To replace 100 g of honey in a recipe, use roughly 75 g of maple syrup and remove 15 ml of liquid, or 130 g of date purée and remove 30 ml. That is the practical answer. Here is the honest one: nutritionally, none of these nine substitutes beats honey, and the NHS files them in exactly the same category, free sugars, with a ceiling of 30 g a day for an adult.

That matters, because most articles on this subject sell these syrups as the healthier choice. They are not. They are sugars, and they behave very differently from one another once heat is involved. That is where the real difficulty sits, and it is what this guide spends most of its time on.

What swapping honey changes, and what it does not

Honey is made by bees from nectar. In a vegan diet it is excluded like any other animal product. That reason stands on its own and does not need propping up with invented nutritional arguments. If you want the exact boundary of what each diet excludes, our piece on the nutritional differences between vegan and vegetarian diets maps it out.

What the swap does not change is your sugar intake. The NHS counts as free sugars any sugar added to food or drink, plus “sugars in honey, syrups (such as maple, agave and golden), nectars (such as blossom), and unsweetened fruit juices, vegetable juices and smoothies”. Those sugars occur naturally, the agency notes, and they still count as free sugars. The UK limits are 30 g a day for adults, 24 g for children aged 7 to 10, 19 g for ages 4 to 6, 14 g for ages 2 to 3 and 10 g at age 1.

The WHO frames it differently and lands in the same place: free sugars below 10% of total energy intake, roughly 50 g for someone eating 2000 kcal, with further benefit expected below 5%. In Switzerland, the FSVO guidance puts sweetened drinks and confectionery in the optional tier at 0 to 1 portion a day, where one portion is 2 dl of a sweetened drink or 20 g of sweets.

A level tablespoon of maple syrup weighs about 20 g and carries roughly 12 g of sugars. Three spoonfuls across a day, spread between porridge, a plant yoghurt and a cup of tea, and you have hit the NHS adult limit without opening a packet of biscuits.

What the composition data actually shows

The table below uses USDA FoodData Central values, per 100 g of product. It makes visible what the usual “nutritional benefits” bullet lists tend to obscure.

Product	kcal	Sugars	Fructose	Iron	Calcium	Potassium
Honey	304	82.1 g	40.9 g	0.42 mg	6 mg	52 mg
Maple syrup	260	60.5 g	0.5 g	0.11 mg	102 mg	212 mg
Agave syrup	310	68.0 g	55.6 g	0.09 mg	1 mg	4 mg
Molasses	290	74.7 g	12.8 g	4.72 mg	205 mg	1460 mg
Dates (deglet noor)	282	63.4 g	19.6 g	1.02 mg	39 mg	656 mg
White sugar	387	99.8 g	0 g	0.05 mg	1 mg	2 mg
Brown sugar	380	97.0 g	1.1 g	0.71 mg	83 mg	133 mg

There are two ways to read this. The promotional reading points out that molasses holds eleven times the iron of white sugar. Arithmetically true. The other reading finishes the calculation: 4.72 mg of iron per 100 g works out at about 0.94 mg in a 20 g tablespoon. To cover a 14 mg daily reference intake you would have to swallow 300 g of molasses, which is 870 kcal and 224 g of sugars. Molasses is not a usable iron source. It is a sugar with traces of minerals in it.

The same logic applies to the manganese in maple syrup, frequently cited at 2.91 mg per 100 g, so around 0.58 mg per tablespoon. Real, but trivial next to a bowl of oats. If iron is what you are actually chasing, the guide on optimising plant iron absorption treats it properly.

The genuinely informative row is fructose. Honey holds 40.9 g per 100 g, agave 55.6 g, maple 0.5 g. We will come back to that.

Swap ratios, by weight and by volume

Here is the table these comparisons almost never provide. Everything starts from 100 g of honey; the liquid correction is what to remove from or add to the other liquids in the recipe.

Substitute	Amount per 100 g honey	Liquid correction	Note
Maple syrup	75 to 85 g	remove 15 ml	Closest in fluidity
Agave syrup	70 to 75 g	remove 20 ml	Sweeter, very runny
Date syrup	100 to 110 g	remove 15 ml	Strong flavour, darkens
Date purée	130 to 150 g	remove 30 ml	Adds fibre and body
Molasses	60 to 70 g plus 30 g sugar	remove 15 ml	Overpowering on its own
Rice syrup	120 to 130 g	remove 10 ml	Half as sweet
Carob syrup	100 to 110 g	remove 15 ml	Roasted notes
Coconut nectar	80 to 90 g	remove 15 ml	Close to maple
White sugar	80 g	add 25 ml	For the reverse swap

These are starting points, not laws. Perceived sweetness shifts with serving temperature, acidity and fat content. A chilled cream tastes less sweet than a warm compote at identical sugar levels.

For volume, three anchors: a level tablespoon of liquid syrup weighs 20 to 21 g, a teaspoon 7 g, and 100 ml of maple syrup weighs about 132 g. Weighing stays more reliable, particularly with thick syrups that cling to the spoon.

The real problem: how these behave when heated

This is the part substitute lists almost always skip, and it explains most failures. Swapping honey in a yoghurt or a salad dressing is trivial. In baking, five properties change.

Water content. Honey is about 17% water, maple syrup 32%, agave 23%, molasses 22%. Granulated sugar is 0.02%. Moving from sugar to a syrup, or between syrups, changes the hydration of the dough. Hence the liquid correction column above.

Browning. Reducing sugars, glucose and fructose in particular, drive the Maillard reaction far faster than sucrose does. Honey and agave, rich in free fructose, brown earlier and harder. Maple syrup, 96% sucrose, behaves much more like sugar. Practical rule: when moving from sugar to honey or agave, drop the oven by 15 to 20 °C and watch the last stretch.

Hygroscopicity. Fructose holds water. A cake made with agave or honey stays moist longer, but a meringue or a shortbread will never set properly with those syrups. For crisp textures, stay with granulated sugar or maple.

Acidity. Honey is acidic, around pH 3.9. So is molasses. In a recipe using bicarbonate of soda, that acidity is part of the raising system. Swap honey for the more neutral maple syrup and the batter may rise less. The fix is a teaspoon of cider vinegar or lemon juice per 200 g of batter, or a switch to full baking powder. Our guide to egg-free baking substitutions covers the same mechanics applied to binders.

Caramelisation point. Fructose caramelises around 110 °C, sucrose around 160 °C. A praline or a caramel made with agave burns well before it reaches the target colour. For anything involving cooked sugar, agave is the wrong tool.

There are also preparations where honey is not merely the sweetener. In nougat, its fructose content and acidity stabilise the aeration. In a glaze, it clings and caramelises. Those cases need a test batch, not a blind substitution.

Three worked conversions

Honey mustard dressing. Starting recipe: 3 tablespoons oil, 1 vinegar, 1 mustard, 1 honey, so roughly 20 g. Swap in 15 g of maple syrup. No liquid correction is needed here; the emulsion absorbs the difference easily. This is the simplest conversion there is.

Granola for one tray. Starting recipe: 300 g oats, 80 g honey, 50 g oil. Swap in 65 g of maple syrup and cut the oil by 5 g, since the syrup is runnier. Drop the oven from 160 to 150 °C: without honey’s fructose the colour develops more slowly, but the margin before burning is narrower with a thinner syrup that spreads further across the oats.

Gingerbread. Starting recipe: 250 g flour, 200 g honey, 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda, 150 ml plant milk. Honey plays three roles here: sweetening, moistening, and acidifying to activate the bicarbonate. Swap in 130 g of molasses plus 60 g of maple syrup, and remove 20 ml of milk. Molasses keeps the acidity the rise depends on, and the result comes out darker and more robust than the original.

A note on scaling. These conversions hold at household quantities. Doubling a recipe does not double the liquid correction proportionally, because evaporation during baking depends on surface area rather than volume. For a double batch in a larger tin, remove about 1.5 times the liquid correction rather than twice, and expect a slightly longer bake.

The nine alternatives, one at a time

Maple syrup

Sugar maple sap concentrated by evaporation; it takes roughly 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. Composition is almost entirely sucrose with very little fructose. Woody, vanilla-ish flavour, stronger in the amber and dark grades, quieter in the golden ones.

It is the most versatile and most predictable substitute in baking, precisely because it behaves like sugar with extra water. On pancakes, in a homemade granola, in a mustard dressing, it works without adjustment. Its drawbacks are price and the fact that “table syrup” or “pancake syrup” usually means flavoured glucose syrup with no maple in it at all.

Agave syrup

Drawn from blue agave sap, hydrolysed to convert fructans into free fructose. Hence the unusual composition: 55.6 g of fructose per 100 g against 12.4 g of glucose and zero sucrose. It is the most fructose-heavy syrup in the table.

That content explains both its selling point and its limit. Because fructose has a low glycaemic index, agave raises blood glucose less in the short term than glucose does. That is a fact, not a health certificate: glycaemic index describes the postprandial glucose response, not a sugar’s overall metabolic effect. The review published in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2022 concludes that agave syrup’s health claims still lack the human metabolic data needed to support them. The glycaemic index question is unpacked in our article on the glycaemic index from a plant-based angle.

In the kitchen, its fluidity and neutral taste make it the easiest option for sweetening a cold drink, where granulated sugar dissolves badly. Keep it away from anything that needs to caramelise.

Molasses

A by-product of cane or beet sugar refining. Blackstrap, from the third extraction, is the most mineral-dense and the most bitter. Its composition explains its character: 1460 mg of potassium and 242 mg of magnesium per 100 g, figures nothing else in the table comes close to.

Its liquorice-like, faintly bitter taste dominates whatever it goes into. It is as much a seasoning as a sweetener. It belongs in gingerbread, barbecue sauce, rye bread and dark biscuits. Used alone to replace honey in something delicate, it flattens everything else. A blend of 60% molasses and 40% sugar or neutral syrup gives a more balanced result.

Date syrup and date purée

Date syrup comes from simmering dates in water, then straining and reducing. The purée, far easier to make at home, keeps the fibre: blend 200 g of pitted dates with 150 ml of hot water after twenty minutes of soaking and you get a smooth paste that keeps ten days in the fridge.

The difference between the two is nutritionally real. Whole dates carry 8 g of fibre per 100 g. Strained syrup loses most of it. This is the only case on the list where the process genuinely changes the outcome, and the purée is almost always the better pick. It also gives body to raw desserts like lemon tart or brownies, which largely run on this principle anyway.

Rice syrup

Produced by enzymatic hydrolysis of rice starch, so it is mostly maltose and glucose with no fructose. Sweetening power is roughly half that of sugar, which explains the high quantity in the swap table.

It comes with a caveat these comparisons rarely mention. A study in Environmental Health Perspectives in 2012 measured arsenic in organic brown rice syrups and in products containing them. A toddler formula whose primary ingredient was organic brown rice syrup showed total arsenic concentrations up to six times the US Environmental Protection Agency limit for drinking water, with inorganic arsenic the dominant species. Cereal bars and endurance products containing the syrup also carried more arsenic than equivalents without it.

The FDA notes that inorganic arsenic is more toxic than the organic form and that foetuses, infants and children are particularly vulnerable, with a risk of neurological effects. None of this makes rice syrup something an adult must avoid occasionally. It does mean it should not be a young child’s everyday sweetener, nor the base of a high-volume endurance diet. Rice accumulates arsenic from soil, and the syrup concentrates the grain’s starch.

Carob syrup

Extracted from the pods of the carob tree, a Mediterranean species. Roasted flavour with cocoa and dried-fruit notes, thick and dark in texture.

Carob attracts scientific interest for D-pinitol, a cyclitol for which it is one of the richest natural sources. A review published in Nutrients in 2026 concludes that current data comes mostly from preclinical models, that clinical trials give heterogeneous results, and that D-pinitol does not act as a classical hypoglycaemic agent. In other words: interesting subject, premature conclusions, and those studies looked at extracts rather than the spoonful of syrup on your porridge.

Its kitchen strength is a roasted depth that suggests chocolate without containing any. It works well with tahini, in granola, on thick yoghurt. If cocoa itself is what you want, our guide to vegan chocolate handles that.

Coconut nectar

Sap from coconut palm flowers, heated until concentrated. Composition sits close to maple syrup, mostly sucrose, with a rounder caramel flavour.

The low glycaemic index argument circulates widely here, usually traced back to a Philippine agriculture department document whose methodology was never published in a peer-reviewed journal. Treat it as a pleasant-tasting sugar, which is what it is.

Fruit purées and compotes

Strictly speaking this is not a honey substitute but a swap of sugar for fruit. The difference matters: unsweetened apple compote brings the fruit’s fibre and water, and its sweetening power is low, roughly a quarter that of sugar.

In a cake it effectively replaces part of the fat and adds moisture, but it cannot carry the sweetness alone. The result will be dense and barely sweet if you do not compensate. It is a good route for cutting a recipe’s overall sugar, not for reproducing what honey does.

Watch one common shortcut: the NHS specifies that sugars in purées and fruit juices count as free sugars even with nothing added, while sugar in whole fruit does not. Blending or cooking a fruit releases its sugars from the cell matrix.

Stevia and steviol glycosides

Extracted from Stevia rebaudiana, 200 to 300 times sweeter than sucrose with no meaningful calories. It is the only item on this list that is not a sugar, which changes the assessment entirely.

In 2010 EFSA established an acceptable daily intake of 4 mg per kilogram of body weight per day, expressed as steviol equivalents, adopting the JECFA figure. For a 65 kg person that is 260 mg of steviol equivalents daily, a threshold that is hard to reach in home use.

The point that deserves more attention lies elsewhere. In May 2023 the WHO issued a conditional recommendation against using non-sugar sweeteners to control body weight or reduce the risk of noncommunicable diseases. The underlying systematic review found no long-term benefit for body fat in adults or children, and suggested possible undesirable effects from long-term use, including increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and mortality. Stevia and its derivatives are explicitly named. The WHO stresses that this is a conditional recommendation based on low-certainty evidence, and that it does not apply to people who already have diabetes.

In the kitchen, stevia creates a volume problem. Sugar does not only supply taste: it structures, holds water and browns. Replacing 100 g of sugar with 0.4 g of stevia leaves a 100 g hole in the recipe. Commercial blends fill that gap with erythritol, at the cost of a laxative effect beyond thirty grams or so a day and a cooling sensation on the palate. For drinks, though, stevia does precisely what is asked of it.

Safety: what to know before serving

Never honey before age one. The NHS is unambiguous: do not give honey to a child under 1 year old. Honey can carry Clostridium botulinum spores which, in an infant’s immature gut, produce a toxin causing infant botulism. Signs include a weak or altered cry, feeding difficulties, unusual sleepiness, and a floppy head or limbs. It is a hospital emergency. The good news on the substitute side: none of the plant syrups here carries this risk, because it is specific to honey.

No free sugars at all before age one. The NHS sets no numeric limit for babies under 1 because the guidance is simpler than that: no sugars should be added to infants’ food or drinks. Swapping honey for maple syrup in a baby purée therefore solves nothing.

Rice syrup and young children. See the section above. It is not the sweetener to pick for a toddler.

Tooth decay. Syrups are sticky and acidic. Prolonged contact with enamel is the decisive factor, more so than total quantity. Concentrating sweet things at mealtimes rather than grazing on them is the single most effective habit.

Diabetes. None of these products can be presented as diabetes-friendly. Any change to treatment or diet belongs with the clinician looking after you.

Allergies. Rice syrup can contain traces of gluten depending on the enzymatic process, since malted barley is sometimes used. People with coeliac disease should check the label. Carob belongs to the Fabaceae family; cross-reactions are rare but documented.

Buying and storing in Switzerland

In Swiss retail, maple syrup, agave and molasses are everywhere. Date syrup, carob and coconut nectar sit more often in organic shops, Middle Eastern grocers and specialist aisles. Loose dates remain the best value for anyone planning to make their own purée.

Two labelling points deserve attention. A product sold as maple syrup must be pure maple syrup; “pancake syrup” or “table syrup” indicates a glucose-fructose blend with flavouring. And the ingredient list always runs in descending order of quantity, which instantly exposes an agave syrup whose first ingredient is sugar. Our guide to reading nutrition labels sets out the method.

On storage: pure syrups keep for months at room temperature before opening. Once opened, maple syrup is the most fragile because it is the least concentrated in sugar; it moulds on the surface if left in a cupboard and should go in the fridge. Agave, molasses and date syrup tolerate the cupboard. Homemade date purée keeps ten days chilled or three months frozen in portions.

Crystallisation in a syrup is not a sign of spoilage: a warm water bath liquefies it again. A fermented or alcoholic smell, on the other hand, means contamination and the jar goes out.

Six mistakes that keep coming up

Swapping honey gram for gram. Sweetening power and water content differ. Use the ratio table.

Forgetting the liquid correction. This is the leading cause of soggy cakes when moving from sugar to a syrup.

Using agave to caramelise. Fructose browns at around 110 °C. The caramel turns bitter before it turns amber.

Treating molasses as an iron source. You would need 300 g a day. It is a sugar with an unusual mineral profile, not a supplement.

Assuming a natural syrup escapes the sugar count. The NHS files these explicitly as free sugars, exactly like honey and white sugar.

Sweetening a baby purée with anything at all. The guidance covers all free sugars, not just honey.

Adapting by profile

Children over one. The NHS ceilings are low: 10 g of free sugars at age 1, 14 g at ages 2 to 3. One tablespoon of syrup is already 12 g. Date purée, which brings fibre, is the least unfavourable choice, but quantity remains the decisive variable.

Pregnancy. No specific contraindication applies to plant syrups. General free-sugar guidance holds.

Endurance athletes. The debate about fructose in sports fuelling goes beyond this article, but the rice syrup point applies with particular force here, since endurance products often contain it.

People following a low-FODMAP diet. Agave, very high in free fructose, and date syrup are usually poorly tolerated during the elimination phase. Maple syrup, almost pure sucrose, tends to go down better.

People trying to cut sugar. Changing sweetener cuts nothing. Reducing the quantity gradually does work, because sweetness perception adjusts. Our article on the 30-day no-added-sugar plan offers a structured approach.

Limits of the available data

The composition figures come from the USDA database and describe average products: a late-season maple syrup, a first- or third-extraction molasses, an artisanal or industrial date syrup will all diverge from these averages, sometimes sharply.

The swap ratios are tested starting points from domestic cooking, not experimental data. A precise pastry recipe may need two or three attempts.

Finally, the literature on the comparative metabolic effects of different sugars remains awkward to summarise. The solid data concerns total free sugar quantity. Differences between syrups at equal quantity are not established in humans at a level of evidence that would justify a recommendation.

Frequently asked questions

Is agave syrup better for blood glucose? It raises blood glucose less in the short term because it is mostly fructose. That does not make it metabolically preferable, and the 2022 review highlights the missing human data on precisely this point.

Which substitute tastes closest to honey? None really reproduces honey, whose floral aromas come from volatile compounds absent in plant syrups. Date syrup and coconut nectar come closest in roundness, maple in texture.

Can you make fake honey at home? Recipes exist using dandelion or apple cooked with sugar and lemon. The result is a fragrant syrup that looks like honey. It is pleasant, and it is sugar.

Do these syrups keep as long as honey? No. Honey is close to imperishable thanks to its low water content, acidity and hydrogen peroxide production. Plant syrups keep well but not indefinitely, and opened maple syrup belongs in the fridge.

Is stevia safe? EFSA set an ADI of 4 mg per kg of body weight per day, rarely approached in home use. The open question is not toxicity but usefulness: since 2023 the WHO has recommended against using non-sugar sweeteners for weight control.

Can I blend several syrups? Yes, and it is often the best approach. Molasses and maple in gingerbread, date purée with a drizzle of maple in bars: blending corrects each one’s weaknesses.

Does organic or local honey change anything for a vegan? No. The question is the use of animals, not the production method. Beekeeping practices vary a great deal, but they do not change what the product is.

Sources

• NHS, Sugar: the facts
• NHS, Foods to avoid giving babies and young children
• NHS, Botulism
• WHO, Healthy diet
• WHO, WHO advises not to use non-sugar sweeteners for weight control
• EFSA, Scientific Opinion on the safety of steviol glycosides
• FDA, Arsenic in Food and Dietary Supplements
• FSVO, Swiss nutritional recommendations for adults
• Jackson et al., Arsenic, organic foods, and brown rice syrup, Environmental Health Perspectives, 2012
• Agave Syrup: Chemical Analysis and Nutritional Profile, Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2022
• Carob in Glucose Homeostasis and Energy Balance: The Role of D-Pinitol, Nutrients, 2026
• USDA FoodData Central, honey, maple syrup, agave syrup, molasses, dates