Is Honey Really Honey, or Is It Just High Fructose Corn Syrup in Disguise?

By

Roy M. Arnold, MD

Honey is healthy, right? Honey is all-natural, right? Honey contains no High-Fructose corn syrup, right? The answers may surprise you. Over the last 2 years scientific publications have revealed a disturbing trend in commercial honey production that the general public may not be aware of.

By way of background, natural honey is produced by bees from the pollen and nectar of flowering plants. Natural honey straight out of the hive contains microscopic pollen grains, which when examined under the microscope can identify the plants used by the bees to produce the honey. An investigation published in 2011 by Food Safety News found that more than 75% of the honey sold at retail in the US contained NO pollen grains making it impossible to determine the origin of the honey.

Producers are ultra-filtering the honey to remove all pollen grains and at the same time diluting it with water or high-fructose corn syrup. Much of this honey is produced outside the US in China, Vietnam or India and once the honey is ultra-filtered it contains no evidence of its country of origin. According to the article, “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.”

The US Food and Drug Administration does not consider honey that does not contain pollen to be honey, but to date has done little to regulate the products that are sold on store shelves.

“The FDA has sent a letter to industry stating that the FDA does not consider ‘ultra-filtered’ honey to be honey,” agency press officer Tamara Ward told Food Safety News. She went on to explain: “We have not halted any importation of honey because we have yet to detect ‘ultra-filtered’ honey. If we do detect ‘ultra-filtered’ honey we will refuse entry.” Many in the honey industry and some in FDA’s import office say they doubt that FDA checks more than 5 percent of all foreign honey shipments.

For three months, the FDA promised Food Safety News to make its “honey expert” available to explain what that statement meant. It never happened. Further, the federal food safety authorities refused offers to examine investigator Bryant’s analysis and explain what it plans to do about the selling of honey it says is adulterated because of the removal of pollen, a key ingredient.

The Food Safety News investigators sampled 60 different brands of honey and found 76% of those sold in grocery stores contained no pollen, 100% of those sold in Pharmacies contained no pollen and 77% of those sold in big box stores like Walmart, Target and Sam’s contained no pollen. 100% of individual samples of honey distributed with meals at McDonald’s, KFC and by Smucker’s contained no pollen.

More disturbing news comes from an article published this year by a team from the University of Illinois in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in which they found that a common industry practice of feeding bee colonies High-Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) instead of natural nectar may be

contributing to the so-called Colony Collapse Disorder which causes entire hives to die out. It seems that honey production increases if the hive is drained of honey and replaced with HFCS. A diet rich in HCFS apparently compromises the bees’ natural immunity to certain pesticides contributing to the sudden death of the entire colony.

According to WebMD, honey does have some medicinal properties. It has been used to treat stubborn wounds and many swear by its ability to diminish allergy symptoms and those of the common cold. There’s also a downside to the use of honey: raw honey may contain Botulism spores and if given to children under the age of 1 can actually cause botulism. Furthermore since honey does contain sugar, it is no better as a sweetener than white or brown sugar and can be hazardous to diabetics.

How then can one be certain that the honey bought is truly honey and not ultra-filtered and adulterated? First, make certain that you don’t confuse HFCS with honey. Second, honey that is labeled “organic” usually contains pollen grains and is produced in the USA. Third, honey purchased at farmers’ markets or from local farms is typically processed on site and is genuine. For more information the references follow: Food Safety News online, http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/#.UhTfLT8vYui November 7,2011.

“Honey constituents up-regulate detoxification and immunity genes in the western honey bee Apis mellifera” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 110 no. 22, March 21, 2013.

“The disturbing link between high fructose corn syrup and honey,” KevinMD online: http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2013/08/disturbing-link-high-fructose-corn-syrup-honey.html , August 19, 2013. Web MD online: “The Medicinal Uses of Honey,” http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/medicinal-uses-of-honey?print=true Accessed August 21, 2013.