What's The Nutrition Difference Between Honey And Maple Syrup?

A delicious plate of fluffy pancakes is a classic breakfast that's hard to resist, and it only gets better with a drizzle of sweetener like honey or maple syrup. Both are sweet treats with their own unique flavors, but how different are the two beyond taste? You might be surprised to learn what lies beneath the golden nectar exterior.

Let's start with the obvious: carbohydrates. It's no surprise that honey and maple syrup are both high in sugar, with honey boasting  an average of 17 grams per tablespoon and maple syrup 13. Honey also comes out on top in terms of calories, at 64 per tablespoon to syrup's 52. Naturally, this will depend on different factors like the type of honey, but it's still clear that honey is more rich in sugar and calories on average than maple syrup. However, maple syrup does contain larger quantities of other nutrients like zinc than honey and contains antioxidants that honey may lack.

Of course, this refers to natural maple syrup that is actually made from maple sap, not pancake syrup. There is an important distinction, since pancake syrup is often made from high fructose corn syrup instead. Pancake syrup is missing maple sap and has a different nutritional content than maple syrup, so when you're shopping at the store, always look at the ingredient list to ensure you're buying maple syrup and not pancake syrup.

The question of which is better for you doesn't boil down to sugars and calories alone. Honey and maple syrup both have unique benefits that can possibly aid people with health issues like diabetes or heart disease. While more research is needed on these benefits, honey can possibly aid in healing wounds, and in fact honey was used for medicinal purposes in ancient times. Since more of its sugar is in the form of fructose instead of glucose, it's considered better for diabetes (though anyone with diabetes should still be mindful of their sugar intake in any form).

Maple syrup, on the other hand, can help your microbiome and act as an anti-inflammatory. Per a literature review in Heliyon, maple syrup contains abscisic acid, a hormone that can possibly help our bodies manage glucose and improve insulin signaling.

Which sweetener is better for you isn't a simple question to answer. It will vary by each individual and their unique bodily needs, so you can't really say that one is overall better for everyone than the other. Both are doubtlessly better for you than refined sugar, which is pure carbs without nutrition, but maple syrup and honey are still both very dense in calories and sugar, so enjoy them in moderation.