Honey is an animal product. Issues about honey production include:
– How are the bees being treated?
– Bees make honey for their survival in wintertime. So, what happens to bees when I eat their honey?
– I promote avoiding white sugar and high fructose corn syrup. According to research, honey can be adulterated by adding sugar syrups such as starch-based sugar syrup, high fructose corn syrup, and glucose syrup during or after honey production (1).
According to local honey producers Kevin Dunn and Janelle Dunn Parchomchuk of Okanagan Wildbrush Honey:
– If I told you that no bees were harmed in the production of honey, that would be a lie. We are not perfect. When you open the lid and pull out frames, occasionally some bees get squished.
– We always ensure that each beehive has enough honey stored to make it through the winter. This is the only healthy food for them, and sugar water is no substitute. We only take what we feel is the excess honey.
– We use organic methods when treating for disease and parasites because we do not want to promote the development of treatment-resistant diseases.
– We place our beehives in places where the bees have access to lots of floral diversity and no exposure to toxins.
I use pure unpasteurized honey in moderation from careful suppliers such as Okanagan Wildbrush Honey. I recommend that we do our homework before purchasing so we can trust the source.
1. Tosun M. Detection of adulteration in honey samples added various sugar syrups with 13C/12C isotope ratio analysis method. Food Chem. 2013