Why would anybody screw up the natural goodness of honey? “Money, honey!” of course. It's really a travesty. Testing of honey from major United States supermarkets in late 2011 discovered that most of it wasn't legally honey. Food Safety News paid for tests of 60 brands and discovered that 3/4 of the jars contained, at best, honey that had been illegally “ultra-filtered” to remove every speck of pollen.
That doesn't sound so bad, but it is. For one thing, honey naturally comes with trace elements of pollen that add flavor, nutrition, and maybe protection from allergens. More importantly, though, is that “ultra-filtration” was invented solely to commit fraud and sell unsafe honey.
Testing of honey from
major United States
supermarkets in late
2011 discovered that
most of it wasn't
legally honey.
How so? Analyzing the honey's trace amounts of pollen is the only foolproof way for regulators to determine a honey's place of origin. Regions of China and India have consistently produced honey containing heavy metals, pollutants, antibiotics, and other chemicals not approved for human consumption, so their honey has been embargoed. By heating the honey to a high temperature and forcing it through ultra-fine mesh, the honey can be shipped around the world and relabeled as coming from some other country without leaving any incriminating regional pollen traces.
Selling ultra-filtered honey is illegal, but the law has not been well enforced, and the banned honey is sold at bargain basement prices, so a lot of honey packers would rather pretend they don't know what's going on.
But at least it's honey, even if it's been overheated and polluted, right? Well, not necessarily. Some of the “honey”—mostly from China, so far—has never seen the inside of a beehive, but instead was created from much cheaper malt compounds and sugar water.
Yeah, it's a little self-serving for me to suggest, but if you want real honey, get your own hive, or get to know a local beekeeper and expect to pay more than you've gotten used to when buying plastic bears full of suspiciously crystal-clear honey in supermarkets.
BY THE WAY . . .
A scientist who analyzes the purity of honey by checking its pollen is called a melissopalynologist.