Is honey completely out of question even as a glaze?

Short and sweet (haha sweet) the answer is yes. It is pure sugar.

Hi Trimline.
Sunshine-girl is right – it is pure sugar. But I take the approach that nothing is completely out of the question. This way of life is about changing our focus to healthier (and less carby) foods. (you haven’t mentioned if you are T2 or prediabetic – that may change things for you) So perhaps a roast that has a glaze that contains a teaspoon of honey, and perhaps soy sauce, or worcestershire sauce, olive oil etc over a whole roast – then each serve will not contain very much sugar at all. (I also have a sugar free maple syrup that I use in small amounts if I am making a dish that needs “honey”)
Or for meat dishes perhaps try a rub on the meat (spices and olive oil)
Or are you referring to a glaze for muffins etc? Perhaps try a cream cheese and lemon juice / cream cheese and raspberry “frosting” instead of a sweet glaze.
🌺🌺🌺

I agree merry, unless you have a medical reason I think some people are toooooo strict on this diet and as you say a little honey or maple syrup mixed with soy sauce or other things and spread on something would make little difference. I know any amount of sugar, fructose, maltose, glucose, honey or maple syrup would send my blood glucose off the scale. I would say to avoid sweet things in the first days of the diet if you are the type of person who cannot get rid of the craving and one sweet thing leads to another. You are so right that this is not a diet but a way of life and we have to be kind to ourselves in the long term.

Hi trimlin20

I use honey occasionally as an ingredient – but only ever one teaspoon max, it’s about 40cal per teaspoon and that’s about 5g and 4g carbs (1g is water) – there’s zero nutritional value to honey but it does give a little lift to a stir fry sauce or used as a glaze on meat etc. If you don’t have sugar issues then I don’t see the harm using it occasionally but be aware one teaspoon does not go far!! I agree with Merry and sunshinegirl that’s it’s not worth making yourself miserable so if that one teaspoon of honey will help then go for it but I’d say as an occasional treat and not every day, I also think the easiest way to kick the sweet cravings is to go cold turkey completely (I’m 16 weeks in and STILL trying to kick it to the curb – I didn’t introduce any honey until after the first 8 weeks).

Thanks everyone I am not pre diabetic and don’t have much of a sweet tooth anyway so avoiding biscuits , ice cream and stuff is not much of hardship, but there is a lovely salad with some small honey glaze carrot strips in it that I wanted to do. Sounds like that wouldn’t be a problem as long as I am careful what else I eat on that day.

That sounds fine Trimlin especially as you don’t have sugar issues but do be cautious with carrots – they are surprisingly high in carbs so should be little and often, all depends what level you are aiming to keep your carbs to – if below 50g a day carrots are ok in moderation, if below 20g a day you’ll struggle with carrots

Poor trimlin, double whammy. Not only cant you have honey you cant have carrots either. Life is so not fair 🙂 🙂

Trimlin, hope you are not too upset but to be honest I eat carrots all the time. If you cant have something that is good for you there really is no hope. Seen people recently cutting out lovely foods like brocolli and spinach because of the carbs – although the spinach calculation was a mistake. Low carb not no carb.

Good shout SG, I was the one who had the issue with the spinach, which I now eat again 🙂 so thank you.
I aim for less than 50g carbs per day, just because that seems manageable but I have no idea if I’m in ketosis or not, and we do eat a lot of vegetables, just mostly green ones and no longer any starchy ones. We also eat a lot of tomatoes, and chopped onion with tinned tomatoes to make a sauce, etc. but even a tin of chopped tomatoes shared between 2 of us is only 9g carbs each.
I use chopped carrot in a tomato soup, but 1 carrot and 1 tin of tomatoes ends up spread over 4 portions of soup (with some chopped celery and garlic also included), and carrot also forms the base for many stews (onion, carrot and celery is the holy trinity).
Re. honey – I think I would rather use honey occasionally and sparingly than use an artificial sweetener ever.