HONEY

Effects: Contains antioxidants. The darker the honey, the more the antioxidants; for instance, honey made from Illinois buckwheat flowers has 20 times the antioxidants as honey made from California sage. Tupelo honey has the most fructose of any of the honeys and doesn't cause the insulin rush that others do.

Precautions: For the most health benefits, the honey should be unfiltered, unheated, and unprocessed. Despite the claims of some health advocates, the vitamin and mineral content of honey is minimal, and any derived benefits negligible. Honey also has the highest sugar content of all the natural sweeteners, and even has more sugar content than refined sugar; in fact, it can rot teeth faster than table sugar, possibly because of its stickiness and the fact that its vitamin and mineral content, however small, may provide a favorable environment for bacteria.

Compounding the problem is the fact that manufacturers may feed bees sugar water or add sugar syrup to the honey to increase the sweetness (a tipoff is inexpensive brands that pour easily). Further, the honey is heated to high temperatures, destroying much of the protein and nutritional content. Honey could also contain carcinogens that bees have inadvertently picked up from flowers sprayed with pesticides, or traces of penicillin and sulfite, which could pose a threat to susceptible individuals. Honey should never be fed to infants under one year of age, as it contains spores of Clostridium botulinum, the organism that causes botulism; while adults and older children have stomach acid that can kill the bacterium, infants do not, leaving them susceptible to sickness or even death.