Frozen Honey Is The Latest TikTok Trend, But You Might Regret It
Consuming too much honey all at once can cause your stomach to get very grumpy at you.
Honey is delicious, there's no question about that. But TikTok users have found yet another way to take a perfectly good food and turn it into bite-sized videos that continue to chip away at our attention spans. How do they do it?
In this case, people are filling up water bottles with the golden goo, freezing them, squeezing the honey out of the mouth of the bottle in semi-solidified cylinders, then taking giant bites of the stuff like it's taffy. My teeth and my stomach are both aching just thinking about this. And that may be warranted, because NBC News reports that this trend may be giving people diarrhea. Sounds like a party to me!
@averycyrus Brb gotta go get my stomach pumped 🤪
There are also variations on the original theme, like mixing Kool-Aid with corn syrup to create a similar effect. But all that concentrated sugar can wreak havoc on your poor stomach, because so much fructose all at once can cause digestive issues with some people. NBC notes that about one out of every three people has dietary fructose intolerance, meaning that in large enough quantities, honey can cause cramping, bloating, and your best friend, diarrhea. We just aren't often made aware of it, because we're not usually eating honey in this sort of volume.
Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic, says, "I don't see a huge risk with the short-term aspect for someone who has this fructose malabsorption other than what they're going to experience, which is awful diarrhea, stomach pain and things like that because they're not breaking it down correctly."
TikTok users are indeed reporting that the large amounts of honey are indeed causing gut issues. "I feel sick now," one video is captioned.
There is also a very small possibility of getting botulism if you're trying this with raw honey. Then of course, there are the dental considerations, like how all that chewy sugar can cause cavities and possibly yank out fillings. The fun never stops on TikTok, does it?
While it's not quite clear where this current wave of the trend began, frozen honey has been part of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) videos for some time now, as apparently some people find the sound of others eating it to be relaxing. I have to say, I still don't understand the ASMR thing, but to each their own, right? As for the gastric distress, I guess I'll chalk that up to content creators simply honing their craft for their adoring audiences.