Sounds weird, but there is a sticky problem with the honey in stores across the country. It simply is not honey. Tests done by The Palynology Research Laboratory for Food Safety News have confirmed that over three fourths of honey that is sold, is not what Bees produce. Seems honey manufactures have filtered out the pollen, as it is heated, watered down and ultra filtered. Plus a good deal of honey is imported from China and India, where antibiotics and heavy metals can be in the product too. Those countries actually remove the pollen on purpose, because that is how you can trace the origin of the honey. Sometimes manufacturers add cheap corn syrup, or any number of 13 illegal sweeteners and sugars. See my honey in the photo above...turns out... it's fake.
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The tests revealed 76% of honey bought in groceries, 100% from drug stores, 77% from big box stores, and 100% of little honey packets had no honey! The good news is that honey bought at farmers markets, co-ops and natural food stores had all the markers of real honey. And five out of seven brands marked 'organic' in the regular super markets also contained real honey. When the researchers contacted all of these national brands, including store brands, 98% refused to answer questions about their product. Some used the old "proprietary information" ploy. Who it is that actually bottles the honey is often a mystery. The U.S.imported 208 million pounds of honey over the past 18 months. Almost 60 percent came from Asian countries, which are traditional laundering points for illegal Chinese honey. This included 45 million pounds from India alone. Seems nobody is watching the store. It's a sticky mess out there in honey world.
All the flavor, enzymes, antioxidants, anti-allergenic properties, and bountiful bee nutrition is removed by the ultra filtering process. Aren't these qualities the very reasons we buy honey? "I wonder if the FDA is doing anything?" I said to myself with a chuckle. Oh that's right, they are too busy ignoring other things, like what Monsanto is up to. So we can just wait for any regulation of Honey standards for the United States. Florida has created their own standards to enforce, and was followed by California, Wisconsin and North Carolina. A few states, including Maryland, have a bill lost in legislation. You must look at the excellent full 'Food Safety News' article here, that also contains the list of sneaky national brands that are not selling honey...honey.
Since local area honey is best for it's anti-allergen properties...I will definitely 'bee' buying from the local beekeeper, when I see his table filled with 'real honey' this year!