Check your honey (not your sweetheart)

[cave76]

Evidently there's some honey with corn syrup or sugar being added to it. I think mostly from other countries.

Just because it's sweet and sticky doesn't mean it's 'honey': FDA | Reuters

"To feed America's sweet tooth, much honey is imported, and U.S. producers are worried about cheap substitutes.
Pure honey is generally more expensive than those mixed with corn syrup and traditional sugar[...]"

 

[FrankZ]

... and U.S. producers are worried about cheap substitutes.
"

Of course they are.

 

[LPBeier]

We buy our honey from our Organic store and they buy it from 2 local producers of organic honey. We have gone to both producers and toured their facilities and feel quite comfortable buying their products.

But this was an interesting read.

 

[GotGarlic]

I buy our honey from friends who have backyard hives. One is a master gardener who sells his honey at the farmer's market downtown and another sells his at a salon - I think they use it for skin care as well as food I tried to get DH to add some to his morning English muffins for allergy treatment, but he's not into it. Oh well.

 

[cave76]

I've heard that if you use honey from local bees that you'll develop fewer allergies. I don't know if that's true but my pathology instructor said he did it and it works.

That would be better than out-sourced goods anyway.

 

[taxlady]

I buy organic honey too. I try to get local stuff. Even honey that is all "honey" isn't necessarily very nice. If they have been feeding the bees sugar, the honey won't be as good.

 

[bakechef]

Ever since reading about this a while back, I've started buying quality local honey, unfiltered. This stuff has so much more character than most of the stuff in the stores. I like to put it on my biscuits and on my plain greek yogurt with walnuts.

 

[mmyap]

I started using unfiltered, organic as well. The stuff I get is so thick you need a knife to spread it.

 

[jennyema]

My partner buys 600 pounds of honey at a time from a fabulous source in PA. We were there a week ago.

So I buy their product in much smaller quantities.

 

[Rocket_J_Dawg]

We used to get our honey from an organic farm up near Orillia. But, thanks to Monsanto, they have closed.
Huge Honey Bee Losses Across Canada Dash Hopes Of Upturn

 

[taxlady]

We used to get our honey from an organic farm up near Orillia. But, thanks to Monsanto, they have closed.
Huge Honey Bee Losses Across Canada Dash Hopes Of Upturn

Yeah, the bee die off is scary. What will pollinate our food if we don't have bees?

I don't know if it's true, but I read that native wild bees and bumble bees are doing better with fewer domesticated bees. I sure hope it's true.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Organic local honey here, too!

Don't buy the honey at the dollar store!!! Read ingredient lists.

 

[Cheryl J]

I just bought some (fairly) local honey from a tiny little place on a short road trip a couple of weeks ago. It's amazing - very thick, but oh so good. This little place also has the best beef jerky I've ever had. They've been in business for decades.

 

[taxlady]

I bought some Life Brand honey at the pharmacy. I checked the ingredients and it said honey. When I got it home I read more stuff on the label. It was a combination of Canadian, Argentine, and Australian honey. Then, I looked at another part of the label and read, "Packaged in Australia". So, some of that honey had been transported across the Pacific ocean and back and then to the other side of the continent. Perfectly nice honey that I will only buy in an emergency.

 

[BoracayB]

The only brand I can get is SueBee from Iowa.
There is no list of ingredients. I'm guessing it's 100% honey.

There is a warning on the label-"Do not feed to children under 1 year of age".

Any idea why?

 

[PrincessFiona60]

Infant botulism: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia

 

[Roll_Bones]

We buy ours at Costco. It better be real pure honey!
I need to check the label.

 

[dcSaute]

the bad news addendum to the bad news is:

the "new" guidelines are voluntary.

theft is against the guidelines, and we all know how much that has deterred the criminals.....

the bad news prior to the addendum is:
USDA does have standards for grading honey.
they are voluntary
the USDA has no inspection / monitoring / enforcement actions.

if you buy a jar of USDA Grade A honey and find out it contains lard, don't send it to the USDA because they don't care how it is labeled.

buying local from a trusted source is perhaps the only way to know what you're really getting.

 

[Addie]

Infant botulism: MedlinePlus Medical Encyclopedia

Well, that was scary. When my children were small I nursed them for the first month or two. Then I stopped and switched them to whole milk formula. Whole milk, sterile or boiled water and a teaspoon of clear corn syrup per bottle. Sometimes I would run out of the syrup and I would use sugar. The purpose of the sugar was to aid in their bowel movement. After a while, since the sugar was doing the job as well as the syrup, I stayed with it. Of course that was more than 50 years ago.

I know there is a corn fungus that can spread very fast and ruin a crop. All you need for that to happen is a really good windy day. I have read that there are some people who eat the corn fungus. I knew of the fungus when my kids were born. I didn't know the warning for honey also covered corn syrup. I am glad now that I switched them to the sugar in their formula.

 

[bakechef]

We buy ours at Costco. It better be real pure honey!
I need to check the label.

From what I read, there is lots of honey out there that says 100% pure honey but still contains other stuff such as corn syrup and other sweeteners, and isn't labeled as such, usually imported stuff.

That's what pushed me to raw, unfiltered honey, preferably local. Wow, this has opened a whole new world of honey for me, such awesome complex flavors, nice and thick. I'll have a hard time going back to regular run of the mill honey.