More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.
The results show that the pollen frequently has been filtered out of products labeled “honey.”
The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world’s food safety agencies.
The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others also have ruled that without pollen there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources.
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that’s been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn’t honey. However, the FDA isn’t checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen.
Ultra filtering is a high-tech procedure where honey is heated, sometimes watered down and then forced at high pressure through extremely small filters to remove pollen, which is the only foolproof sign identifying the source of the honey. It is a spin-off of a technique refined by the Chinese, who have illegally dumped tons of their honey – some containing illegal antibiotics – on the U.S. market for years.
Food Safety News decided to test honey sold in various outlets after its earlier investigation found U.S. groceries flooded with Indian honey banned in Europe as unsafe because of contamination with antibiotics, heavy metal and a total lack of pollen which prevented tracking its origin.
Food Safety News purchased more than 60 jars, jugs and plastic bears of honey in 10 states and the District of Columbia.
The contents were analyzed for pollen by Vaughn Bryant, a professor at Texas A&M University and one of the nation’s premier melissopalynologists, or investigators of pollen in honey.
Bryant, who is director of the Palynology Research Laboratory, found that among the containers of honey provided by Food Safety News:
•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.
And if you have to buy at major grocery chains, the analysis found that your odds are somewhat better of getting honey that wasn’t ultra-filtered if you buy brands labeled as organic. Out of seven samples tested, five (71 percent) were heavy with pollen. All of the organic honey was produced in Brazil, according to the labels.
The National Honey Board, a federal research and promotion organization under USDA oversight, says the bulk of foreign honey (at least 60 percent or more) is sold to the food industry for use in baked goods, beverages, sauces and processed foods. Food Safety News did not examine these products for this story.
Some U.S. honey packers didn’t want to talk about how they process their merchandise.
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9 Responses
Golly, gee. I thought palynology was the study of that goofy former half-term governor of Alaska. And, coincidentally, she is less genuine than most of the honey reported in this story.
Which is why honey requires a hecksher even if in the old days it wasn’t required.
What nonsense. How does removing something from the honey stop it from being honey? Who anointed these “authorities” to decide when honey is no longer honey? The source of this story is the magazine “Food Safety News”, which is pursuing its own agenda of scaring people.
And #2, why would removing something from perfectly kosher honey cause a shayla on its kashrus?
No. 3: Your question shows a level of insight comparable to the insight of that creepy kid’s best friend, Bart.
Real honey pours as “slow as molasses”. Honey that pours very quickly is not real honey. As the article indicates, it is either filtered down or ‘watered’ down with an extreme % of corn syrup.
So the honey that was filtered isn’t honey even if there isn’t anything added to the honey to adulterate it???? Sounds like more govt involvement where it doesn’t belong.
To #2, you should please stay out of topics you know little about – Kashrus being one of those topics as Grade A honey does NOT, I repeat, DOES NOT require hashgocha according to the reliable Kashrus agencies (OU, OK, Star-K, cRc, etc).
#6 – “Grade A” implies that it meets a certain set of standards defined by an official group like perhaps the government. If the claim made here is accurate (which I don’t know), then it may be that Honey with Zero pollen is not actually Grade A.
In which case the question no longer sounds ridiculous. What else isn’t it?
7. The bottom line is the commenter #2 was incorrect in his assumption that honey required a hechsher. The m’tzius is that it doesn’t.
The Gov’t is involved because of the need to have standards for products. In many cases, standards are of a benefit to both the consumers as well as the producers. As for Mr. Levin’s question #6: it is possible to process something like honey to the point that it indistinguishable from a simple sugar solution. Example: filter out the pollen for use in nutrition supplements (at a nice profit) and add corn syrup to the remaining filtrate. Cheaper honey but one that has lost the source of much of its flavor and a change in its essential characteristics…except it is sweet and brown.
My guess is that readers of YWN include those who work for Kashrush agencies. I would not be surprised if Kashrush agencies start quiet inquiries of the honey industry to determine if the processing has introduced steps that now require a hechsher.