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If you enjoy a bowl of yogurt in the morning, adding a spoonful of honey is a delicious and healthy trick to sweeten your favorite treat. Researchers have found that adding honey to yogurt supports… beneficial bacteria (Probiotics) in it according to two recent studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the United States of America.
“We were interested in the culinary pairing of yogurt and honey, a common pairing in the Mediterranean diet, and how it affects gut bacteria,” said Hannah Holscher, associate professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois, and co-author of the two studies published in the Journal of Nutrition.
beneficial bacteria
Although people often think of bacteria and other microorganisms as harmful “germs,” many are actually helpful. Some bacteria help digest food, destroy disease-causing cells, or produce vitamins, and a huge number of beneficial bacteria live in the human body.
Beneficial bacteria promote health.
Greek yogurt and other yogurts contain strains of beneficial bacteria, and consuming certain beneficial bacteria can promote digestive health and bowel movements and have a positive effect on mood and cognition.
Holscher said:According to the Eurek Alert website“Enzymes in our mouth, stomach and intestines help with digestion and absorption of nutrients, but they also reduce the viability of microbes. That’s good for pathogens, but not necessarily good for good bacteria. We wanted to see if honey could help good bacteria survive in the gut.”
Two studies to reveal the benefits of adding honey to milk
in First study The researchers conducted a laboratory experiment to test the effect of four different types of honey (alfalfa, buckwheat, clover, and orange blossom) on the survival of a type of beneficial bacteria in yogurt by simulating digestion. The researchers cultured the beneficial bacteria in Petri dishes with solutions that mimicked the components of saliva, stomach acid, intestinal bile, and enzymes.
As for the salivary and gastric fluids, there were no differences in the survival of beneficial bacteria between any of the honey types. However, yogurt with honey helped support the survival of beneficial bacteria in the digestive stage in the intestine, especially the clover honey type.
Next, the researchers wanted to test their results in study In humans, they studied 66 healthy people and asked them to eat two different items for two weeks: yogurt with clover honey and pasteurized heat-treated yogurt. The participants provided stool samples and information about their bowel movements, and they also filled out questionnaires and performed tasks assessing their mood, cognition, and overall well-being. The results of the study were published July 1.
“Our results showed that combining honey with yogurt supported the survival of the beneficial bacteria in yogurt in the gut, so the results of the laboratory study translate to a practical application in humans,” Holscher said.
However, there were no changes in bowel movement frequency, or any of the measures of mood and cognition. This is likely because the participants were already healthy adults with regular bowel movements, “so there wasn’t much room for improvement,” Holscher said.
Does sugar do the same thing?
The researchers also conducted a smaller follow-up study in which 36 people ate a third food item, yogurt with sugar. When the researchers compared the results of the three conditions, the yogurt-honey combination preserved the most beneficial bacteria, but had no effect on health measures.
“We found that one tablespoon of honey in a serving of yogurt helps support the survival of probiotics,” says Holscher. “However, keep in mind that honey is an added sugar, and most people need to be mindful of the amount of sugar in their diet to maintain a healthy body weight. But adding a little honey to unsweetened yogurt is a nice culinary pairing to incorporate into your menu rotation.”
Holscher suggests supporting gut health and good bacteria by getting more fiber into your diet. For example, add berries, seeds or nuts, and drizzle a little honey over them.
