Are you eating real honey?

Recent media coverage has revealed that some of the honey brands sold in supermarkets are not 100% pure honey. Independent testing has found that many contain adulterated honey.

What is adulterated honey? And how do you know if you are eating real honey?

The products that were identified as adulterated were found to contain a mixture of pure honey and a sugar syrup that looks and tastes similar to honey. These are called C4 sugars and are usually sugar cane or corn syrup, however can also be molasses or maple syrup.

The testing found that all of the adulterated brands sourced all or some of their ingredients from overseas. None of the brands that contained honey solely sourced in Australia showed any adulteration.

So the best rule of thumb to make sure you’re getting pure honey is to always choose a brand that is 100% made in Australia (or a reputable brand from New Zealand).

There are also a few other ways to detect if honey is adulterated:

1. Pure honey is usually denser and sometimes cloudy, whilst adulterated honey tends to be runny in consistency and won’t become cloudy.
2. The thumb test – put a small amount of honey on your thumb. Pure honey will stay put and not drip away; adulterated honey will spread.
3. The water test – drop a teaspoon of honey into a glass of water. Adulterated honey will dissolve while pure honey will drop to the bottom of the glass.

You can rest assured you are getting pure Australian honey when purchasing Australian NaturalCare’s Manuka Honey.

Australian NaturalCare’s Manuka Honey is hand-harvested from bee hives in the coastal forests and bushlands of northern NSW and Queensland. The bees collect nectar from the flowers of a native plant called Leptospermum, which gives Manuka Honey its special properties. Our honey is raw and unpasteurised so it keeps all the nutrients and bioactive benefits. Every batch of Australian NaturalCare’s Manuka Honey is processed in a HACCP certified facility. It is then tested by highly respected and independent laboratories to verify its methylglyoxal content level to ensure we are providing a genuinely bioactive honey. So you can be confident what is on the label is in the jar.

Manuka honey is a little different to other honeys. Whilst most honeys contain the antibacterial substance hydrogen peroxide, it rarely survives the journey from hive to home. Manuka honey has much higher levels of another natural antibacterial substance called methylglyoxal (MGO) which is more potent and more stable. Manuka honey with a methylglyoxal level of 100 or higher is considered ‘bioactive’. As the level of methyglyoxal increases the bioactive properties increase.

Manuka honey is distinctively flavoured. It is darker and richer in taste than other honeys and is delicious eaten straight from a spoon. Enjoy daily as part of a healthy, balanced diet.