Is Your Honey Real?

Did you know most of the honey in the grocery store isn't the same honey that comes straight from the hive?  There's a difference between honey & raw honey. 


After doing some research on this, my findings were *once again* backed up by what Elder Widtsoe said in the Word of Wisdom book he wrote many years ago.  (Sad, it's probably much worse now than when the book was written).  Here were his words:  "More subtle adulterations, much more difficult to trace, are now employed.....Glucose is mixed with a trifle of honey and sold as pure honey."

Now take a look at this:

More than 75% of the honey you purchase from super markets is NOT what bees produce.  According the food manufacturers, their customers prefer the look of clear honey, so they filter out the nutrients & pollen to make it more aesthetically pleasing.  (They do that to vinegar, juices, & other foods also.  More on that in another post...) 

Even more frustrating is this:  More & more brands of honey contain high fructose corn syrup!  Yet the bottles say "Natural Honey" or "100% Natural Honey" on them... Dr. Joseph Mercola's book "Sweet Deception" outlines the process of 24 hour, round the clock forced honey production.  There are many bee farms in North America that produce 2/3 of honey by force feeding their bees high fructose corn syrup.  Talk about dishonest! Much of what we are getting from the grocery stores is NOT real honey.

Back to filtering:  As if that wasn't enough :o|

Once pollen is removed from honey, there's no way to tell where it came from & whether it's from a reliable, pure, & safe source.  The pollen is the proof of the plants in a specific local area.  Hence the ability to tell where the honey came from. (Not to mention the fact that the pollen is the most nutrient dense & healing part of the honey.)

A friend of mine recently wrote to Golden Heritage Foods asking them about their honey.  Here's their conversation & then my response to the whole thing...

MY FRIEND'S LETTER TO GHF:

"Hi. I have been buying your honey from Costco for a while now and I just found out about "ultra-filtered" honey. Ultra-filtered honey has been processed so that all the pollen has been filtered out. I am just wondering if your company does this? I looked on your website and couldn't find any information about this so I thought I'd ask. I don't want my honey "ultra-filtered". I use honey on a very regular basis and this process concerns me. I hope I haven't been feeding my family honey that is less than pure. Thank you for your time."

**************************************************

 
GOLDEN HERITAGE FOODS RESPONSE:

"Thank you for contacting Golden Heritage Foods. All of our honey is micro-filtered honey.

If you should have additional questions, please feel free to let me know."

Sincerely,
Roxann Ewert
Media Specialist. Marketing Support
Golden Heritage Foods, LLC
Corporate Office
120 Santa Fe Street
Hillsboro, KS 67063

GHF is now True Source Certified!
100% Traceable Honey 

MY THOUGHTS ON GHF'S RESPONSE:

First of all, that was quite the informationally loaded letter back to my friend, don't you think?  A little more info would have been kinda nice. But that's just me.

Second of all, traceable origin (as stated at the end of her response) is one thing. Nutritionally depleted (virtually no pollen) is another.

Here’s the difference in particle size between the 2 filtration processes:

Micro Filtration:

Membranes with a pore size of  0.1 – 10

Ultra Filtration:

Membranes with a pore size of  0.001 – 0.1

 

(Notice the bottom of micro & top of ultra are the same number.   Hmmm.....)

***You want your honey macro-filtered at most.  This is the least invasive filtering process & mainly removes bee parts or large particles/debris.

Burleson’s Honey (a different company) got all fluffed up & posted a big article on their website about this issue, & yet their company isn’t even listed on the “no pollen” list.  (Not sure why they're so worried...)

They also said this: “Honey is made by bees out of nectar, not pollen. Pollen is a by-product of the honey bees gathering nectar. Pollen clings to the bees during the collection of nectar and is inadvertently transferred to the honey.”

 

Of course it’s made out of nectar - DUH.  But the pollen is what makes honey so nutritious & healing.

What an amazing thing for God to do for us... He causes the healing pollen to cling to the bees, then “inadvertently” (definition: without knowledge or intention) cause it to mysteriously transfer to the honey – for our benefit! 

  
Burleson also said this in their story: “The majority of U.S. honey packers do not use Ultra-filtering as it causes what is known by the FDA as a “substantial transformation” of the product identity into a sweetener that does not retain the identity of honey. Filtering raw honey using Ultra-filtration methods, and calling the end product “honey” is illegal and unethical.”

Guess what else they said: “Honey is filtered so it is aesthetically pleasing to the consumer and ensures the honey remains fluid for a longer period of time. Filtering removes bee parts, wax and solids, including the majority of pollen that can hasten crystallization.

They just buried themselves in THAT hole.

PS: If it’s micro filtered, it is not raw. If it’s ultra filtered, it’s not raw. Real raw honey should only be filtered at most through a fine sieve or cheese cloth to remove debris, bee parts, etc... (those words via a bee keeping professional himself) 

**********

Vaughn Bryant, a professor at Texas A&M University (and one of the nation's premier melissopalynologists, or investigators of pollen in honey) did an investigation for Food Safety News...  Here were their findings:

• 76 percent of samples bought at groceries had all the pollen removed, These were stores like TOP Food, Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.

• 100 percent of the honey sampled from drugstores like Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen.

• 77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores like Costco, Sam's Club, Walmart, Target and H-E-B had the pollen filtered out. 

• 100 percent of the honey packaged in the small individual service portions from Smucker, McDonald's and KFC had the pollen removed.

• Bryant found that every one of the samples Food Safety News bought at farmers markets, co-ops and "natural" stores like PCC and Trader Joe's had the full, anticipated amount of pollen.

HERE
is the link to the full article and a chart
with the brands that have had most or all
of the pollen removed...
(ie: It's no longer real pure honey)