When Honey isn’t Honey - Make sure you’re buying honey with pollen, not without

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Food Safety News shared their tests showing that 76% of store-bought honey isn’t honey after all. Why? The pollen has been removed.

We want pollen in our honey because of the medicinal properties of honey. Remove the pollen, and honey is nothing but pure sugar.

Dozens of organizations, including WHO and the European Commission have ruled that without pollen, honey isn’t honey. There’s no way to tell where honey came from, and if it’s from a safe source or not.

The FDA agrees. They state if honey is ultra-filtered, no pollen remains, and it’s not really honey. But are they checking for pollen? Nope.

Here are the results from Food Safety News’ tests:

  • 100% of drugstore honey had no traces of pollen
  • 100% of fast-food and take-out honey had no traces of pollen
  • 77% of “big-box” stores such as Wal*Mart had no traces of pollen
  • 76% of grocery store honey had no traces of pollen

However, five out of seven of the organic honey samples taken from the grocery stores did have pollen.

All farmer’s market and health food store honey had full pollen.

Why is this? Grocery stores claim that consumers want clear honey, but they also say it lasts longer on the shelves. However, if we’re buying it up it wouldn’t be sitting so long, right?

Bottom line: Buy local honey. If your farmer’s market is closed for the winter (like mine) you can purchase from a trusted source. I purchase my honey through the winter from Tropical Traditions. You can read my honey review to see what it’s all about here: 100% Organic Raw Wild Unprocessed Honey from Tropical Traditions.

Read more on Food Safety News.

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Lea Harris founded Nourishing Treasures in 2006. A mom passionate about her family's health and well-being, Lea believes education is power. Encouraging others to take baby steps in the right direction of health for their families, Lea's goal is to raise awareness of what goes into our mouths and on our bodies, providing natural alternative information that promotes health and prevents disease by using traditional foods and nature's medicine.

Lea is a Certified Health Coach graduate from Beyond Organic University, and a Certified Aromatherapist graduate from Aromahead Institute.

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When Honey isn’t Honey - Make sure you’re buying honey with pollen, not without — 4 Comments

  2. I also heard that honey is great for allergies. But if you have seasonal allergies you want to definitely buy LOCAL honey specific to your area, because the bees in that area will take the pollen in that area (obviously) and make honey with it. It acts sort of like a histamine booster, boosts your body’s natural immunity to the pollens in the area. I BELIEVE that is how it works, heh.

    We used to eat raw honey on the honeycomb when we were kids. I wonder if that is why none of us had any allergies like hay fever, etc.

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