Top Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Beer, French cuisine, Sugar
Bring these High Importance articles currently at GA status up to FA status: Apple, Burger King, Fish
Participate in project-related deletion discussions.
Delete unrelated trivia sections found in articles. Please review WP:Trivia and WP:Handling trivia to learn how to do this.
Add the {{WikiProject Food and drink}} project banner to food and drink related articles and content to help bring them to the attention of members. For a complete list of banners for WikiProject Food and drink and its child projects, select here.
Provide photographs and images for Category:Wikipedia requested images of food
Consider joining this project's Assessment task force. List any project ideas in this section

Note: These lists are transcluded from the project's tasks pages.

Health properties

I would be interested in reading science-based information about the widely purported health-giving properties of honey. Specifically, that honey contains micronutrients and enzymes that are profoundly health-giving, and that heating honey to any extent destroys these qualities and/or renders honey toxic. I suspect that this is widely-circulated misinformation, but as a individual with limited knowledge of chemistry I cannot find anything to refute this claim. 172.103.198.197 (talk) 17:39, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See Apitherapy. Bon courage (talk) 17:41, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. That article discusses bee venom therapy as opposed to honey. Interesting, though. The things people will subject themselves to if desperate enough! 172.103.198.197 (talk) 16:06, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are no science-based "widely purported health-giving properties of honey" - that is pseudoscience nonsense.

The science-based information about the nutrition and medical research on honey is already in the article. 1) The nutrition section shows that honey is only a carbohydrate source, mainly of fructose and glucose, so could contribute to food energy. Its micronutrient content is at a low level universally. The concept that eating enzymes provides health benefits is bogus, as enzymes are proteins, and consumed proteins are broken apart into amino acids by the acid-enzyme environment of the stomach. 2) The medical research section explains the few examples where honey has been shown to have limited anti-disease effects. Other than an illogical use for treating skin burns and a minor effect on treating coughs, honey has no use in conventional medicine.

It is just a type of food, and no one food has "widely purported health-giving properties". Zefr (talk) 17:32, 11 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. This article already covers what MEDRS sources say about it, which isn't much and what they do say is mostly inconclusive at best. Even some of those I find highly questionable, because a single study or two are really meaningless. To be scientifically sound the results need to be repeatable many times over, and they rarely are. (For example, take the section on antibiotics. Whatever antibacterial properties honey has, I seriously doubt they come from the miniscule amounts of hydrogen peroxide or other trace chemicals it contains, but is derived almost solely from its low water content and hygroscopic nature. (Death by osmosis.) But all sugar is hygroscopic, and has been used as a preservative for hundreds of years.) Everytime one of these studies comes out, especially where there's the slightest chance it can be misinterpreted as some cure, some snake-oil sales people will jump on it. One week it's honey, the next bee stings, then acacia berries, or fish oil, etc... The three biggest money-making scams are miracle weight-loss products, magic foods and potions to cure all ailments, and products that claim to enlarge one's private part. People will believe anything if the hope overrides their good judgment, but we can only accept MEDRS sources for any medical claims, so most of what you find on the internet about it won't be found here. Zaereth (talk) 04:09, 15 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Archelogical finds of honey still edible after thousands of years...

This may be a myth, that has been persisted by scientific sources and popular science simply referencing older sources. See this article https://irna.fr/Honey-in-the-pyramids.html, which presents some original sources showing that early expeditions found a substance that was thought to be honey, but on later analysis turned out to be natron. 2A00:23C8:B713:FD01:F835:D27C:191D:DB84 (talk) 12:06, 10 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it is a myth, and have even found sources that trace the myth to its origin. I'll have to go back to the library one of these days to look it up. In short, it arose during the 1920s, during the excavation of King Tut's tomb. The archeologists found a container that was broken open, which contained a powdery substance that they determined was once honey. A newspaper reporter from the NY Times misinterpreted them as saying they found liquid honey that was still edible, and the myth has persisted ever since.

The thing is, no one really knows. Foods by their very nature are chemically reactive, which makes long-term storage a problem. (A problem NASA has been trying to solve if we ever intend to send people to Mars or beyond.) I mean, popcorn has been found in Mayan tombs, but no one to my knowledge has ever tried to eat it. When archaeologists find a sealed bottle full of liquid, they don't ever open it. Ever. Some containers have been shown to have honey, but many containers once thought to contain honey have been discovered, through processes like x-ray spectrography, to contain other substances like rancid castor oil or wine. I seriously doubt anyone has ever opened one and said, "Hey, let's try this on a peanutbutter sandwich." However, this has become so engrained in society that we even have sources like the Smithsonian spreading it around, and that's a difficult hurdle to get over. Zaereth (talk) 01:52, 14 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 19 November 2024

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

https://aljarrah.ae/products/honey-jarrah-ta40-1kg 102.125.185.183 (talk) 11:44, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: It is unclear what is being asked. Please rewrite your request as "Please change X to Y" in order to make it easier to understand. The Master of Hedgehogs ^(converse) ^(hedgehogs) 11:46, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like just commercial spam (in a non-English language). 205.239.40.3 (talk) 11:47, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, IP. The Master of Hedgehogs ^(converse) ^(hedgehogs) 11:48, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Philippines honey" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Philippines honey has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 November 22 § some regional honeys until a consensus is reached. cogsan _{(nag me) (stalk me)} 14:18, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Myelates" listed at Redirects for discussion

The redirect Myelates has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 November 22 § myelate until a consensus is reached. cogsan _{(nag me) (stalk me)} 14:23, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]