Is Your Honey Actually Honey?
While looking for honey at your grocery store, chances are you’ll find labels like “100% Pure Honey”, “100% Raw Honey”, or “True Sourced Certified”. Despite these claims and certifications, there’s a good chance that your honey isn’t what you were expecting. Much of the honey on grocery store shelves is imported, even the ones that claim to be produced in the U.S. Often times imported honey is adulterated, by adding sugars, heating it, or filtering it.
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“We tested about 60 to 70 different companies, and we found that about 50 to 60 percent of those honeys tested are bad honey. Out of 110 products, around 70 percent were adulterated. There’s been something done to them. It is just pure fraud in our opinion. They’re selling products to the American public that isn’t what it says it is.”
– Kent Heitzinger, Lawyer
Honey has become widely more popular in recent years. Consumption of honey has gone up more than 40% in 20 years. Despite the rise in consumption, US beekeepers are having a difficult time selling honey because adulterated honey is the majority of what you’ll find on the market. Additionally, for environmental reasons, many beekeepers have lost a large percentage of their hives, thus making it harder to produce honey.
Adulteration is driving global honey prices down, leaving beekeepers barely able to sell their honey for a profit.”
Aside from the fact that companies are lying to consumers, this is a problem because adulterated honey does not have the same health benefits as raw honey. When honey is heated, it loses beneficial enzymes, and of course, when honey is diluted with sugar, you’re consuming sugar, oftentimes, unknowingly. Lawyers working with consumers who have bought adulterated honey have pointed out that companies have been doing this for years, and it is likely all profit-driven.
Read Vice’s in-depth article about adulterated honey, here.