Wilava Workshop: Are you local, Honey?

Honey is high in calories, sure, but it also has lots of great benefits. It contains B Vitamins and Vitamin C, as well as minerals like magnesium, potassium, calcium, sulphur, iron, phosphate, and even small quantities of zinc. It's a great natural sweetener for drinks, yogurt, and cereal, it can help soothe a sore throat and cough, and in skincare, it acts as a humectant, drawing moisture to the skin. But not all honey is the same.

And sometimes “Honey” isn’t even really honey.

Honey Fraud – the practice of diluting honey with low-cost syrups like corn syrup, sugar beets and/or water, then adding flavoring and labeling it as pure honey – is far too common. (Florida recently passed a law, the Florida Honey Standard Bill, to prevent this, and other states are following suit.) What's more, the AP recently reported that in early June, the FDA seized 64 drums of honey -- the labels said it was from the Philippines, but it actually came from China-- with detectable amounts of chloramphenicol, an antibiotic that can in rare cases cause aplastic anemia, which can be fatal. Apparently, some beekeepers in China use the antibiotic, either knowingly to treat diseased hives, or inadvertently through the use of ‘mixtures’ to help increase yields of honey, which contain the antibiotic. (The antibiotic is banned in the U.S. for use in food products, and also banned to treat sick bee hives.) Definitely not something I want in my Honey...

So how can we make sure what we’re buying is 100% pure honey? Find a local beekeeper you trust – Farmer’s Markets are a great place to find local honey -- and buy it directly from them. As an added step, I always buy ‘Raw Honey’ as it hasn’t been processed, but be sure to ask the beekeeper questions about his/her practices. This way, you’re sure to get excellent quality honey at a great price.