Not All Honey is created Equal
In 2016, Food Safety News revealed a study that claimed over 76% of honey sold in your average store is “fake”, full of toxic syrups and sugars. They are also supposedly rotten with antibiotics and heavy metals.
It starts with the diet
Without a strong nutritional foundation, bee colonies will suffer greatly. They greatly rely on carbohydrates, as they are a key source of energy needed for foraging and hive activities. Honeybees naturally find their carbohydrates when collecting honeydew and nectar.
Unfortunately, many commercial honey manufacturers supplement their colonies with sucrose solution, inverted sugar syrup, or syrups like starch syrup and high fructose corn syrup. As you can imagine, the kind of honey produced is not anywhere near what you’re led to believe and it has no nutritional value.
Antibiotics
While the intentions may be good, the high doses of antibiotics given to honey bees for disease prevention are a huge disadvantage in many ways. These veterinary antibiotics, such as chloramphenicol, streptomycin and sulfonamides can do great harm to humans in large amounts. For example, chloramphenoicol could cause cancer and aplastic anemia. It is simply “unnatural” to be treating honey bees in this way and it directly negatively affects not only bee colonies, but their honey product as well.
Pesticides
Anyone in tune with the state of our environment knows pesticides are to blame for a lot of our problems. That’s why it drives me nuts to read that the European Food Safety Authority labeled clothianidin as too dangerous to be used on crops, yet the U.S. remains deaf and blind to the risks.
Quite frankly, America isn’t paying attention, as that very chemical is still used on nearly 143 million acres of our crops. This and other pesticides like imidacloprid and thiamethoxam are not only linked to death but are still widely used in the U.S. – failing to follow other countries lead in banning them. This is no joke.
It’s just… fake
Honey should have bee pollen. That’s how this whole thing works in the natural world. However, in the land of greed- commercial honey manufacturers use special equipment to extract the pollen. They then mix in honey from other countries (which, is illegal!) – leaving people with absolutely no idea where it came from. Very shady stuff.
How do you know it’s fake?
-Artificial honey will stay in tact if you put a drop on your thumb, whereas fake honey will spill and spread quickly,
-Pour a glass of water- and drop a teaspoon of honey into it. If it quickly dissolves, you have fake honey on your hands. Real honey will stay solid and will fall to the bottom of the glass in tact.
-If you’ve had your honey on the shelf for a long period of time, you should see that it has crystallized if it is real. Fake honey will look like plain old syrup forever and ever.
-Be careful if you try this one- it is said if you dip the tip of a matchstick in honey and then go to light it- the flame will burn off of the honey. If it’s fake, it won’t light because of its “moisture”.
While we do not yet make our own honey (we’re learning!), we only source ours from the best. All natural, delicious, and rich with REAL nutrients!
