This Food Safety News article is pretty shocking. We can't copy the whole thing so please follow the link below and give it a full read (it's a bit long but worth it). The upshot is that researchers have found that nearly all honey from major store brands have ZERO pollen -- along with the honey from nearly all chain restaurants. Calling something 'honey' when it has no pollen is like calling mountain dew scotch! They are both liquids yes, but the similarities stop there.
Here is a list of the honey tested by Food Safety News that showed no traces of pollen. [American Choice Clover Honey, Archer Farms Orange Blossom Honey, Archer Farms Organic Classic Honey, Busy Bee Organic Honey, Busy Bee, Pure Clover Honey, CVS Honey,Fred Meyer Clover Honey, Full Circle Pure Honey, Giant Eagle Clover Honey, GE Clover Honey, Great Value, Clover Honey, Haggen Honey, Natural & Pure, HT Traders Tupelo Honey, Kroger Pure Clover Honey, Market Pantry Pure Honey, Mel-o 100 % Pure Honey, Natural Sue Bee Clover Honey, Naturally Preferred Fireweed Honey, Rite Aid Honey, Safeway Clover Honey, Silver Bow Pure Honey, Stop and Shop Clove Honey, Sue Bee Clover Honey, Thrifty Bee Honey, Valutime Honey, Walgreen MEL-O honey,Western Family Clover Honey, Wegman Clover Honey, Winnie the Pooh, Pure Clover]
Ultra-filtering Removes Pollen, Hides Honey Origins
More than three-fourths of the honey sold in U.S. grocery stores isn't exactly what the bees produce, according to testing done exclusively for Food Safety News.
The results show that the pollen frequently has been filtered out of products labeled "honey."
The removal of these microscopic particles from deep within a flower would make the nectar flunk the quality standards set by most of the world's food safety agencies.
The food safety divisions of the World Health Organization, the European Commission and dozens of others also have ruled that without pollen there is no way to determine whether the honey came from legitimate and safe sources.
In the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration says that any product that's been ultra-filtered and no longer contains pollen isn't honey. However, the FDA isn't checking honey sold here to see if it contains pollen.
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.
Read More at:
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-h...
