I am speaking from personal empirical experience; my body does not react the same way to refined sugar as it does to honey, maple syrup or fruit. Sugar is sugar, yes, but they payload is surrounded by different elements. You object to maple syrup, for example. Let's look at that. As opposed to white sugar, maple syrup also contains other organic compounds such as organic acids, amino acids, proteins, phenol compounds and even a few vitamins. So the sugar is sugar, but the company it keeps is different.

Honey can contain (in addition to sucrose and fructose) protein, calcium, folate, iron, zinc, sodium, potassium, zinc and B vitamins. Which you would be hard-pressed to find in table sugar. The incidence of botulism, by the way, is estimated by the CDC at about 10-30 cases per year. I'll leave it to you to judge how much of a threat that represents.

Again, this is my personal experience about how I lost over 100 pounds and have maintained it for three years. Thank you for your input.

Krista,

I really appreciate learning more about what else is found in 'sugars' such as maple syrup and honey.  My greatgrandfather kept bees and with each visit our family came home with the most wonderful dark honey.  His instruction was to have one spoonful of his honey everyday.  He was also very big into various vitamin/mineral supplements.  Almost a man ahead of the time in that aspect.

Lisa