The Truth: Is Adding Honey To Your Tea Toxic?

I don’t know about you, but I love honey in tea. It acts as a natural sweetener in my daily cup and as a throat soother when I’m sick. But, there are rumours that adding honey to your tea might be toxic. 

I never thought twice about the safety of my delicious addition of honey in tea. Just like it might be potentially dangerous to twice boil water, the same may be true for adding honey to your tea. The theory is that heating up honey (like putting it in hot water) can possibly make it toxic. This can’t be real though, right?! 

So I decided to find out the truth behind it; here’s everything you need to know about adding honey to tea or even adding honey in boiling water.

Psst! This blog post contains affiliate links in it which sends me a bit of extra money if you use them… at no extra cost to you!

Why Honey & Tea Are So Perfect Together

Adding honey in tea isn’t something new, it’s a well known natural home remedy when you’re sick, and acts as a natural sweetener. 

I mean, it was the go-to throat soother in my house. Any time my sisters or I complained about a scratchy throat there was my mom pouring honey in hot water for us. It somewhat became a cold season staple in our house.

Honey adds to the benefits that tea already gives you, making them kind of like the perfect power couple. (Did you know that tea actually has the possibility to help you live longer!?).

But, even if you’re not in it for the benefits of adding honey to your tea, it’s even the ultimate tea sweetener. It’s a good alternative to adding sugar to sweeten that bitter tea, it’s all-natural!

What Other Benefits Does Honey Have?

Honey comes with added benefits that go beyond soothing your sore throat. But, the benefits you get depend on which honey you buy: raw or pasteurized.

For the added benefits of adding honey to your tea, you’ll want to look for raw honey. It has anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, anti-ulcer, and anti-fungal properties (man, that was a mouthful!).

Raw Honey, What’s That?

Raw honey is exactly what it sounds like – it’s the raw form of honey which means it had no post-processing done. Sometimes it’s filtered but all that means is that they took out all the pieces, it doesn’t mean it’s not raw anymore.

There are more benefits in raw honey because the bee propolis is still there which is where all the beneficial properties come from.

But Is Honey In Tea Toxic?

So, why are people freaking out about honey in tea being toxic? It’s an age-old combination for years and I haven’t heard about anyone dying from this.

As it turns out, honey in boiling water can change the enzymes, reducing its benefits. But what many people don’t realize is that pasteurized honey has already been heat treated to kill bacteria. 

So although it might be less beneficial for you (it’s believed that by killing the bacteria you’re also boiling off extra antioxidants) it is in no way toxic. Also, the fact that it can be less beneficial has to be taken with a grain of salt because there aren’t any official studies up to this point to confirm this fact.

So honey in NO WAY becomes toxic when heated (and added to tea). All it means is that it might be less beneficial. 

How Did The Rumour Of Honey In Hot Water Start?

Honey in hot water being toxic is from one of the oldest healing systems: Ayurveda. In Sanskrit, Ayurveda translates to “The Science of Healing”.

Their dietary belief is to only ingest the pure to not toxify the body. With that in mind, when you heat up honey, it’s no longer in its pure form – making honey ‘toxic’ to humans.

When you heat honey in boiling water, it changes the molecules making them clog your body’s channels. It’s not that their dietary beliefs are necessarily wrong, it’s just a different way to look at things. Read more about Ayurveda beliefs here.

Honey Doesn’t Come Without Risks

Honey, whether pasteurized, raw, baked, or in tea, still comes with risks. Honey contains small amounts of Clostridium botulinum bacteria.

In infants under one-years-old, it can be deadly because they can’t fight off this bacteria yet. That’s why you should never under any circumstances, feed honey to an infant.

Some adults may even show symptoms as well, but they’re not as harmful. It turns into botulism, a rare form of food poisoning. So you may experience vomiting, diarrhea, and headaches from honey.

Keep An Eye Out When Buying Honey

The problem with buying pasteurized honey is that sometimes they add extra sweeteners. So make sure to always check the ingredients.

Also, just because you’re buying raw honey doesn’t mean it’s organic. You can buy pasteurized organic honey. Organic honey means that the flowers the bees pollinate have not been chemically treated.

How You Can Help The Bees

It’s isn’t new that the bee population isn’t doing too well these days, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do our part to help them.

The easiest way to help the bees if you have a backyard is to simply let your lawn grow, bees prefer overgrown areas. But, if you’re a bit OCD, you don’t have to overgrow your entire garden, just leave some of it for the bees. Also, step away from using any pesticides and herbicides – there’s no need for them!

If you want to take it one step further, you can also plant bee-friendly plants in your garden. This way, they’ll have healthy flowers to pollinate!

There are even more ways you can help, find out here!

Quick Links – My Amazon Tea Favourites

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Last update on 2024-11-13 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API