Nutrition myth buster: We need to rethink health claims about honey, maple syrup, agave syrup and unrefined cane sugar

Jennifer Bowden

Nutrition writer·New Zealand Listener·

13 May, 2026 06:06 PM4 mins to read

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It’s not difficult to exceed recommended sugar intakes, especially when natural sugars like honey or maple syrup are consumed on top of an already sugar‑dense food environment. Photo / Getty Images

There was a time when soft drinks were delivered in glass bottles in crates to people’s homes – a small detail that points to how different everyday eating once was. Sugary drinks and snacks were occasional treats, not part of the daily routine. Fast forward a few decades and
the food environment looks very different.

We now live in a sugar‑laden world, with an overwhelming array of sweetened foods and drinks lining supermarket shelves. I’m not suggesting a return to the “sugar is white death” proclamations of the early 2000s, but amid an ever‑expanding range of sweetened products, the idea that some sugars are inherently healthier than others simply because they’re labelled “natural” deserves closer scrutiny.

Whether the natural sugar is honey, maple syrup, agave syrup or an unrefined cane sugar, there remains a widespread perception that these added sugars are “more natural”, “less processed” and therefore “healthier” and better for you. For example, a recent Italian study found that the perception of honey as a healthy, natural food that was nutritionally complete and offered potential therapeutic properties, drove many consumers to actively include it in their diet. Surveys suggest that consumer preference for sweetening agents largely depends on how natural the ingredient is perceived to be – with honey the preferred sweetener as it is perceived to be the most natural. It would be fair to say that natural sugars have something of a health halo.

A health halo is a cognitive bias (essentially a mental shortcut) where a single positive claim like “natural” or “organic” leads consumers to assume a product is healthier overall. This often leads to increased, misguided consumption of processed or high-calorie foods.

Several revealing clinical trials have demonstrated the impact of health halos on consumers’ purchasing and eating habits. For instance, the scientists Brian Wansink and Pierre Chandon, in their paper Can “Low-Fat” Nutrition Labels Lead to Obesity? found that adding a “low-fat” label to a snack of chocolate M&Ms resulted in consumers increasing their intake by up to 50%. Similarly, in another piece, published in the Journal of Consumer Research, the pair found consumers wrongly estimated sandwiches and burgers contained up to 35% fewer calories when they came from restaurants claiming to be healthy, such as Subway, as opposed to restaurants that didn’t make this claim like McDonald’s. Consequently, they ate more calorie-laden side dishes and desserts in the “healthy” restaurants containing up to 131% more calories when the main course was marketed as “healthy”. In other words, health halos have a significant unconscious impact on our eating habits.

It’s time for natural sugars to lose their health halo – yes, natural sugars may be natural, but they are also still sugars. Nutritionally speaking, natural sugars, like all other added sugars, should be limited to less than 10% of total energy intake to reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases and dental cavities. However, further health benefits can be gained by reducing intake to less than 5% of energy or around 6 teaspoons of free sugar per day, according to the World Health Organisation.

Natural added sugars differ from the sugars that occur intrinsically within foods such as fruits and vegetables, along with the sugars found in milk. No adverse health effects are linked to consuming the intrinsic sugars in fruits and vegetables, or natural sugars in milk. Hence, the World Health Organisation (WHO) only recommends we limit our intake of sugars added to foods and found naturally in honey, fruit juices and syrups such as maple and agave.

The major contributors of added sugars to the New Zealand diet are non-alcoholic drinks (eg soft drinks) followed by table sugar and sweets. Processed foods are also high in sugar, along with energy, fats and salt; indeed, everything from muesli to mayonnaise, and tomato sauce to peanut butter, can hide piles of sugar and thus contribute a significant quantity of added sugars to our diet.

Put simply, it’s not difficult to exceed recommended sugar intakes without realising it. When natural sugars like honey or maple syrup are consumed on top of an already sugar‑dense food environment, the line between moderation and excess quickly blurs. The problem is not honey on toast or maple syrup on porridge; it’s the quiet accumulation of sugars, natural or otherwise, across the day. Removing the health halo from natural sugars doesn’t mean fearing them. It means recognising them for what they are, and being clearer, not more anxious, about how and where they fit into our diets.

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