Is Honey Low FODMAP? (Spoiler: No, Here's What to Use)

Michael Eisenwasser 7 min read

Honey feels like it should be a safe sweetener. It's natural, it's unprocessed, it's what we reach for instead of white sugar when we want something "better." Then you start the low-FODMAP diet and honey turns out to be one of the first things you have to put down.

This post walks through why honey is high FODMAP, why raw and Manuka don't get a pass, and what to use instead. The good news is that there's a straightforward swap that works in almost every recipe.

The short answer

Honey is high FODMAP. A standard drizzle on toast or a tablespoon in a recipe is not elimination-phase compliant.

The workhorse swap is pure maple syrup, which is low FODMAP at a small serve per Monash testing. A few other sweeteners also work. Agave, which people sometimes reach for as a "healthier" honey alternative, is actually worse.

Why honey is high FODMAP

The "F" in FODMAP stands for fermentable oligo-, di-, monosaccharides and polyols. Honey's problem sits in the monosaccharide slot: excess fructose.

Fructose is a sugar that your small intestine can absorb, but slowly. It relies on a transporter called GLUT5, which has limited capacity. When fructose comes packaged alongside roughly equal amounts of glucose, a second transporter (GLUT2) kicks in and carries the fructose across with the glucose. Fructose absorption improves dramatically in the presence of glucose (Latulippe & Skoog, 2011).

That glucose-to-fructose ratio is the whole ballgame for whether a sweet food triggers fructose malabsorption. If fructose is in excess, the leftover fructose keeps going, reaches the large intestine, pulls water in, and gets fermented by gut bacteria. That's what produces the bloating, gas, and cramping in people with IBS.

Honey is the textbook case. It averages roughly 38% fructose and 31% glucose by weight, leaving meaningful fructose without a glucose partner. Monash classifies honey as high FODMAP for fructose at typical serves, a 1 tablespoon drizzle is well past the threshold. Monash does list a small green-zone serve for some honey varieties (often around a teaspoon), but "a teaspoon max" is a long way from how most of us use honey.

What about raw honey, Manuka, or local honey?

Short version: no.

Raw, Manuka, "unfiltered," local, and organic honey are all still honey. The fructose-to-glucose ratio is set by the bees and the flowers, not by how the honey is processed. Filtering and pasteurization don't change the sugar composition in a way that matters for FODMAPs.

Manuka gets asked about because it's sold as a therapeutic food with antibacterial properties. Those claims are separate from FODMAP load. From your gut's perspective on elimination, Manuka behaves the same as supermarket clover honey.

Processing honey doesn't change its sugar ratio. The fructose and glucose are sitting there unchanged regardless of how the jar got to your kitchen. Similar principle to garlic: if the FODMAP is in the food, heat and filtering alone don't get it out.

"But just a tiny bit..."

As noted above, Monash's app lists a small green-zone serve for certain honey varieties (often around a teaspoon). A teaspoon is genuinely a small amount of sugar.

Two reasons I'd still skip it during elimination:

1. It stacks. The elimination phase is also when you're probably eating some fruit, maybe a splash of milk alternative, maybe a few tablespoons of avocado. FODMAPs from different foods add up across a meal. Adding even "a little" honey on top of a stacked meal can tip you over. This is the same FODMAP stacking pattern that trips people up with avocado serving sizes.
2. The whole point of elimination is a clean baseline. You're trying to get symptoms quiet enough to hear the signal during reintroduction. Hedging with teaspoons of honey muddies the signal for no real benefit, since maple syrup does the same job.

Save the teaspoon-of-honey question for reintroduction, where fructose is one of the standard challenges.

Maple syrup is the main swap

Pure maple syrup is the easiest honey replacement, and Monash has even certified specific brands as Low FODMAP.

The sugar composition is the reason it works. Pure maple syrup is mostly sucrose, which splits 1:1 into glucose and fructose during digestion. That means the glucose arrives alongside the fructose and keeps fructose absorption on track. No excess fructose sitting around to ferment.

Practical notes:

• Swap 1:1 in recipes. Two tablespoons of honey becomes two tablespoons of maple syrup. The flavor is different (more caramel, less floral), but it behaves almost identically in tea, oatmeal, yogurt, baking, and salad dressings.
• Buy 100% pure. "Pancake syrup" or "maple-flavored syrup" is usually high-fructose corn syrup with coloring. That's the opposite of what you want.
• Respect the serve. Monash's low-FODMAP serve for maple syrup is generous by sweetener standards (2 Australian tablespoons), but it's not unlimited. Treat it like sugar, not like water.

Other sweeteners that work

Maple syrup is the one I'd start with, but a few others are useful depending on what you're making.

Dextrose (pure glucose powder). Dextrose is literally glucose. There's no fructose in it at all, so it's one of the lowest-risk sweeteners you can use on FODMAP. It's less sweet than sugar (about 70% as sweet), which can take some adjustment in recipes. Great for baking and coffee if you don't mind the slightly different flavor.

Table sugar (sucrose). Standard white sugar is sucrose, which breaks down to equal parts glucose and fructose. Low FODMAP at a standard serve. It's not a "health food," but it is FODMAP-compliant, which surprises a lot of people. Brown sugar and cane sugar behave the same.

Rice malt syrup. Made from fermented rice, it's mostly glucose and maltose, with essentially no fructose. Low FODMAP at a small serve (around 1 tablespoon). Works well in sauces and baking.

Stevia (pure steviol glycosides). Low FODMAP and calorie-free. The catch: a lot of commercial stevia products are blended with inulin (a fructan) or erythritol-plus-other-polyols. Check the label and stick to pure stevia.

Glucose syrup. Pure glucose syrup is low FODMAP. In the US, plain "corn syrup" (the Karo-style baking syrup) is typically glucose-based and fine. High-fructose corn syrup is the different one to avoid, clue is in the name.

Sweeteners to skip

Agave. Often marketed as a natural honey alternative, but it's the worst option in this category. Agave nectar is roughly 70–90% fructose, which is more excess fructose than honey. It's high FODMAP at very small serves.

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Exactly what it sounds like. Standard ingredient in sodas, flavored yogurts, and processed sauces. Read labels during elimination.

Honey. Covered above.

Coconut sugar. High FODMAP beyond small serves. Worth limiting or skipping during elimination.

"Brown rice syrup." Usually the same product as rice malt syrup, so the same guidance applies. Labels vary between brands, check the Monash app for any specific product before going past a tablespoon.

Sugar alcohols ending in -ol. Xylitol, sorbitol, mannitol, maltitol, isomalt. These are polyols, the P in FODMAP, and they trigger symptoms at small amounts in most people with IBS. Watch sugar-free gum, mints, and "diet" products.

What this looks like in practice

For most people, the honey question comes up in three places: tea, yogurt or oatmeal, and baking. In all three, maple syrup is a direct swap. Coffee gets sweetened with regular sugar or a pure stevia. Salad dressings that called for honey get maple syrup instead, and nobody notices.

That's the general shape of the fix. One swap (maple for honey) handles most of daily life. Dextrose or rice malt syrup are there for edge cases.

When can you eat honey again?

The elimination phase is 2 to 6 weeks, not forever. Fructose is a standard reintroduction challenge, and honey is one of the foods people test once they've passed the fructose challenge.

Plenty of people find they tolerate a teaspoon or two of honey fine once they've worked through reintroduction. Others find fructose is a genuine trigger and stick with maple syrup long term. Both are reasonable outcomes. If you want background on the bigger framework, what are FODMAPs and the low-FODMAP fruit list are good companion reads, since fruit is the other place excess fructose shows up.

For recipe ideas that use maple syrup where most recipes would call for honey, see our low-FODMAP recipes.

Track your symptoms and discover patterns with FODMAP Tracker. Includes a database of 1,000+ foods with FODMAP ratings.