How to Shop for Real Honey:

MassReport Interview with an Expert

Due to an experiment funded by Food

Safety News (FSN) many people are questioning what constitutes honey
and where it comes from: Is the honey sold at groceries stores actually
what we think of as honey? This is a great question but not for the same
reasons as the FSN. The article stressed that the USDA regulates that any
product left without traces of pollen is no longer honey. They say this is
important because pollen allows for you to trace where the honey regionally
came from. They find this really important because of accusations that
Chinese honey is entering the US market under the guise of ultra-filtrated
honey whose origins cannot be traced.
When reading through the United States standards and grades for
extracted honey I did not find any sentence that said or implied that honey
without pollen cannot be called honey. Not to mention FSN themselves
came out with an article a year later saying the opposite. TheNational
Honey Board, which is funded by the USDA, writes, Honey is still honey,
even without pollen. They explain that pollens presence in honey is

incidental, almost accidental. To understand honey, it is important to

understand the bee colonies but it is also important to understand the
individual process bees go through to make honey.
Very simply, honey is made inside a bee: a honey bee collects nectar,
stores it in a stomach that processes the nectar, when it returns to the hive,
the bees together will regurgitate the sweet product up in the form of
honey and will put in into the wax comb for storage. They then fan the
comb to help evaporate the water so that it does not ferment, and keep it
stored until they need to use it for food. Pollen gets stuck to the her while
she is diving into the flower for nectar- this pollen, well, pollinates other
plants and is also taken back as food for the youngest. This is how it ends
up in the hive. During extraction, when the beekeeper takes the honey from
the comb, a lot of the time small traces of pollen are in the honey, too.
While the traces of pollen particles are perfect sustenance, they are not
what constitutes honey. By national standards the presence of pollen is
not what makes honey, honey; its the honey that bees make in their little
bodies from the massive amount of nectar theyve drank.
The USDA does grade the honey based on different factors but the
terminology sounds like it is based around what the consumers are looking
for in contrast to the health of the honey and the hives. Honey that was
void of defects, as in bee bodies, wax, propolis, and pollen, by filtration,
was just required to be titled, filtered honey; the less of these defects the
higher the clarity and the higher the grade. Honey is graded on a 100 point
scale, with a score of 90 and above constituting Grade A honey: 40 points
for absence of defects, 50 points for taste and aroma, and 10 points for
clarity. Another way that they grade honey is by its water content, with a
lower water content being a higher grade. HoneyTraveler points out
important factors that the grading system doesnt cover:

purity of added ingredients (sugar or syrups)

heating, contaminants
authenticity of labeling (natural, organic, raw, unheated)
biological source (floral, honeydew)
botanical source (Arcacia, Clover etc.)

 regional source.

Now, the FSN was talking about ultra-filtered honey. This is a completely
different process than straining or filtering. Ultra filtration is when the
honey is passed through a screen, often polypropylene, that can filter
particles as small as 1/10 of a micron. Pollen normally ranges from 5-200
microns, bee bodies and parts are bigger than that, and wax particles as
well which can all be removed through standard filtering and straining
processes which are not the same as ultra-filtration. Now, how would honey
with such high viscosity pass through a screen so tight? The honey will have
to be altered which for conventional methods is done with high heat
normally around 130 degrees F. However, in regard to the ultra-filtration
process this is done by adding water to the honey, and presumably heat,
before passing it through the filter. This creates a much sweeter product.
According to the National Honey Board as well as the FDA this process
alters the honey to a point where it is no longer considered honey. Ultrafiltration is used by the food industry to create this sweet and cost effective
honey product, but this is not a technique used in the honey industry to
yield honey.
With the current food trends, manufacturing methods, farming methods,
and crop sciences, many other questions and variables should be
personally controlled. It should be clear by now that we, as healthy citizens,
do not depend on the USDA, FDA, or US Customs. Tim McFarline,
of McFarline Apiaries, is what I consider a revolutionary beekeeper. In
aMassReport interview McFarline brings us transparency through a deeper
understanding as well personal advice on selecting and personally choosing
honey.
McFarline Apiaries is located in Vermont and is free of all treatments
including heating, chemical miticides, pesticides, antibiotics, essential oils,
acids and all other medications. McFarline writes, This ensures the bees
that survive do so based on their own resilience and attributes and not
because a selective pressure was removed via treatments. My vision is to
have a diverse gene pool of productive, disease and mite resistant, gentle
bees well adapted to the northern seasons that can supply surplus bees,

honey and propolis to share with the community.

I asked McFarline how I could tell what type of filtration methods the honey
has gone through while standing in the aisle at the grocery store. This is
how McFarline responded:
Looking through a jar no, even I cant tell. The wording on the label and
research on the company is the only way. Where are you shopping? Does
the store stand behind the farmer can they tell you this is the guy and
these are his hives? Even with modern marketing, even if its a corporation,
if they care, the provenance will be there. They can still lie to you of course;
green, organic and sustainable are modern catch phrases. It all comes down
to a relationship.
MassReport: Then, if you cant tell much about the honey through the jar,
what do you recommend to a consumer looking to purchase honey?
McFarline: First of all I would look for what they call local honey. I wouldnt
buy anything. I would write down the beekeepers number and I would try
to have a conversation or better yet I would go visit them which is the best
scenario. In lieu of a visit, I would look up what they say and do. I dont
believe a lot of people are intentionally trying to mislead people a lot of
people just dont understand the process. They want to just heat their
honey a little to beclean. Its complex, not complicated; its a relationship
and a conversation.
One of the first questions to ask is how do you process your honey? Call me.
Ask me. I would say: we extract it, and we sling it out of the comb, we let it
settle for a few days, and then we bottle it off of the bottom. What does
that bring up? I dont filter it, but its still clean. There arent chunks, there
isnt wax on top. You may see fine particulates on top but thats just from
settling.
Then ask do they strain it? If they strain it this brings about the next
question: straining is accomplished by viscosity- as in if its too thick it wont

go through the strainer. So, people who strain honey on a large scale,
almost all of them, will have to heat it somewhat. So, if youre like me and
you dont want any heat applied to the honey, then straining would raise a
question. Im not saying its impossible to strain honey without heat I know
of a beekeeper who does it; Sam Comfort from Anarchy Apiaries. He hand
squeezes all of his honey- so its possible, its still raw, but most people
dont do this.
MassReport: Does the USDA or the FDA have any specific definitions that
you know of concerning Raw Honey?
McFarline: There are no regulations of what raw is, the USDA does not put
any regulations on this definition. For example, there is a well known apiary
that heats their honey to 130 degrees Fahrenheit in order to alter the
viscosity of the honey so that it will make it through the fine polypropylene
screen to filter. They then market this honey as Raw. Tom, Dick, and Harry
can label their product Raw but when asked if they heat their honey they
would say, yeah, we heat it to 110 degrees. 110 degrees breaks the crystal.
In Vermont its easy to tell Raw Honey'; northern honey crystallizes. The
plants all crystallize. Different floral sources dont ever crystallize or
because of ambient temperature they crystallize so slowly but its still Raw.
Again, have a relationship with your beekeeper. There arent any
regulations on the word Raw.
After speaking with Tim it was clear that this was a personal choice about
what I wanted to put in my body. As he said, that is just an externalization
of the government. It isnt what they are doing to us, it is what we can do
for ourselves. Weve all seen the mislabeled food products lining our
shelves or the label has been missing altogether. We cant depend on a
pollen count nor a government agency to tell us what is and isnt safe to be
entering our bodies. Nor can we depend on that label to tell us where the
food came from.
The day after conducting this interview I was in a locals farmers market
checking out the honey supply that they had available. Above the honey
there was a sign that said, Raw Honey!! What is it? Bill and Doreen

Ahaus, beekeepers at Ahaus Bee-Haus apiary in Greenleaf, Idaho wrote:

Raw simply means that the honey is pure honey- nothing else added to it:
no chemicals, no high fructose corn syrup, and no exposure to high
temperatures that could destroy the valuable enzymes and trace minerals
that give honey its amazing health and healing powers The idea is to
provide the consumer with honey that is as close to the same honey that
the bees store for themselves in the hive.
Honey has been used for a long time both nutritionally and medically. Its a
simple carbohydrate, fructose and glucose, which is a far better sugar
source than the majority that we consume. A study published in the Journal
of Agricultural and Food Chemistry wrote, These data support the concept
that phenolic antioxidants from processed honey are bioavailable, and that
they increase antioxidant activity of plasma. It can be speculated that
honey consumption could augment the bodys defenses against oxidative
stress. Further, enzymes, propolis, minerals, and vitamins are all present in
honey when it is prepared in a way that leaves it as close to its natural
state as possible. Some studies have shown that heating honey doesnt
reduce the enzyme or nutrient count. While this seems counter-intuitive, it
does bring up a host of questions; How high are they heating it? Are there
chemical by-products from the heating or straining process- some studies
have shown lead remnants after this process. Beyond heat are there other
sources like sugar-water and artificial syrups being added that have
documented adverse effects on the human body?
Beyond our health, which is incredibly important to the survival and
sustainability of communities, so is the health of our bee population. When
McFarline asks of the consumer to ask their beekeeper and to build a
relationship he is bringing up a really important concept. We have a
powerful role as consumers; We should be supporting producers who have
similar perspectives on health as we do. Do the beekeepers care about the
survival of the bees? Do they care about the sustainability of the
ecosystem? Or are they just in it as a business to make the fastest, easiest
profit? What are the bees being feed? Are they being treated? What are
they being treated with? Are there antibiotics involved? Do they burn the

hives after the season is over? These are all questions that conscientious
citizens ask about their other food sources, and the cycle for human and
bee must also be taken into perspective.
The bottom line is: Dont depend on pollen to identify where the honey
came from. Sure, examine it if you want to know the plant source, but find
and support a local source for yourself.
Side Note: You can eat crystalized honey either spoon it into your mouth
or if you really want a liquid honey then melt it back down to a liquid form,
apply low heat.
Source:
Posted by Thavam