Frozen honey trend on TikTok has experts saying, ‘That is a lot of diarrhoea’
- The site has been flooded with videos of the #frozenhoneychallenge, in which users freeze plastic bottles of the sweet stuff and take a bite
- Doctors and dietitians have expressed concern, saying it can cause stomach pain and other complications
Doctors and dietitians are begging people to avoid this new social media trend.A new TikTok trend has people freezing honey - and it’s leaving some dietitians and doctors concerned.
Eating too much of the sweet stuff can cause diarrhoea, stomach pain and other complications, experts told multiple news outlets this week.
Here’s what to know about the trend and whether it’s safe.
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In the past few weeks, TikTok has been flooded with videos that show people filling plastic bottles with honey and putting them in the freezer. Some users then squeeze out the golden, now solidified substance and sink their teeth right in.
And people can’t get enough of the short clips. As of Wednesday, tens of millions of people had viewed content with the hashtags #frozenhoney and #frozenhoneychallenge.
“I actually have seen the videos, a few times,” Dr. Niket Sonpal, a gastroenterologist and adjunct assistant professor at Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in New York, told Nexstar Media Group.
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“And the minute I saw it, my first thought was, ‘That is a lot of sugar, that is a lot of honey, and that is a lot of diarrhoea.’”
“Honey is great, but having it in small amounts to sweeten is really a healthy relationship with food, and using it to get a lot of followers and a lot of attention and having it in excess amounts is crazy,” Kristin Kirkpatrick, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic in the US, said.
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Another concern is that about one-third of people live with fructose intolerance. In those cases, ingesting too much honey can cause diarrhoea and discomfort.
As the honey thickens, it can also be “brutal” on your mouth, creating a risk for breaking teeth or causing decay, according to Health magazine and other media outlets.
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Experts say it should be OK to eat frozen honey in small amounts if you don’t have diabetes.
Registered dietitian Christy Harrison told Shape she doesn’t “see it having any long-term side effects if you’re just eating it as a tasty dessert on a hot day, and listening to your body to tell you when you’ve had enough.”