Honey > Sugar

I recently learned in the class I am taking on microbial diversity, by the great microbiologist Norm Pace, about the superiority of honey over sugar as a sweetener in regard to your Teeth! Tooth plaque results from biofilms formed by a common mouth microbe, Streptococcus mutans. This microbe produces a polysaccharide as part of the biofilm and can't use honey as a substrate in the transesterification reaction because it contains the monosaccharides frusctose and glucose, as opposed to the disaccharide in sugar, sucrose. Sucrose is the only known substrate of the polysaccharide-producing enzyme, dextransucrase. S. mutans is considered to be the largest threat to dental health because of this plaque formation, in addition to the lactic acid it forms as a metabolic product.


There was also a study that showed that people that chewed on a study-formulated manuka honey chew had lower levels of plaque and gingivitis than people who chewed sugarless gum. So honey not only can prevent plaque formation, but it appears it can reduce it! However, the study was done specifically with Manuka honey, which is honey produced by bees who collect nectar from Manuka (Tea Tree) bushes in New Zealand, the antimicrobial properties of which are measured with a seemingly meaningless unit called "Unique Manuka Factor." I could spin off into a Tea Tree oil tangent, but I won't.

Honey has long been used as an anti-microbial, however, with the advent of clinical antibiotics, its use has decreased. One study (Pubmed link) I found that showed that 30-100% honey solutions inhibited the growth of various kinds of bacteria. New honey works better than old honey. AND honey is as effective on wounds as clinical antibiotics. It appears as though its antimicrobial properties stem primarily from the presence of glucose oxidase(GOD), which catalyzes the oxidation of beta-D-glucose into D-glucono-1,5-lactone, a side product of which is hydrogen peroxide. (You would think that having an enzyme that acted upon glucose would reduce the sweetness of sugar, and oxidized product is apparently a little sour)


In addition, it appears that microbes and fungi can't grow in honey because of it's low (0.5-0.7) water activity. This low water activity just means that the water in the honey has a lower vapor pressure than that of pure water, and apparently many bacteria need a water of activity of around 0.9 and fungi, 0.7. I guess this is also why people salt meat, as it lowers the water activity of the meat to around .95.

I presume that these organisms need a certain water activity for osmotic reasons, and this "water activity" variable is something that food scientists made up, even though there are already purer measurements that could be used to explain this phenomenon instead. This seems like something that happens in science, different divisions have their own units of measurement that they like to talk about. I think a standardization in terms of units would be helpful for getting other scientists to understand, because the divisions in science are becoming more blurry and everything makes more sense anyway if you think about it in a multidisciplinary way.

So, anyway, eat honey!