Honey is a fantastic natural and healthy alternative to refined sugar. You can use it in tea or coffee, when you’re baking, or to add a little extra sweetness to fruit salads. We have been using it for over 10,000 years, naturally drawn to its sweetness, and it has often played a crucial role in spiritual and healing traditions (1). Many traditional medicinal practices use honey too.

However, new research has emerged that highlights the importance of eating the right kind of honey, otherwise, you could be doing your body more harm than good! It turns out that even raw honey could do you some damage.

What is Raw Honey

Raw honey is honey that has not been treated in any way since extraction from the hive. It hasn’t been pasteurized, processed, or heated which leaves you only with pure honey. This means that the honey retains all of its natural vitamins, enzymes, phytonutrients, and other nutritional elements that are all great for your health (1).

The clear, super sweet, runny honey you often find in large stores is usually treated in some way and so has much of this goodness stripped from it (leaving basically sugar behind). However, the only way you can tell if honey is raw or not is checking the label.

Contaminated Raw Honey

The major difficulty with honey is that it is an entirely natural product. That is to say, there are many factors out of our control that contribute to the production of honey. Bees will produce honey simply by following their natural instincts, and as such, the control is very much in their hands. We can’t force them to only go to some flowers and not others!

In recent years, research brought to light just how hazardous raw honey could, therefore, be to human health. Researchers at King Saud University in Saudi Arabia, found antibiotics, pesticides, microbial contaminants, and even heavy metals present in various kinds of honey that they compiled research on (2).

The contamination of agricultural areas with pesticides and antibiotics leads to bees picking up these contaminants as they go to work pollinating flowers. These chemicals are then brought back with them into the hive and are subsequently transferred into the honey that ends up on the shelves at the store, and eventually on our plate. Antibiotic residues have quite a long half-life and, as such, will often make it all the way into our bodies, having direct toxic effects (2).

This can undoubtedly cause some issues. The researchers explain that honey can often be “polluted by pesticides, heavy metals, bacteria and radioactive materials.” They also explain that these pesticide residues can cause genetic mutations (2).

Throughout their research, they reference countries all over the world, including the US, and confirm that honey contaminated with pesticides, herbicides, and heavy metals, have been reported in samples of honey from just about everywhere.

Isn’t Raw Honey Better For You?

In general, raw honey is much better for you than other kinds of honey. As already shown, raw honey is still rich in nutrients that are otherwise ‘cooked off’ when honey is heated above a certain temperature.

They can help with seasonal allergies (when local honey is eaten) (4), and they contain a huge range of essential minerals and amino acids (5). In addition to this, raw honey contains over 5000 enzymes including amylase which can help digest carbohydrates. Ingesting naturally occurring enzymes like this lightens the burden on the body to produce them itself, and as such raw honey is a wonderful way of getting more enzymes into your body (5).

What Can You Do?

The best way to get all of these benefits, while avoiding the pesticides and antibiotics which can harm your body, is buying organic. Finding raw honey that is also organic can, however, be quite a challenge!

For beekeepers to be certified organic, not only do the plants from which the bees collect their honey need to be pesticide-free – their entire foraging area does. What makes it even harder, is that it’s not just crops that get sprayed with pesticides these days. Governments spray roadsides and even power lines to avoid weed growth among other areas.

Further, many beekeepers will treat their bees with antibiotics, and some will even use pesticides in the hive itself, to protect against mites. Both of these practices will strip a beekeeper of their organic status.

Eating honey without being aware of where it came from can be problematic, and a cause for concern. You should always check the labels and wherever possible, buy locally. That way you can speak to the beekeepers or farmers directly and gain an understanding of where the bees have been pollinating in the area. Otherwise, try calling the company that makes the brand of honey you and your family currently eat. You can then rest assured that your family isn’t at risk of accidentally eating contaminated honey.

Sources:

1. Bloggers G. Raw Honey Benefits: The Complete Story. Swansonvitaminscom. 2016. Available at: http://www.swansonvitamins.com/blog/guest-authors-on-natural-health/raw-honey-the-complete-story. Accessed September 9, 2016.

2. Al-Waili N, Salom K, Al-Ghamdi A, Ansari M. Antibiotic, Pesticide, and Microbial Contaminants of Honey: Human Health Hazards. The Scientific World Journal. 2012;2012. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1100/2012/930849. Accessed September 9, 2016.

3. How can honey be organic?. David Suzuki Foundation. 2016. Available at: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/queen-of-green/faqs/food/how-can-honey-be-organic/. Accessed September 9, 2016.

4. Healthyeatingsfgatecom. 2016. Available at: http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/dangers-benefits-raw-honey-5387.html. Accessed September 9, 2016.

5. Pure Healing Foods. Purehealingfoodscom. 2016. Available at: http://www.purehealingfoods.com/honeyInfo.php. Accessed September 9, 2016.