Why should you read the label when buying honey every time?

Food that cannot be easily differentiated by mere sight is vulnerable to adulteration. Honey is no exception as it is the third most adulterated food in the world.

It’s funny because adulterated honey is more common than naturally-sourced honey despite the fact that honey isn’t really that expensive. 

In China alone, it has been studied that around 70% of honey sold are believed to impure. While in the US, almost 80% of honey are believed to be fake according to My Bee Line.

Usually, adulterated honey comes with cheap sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and glucose syrup to add volume. HFCS is what most prefer to add to honey because of its near similarity to pure honey that it is difficult to detect and it is cheaper. As to why people do this is definitely for profit.

As per FDA, honey is thick, sweet, syrupy substance that bees make as food from the nectar of flowers and store in the honeycombs. Therefore, if any product labeled “honey” is not really honey if it’s composition has been modified through a process or through addition or another ingredient. If it has been modified, then it is adulterated honey.

So what if adulterated honey?

Honey has a lot of healthy benefits— nutritive and medicinal.

Also, its low water content (less than 20%) and water activity (0.5~0.65) make it a bad choice for microbes to grow, hence won’t go bad.

But you won’t benefit from these if you are using fake or adulterated honey.

Adulterated? Or not?

For most consumers, it can be tricky to tell which one is legit and which is not. And food laboratories can only have the capacity to determine purity of honey. But that doesn’t mean you can’t protect yourself from adulterated honey.

I advise against use of simple methods that are so-called DIY purity test (like water test and flame test, etc.). One site said that adulterated honey will dissolve in water while pure honey will settle right at the bottom of the glass.

These tests instructions are widely available on the internet.

According to University of the Sunshine Coast’s Dr Peter Brooks, chemist, such tests aren’t truly reliable, as reported by Patrick Williams by ABC News.

According to Ángel López Ramírez of Mexico’s National Autonomous University, authenticity of honey can only be determined in the lab.

So what to do?

You may not be able to accurately tell purity of honey. But reading the label helps to know if the honey if not fake. Unless you work in the food industry and have access to laboratory equipment and chemicals to carry out purity tests.

Check the product labeling

The product label enables us to know the necessary information, it’s a legal requirement. As for labeling honey, the FDA has released its revised guidelines on labeling for honey manufacturing.

Basically, you must see the common name, net weight, country of origin and the contact information. However, the common name and description and country of origin are the most important information to know right after reaching a jar off the mart’s shelf.

When naming ingredient for single-ingredient product, it isn’t necessary to list it honey as it is already stated as the common name or usual name of the product.

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Descriptions

It is easy to tell which honey product contains another ingredient like other sweeteners by the terms on the label.

 FDA requires manufacturers to not name it as “honey” if it does contain a sweetener. I honey does, they must add descriptions like for examples “blend of honey and corn syrup” and “blend of honey and sugar”.

Some products would contain more sweeteners than the actual honey. If it does, the statement would start with the sweetener like, “blend of corn syrup and honey.”

Most brands play with a few words to describe their honey. You would want to check the labels for words like “unfiltered”, “organic”, “raw” or “natural” and refrain with containers that say like “artificial”.  Most often, honey is mixed with inverted sucrose and its color, odor or flavor is adjusted to look like real honey.

Misbranded honey

Be vigilant with this because some products would contain sweeteners or flavorings but still list the products as “honey”, which are definitely examples of misbranding and a violation of the FD & C Act.

Country of origin

Another information essential to look for is the country of origin. If possible, refrain from purchasing honey from China. Some suppliers from the Asian country do not declare the country of origin, something that has been observed frequently in Europe because the requirement in doing so is low.

According to this article from Forbes, honey from China is feared to be shipped to another country and relabeled it as a product of that country before shipping it to its intended destination.

The possibility of containing lead has also raised concern in Europe. Lead-containing equipment are used to farm and process honey. It easily reacts to honey since it is acidic (around 3.0 to 6.0).

In the US, Chinese honey was once analyzed to be containing a certain antibiotic which is believed to cause cancer.

But it doesn’t mean all honey from China is counterfeit or bad. Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom and Spain source half of their honey from China.

Additional tips

Stop buying honey from a different brand every time. It is best to stick with one brand whose reputation is known positively.

To be totally safe from counterfeit honey, prefer honey from small producers locally. Visit your local bee farm for fresh honey. If there’s raw honey from the farmer’s market, the better. It has all the nutritive and medicinal benefits that you might not get from honey sold in the supermarket.

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