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