Daily Maveric TGIFOOD - 19th Of July 2024.

A recent article published by the Daily Maverick, written by Dr Janais Delport (a PhD graduate from the UCT who specialises in melissopalynology, the study of pollen and spores in honey), highlights what happens in South Africa around fake ‘honey’, the work of ‘honey fraudsters’ that often contains no actual honey at all. The fake products fly off the supermarket shelves , while the real deal is often ignored. Click on the link to the article, and others previoulsy featured in the Daily Maveric over the years on the same issue of Fake Honey to get a better understanding of the issues.

The best description of what is available on retailers’ shelves that I could find, is summarized by BCB Honey in Canada. Here are the different types of Honey:

1– Fake honey— artificial or fake honey is imitation or artificial honey made from sugar or corn and rice syrups with additives essences and food coloring.

2- Adulterated honey— Also referred to as impure honey is 'honey' that has been added glucose, dextrose, molasses, sugar syrup, invert sugar, high fructose corn syrup, starch, or any other similar product other than floral nectar.

3- Pure honey — pasteurized but contains no added ingredients. Pure honey is heated at high temperatures and filtered.

4- Cream honey — Creamed Honey has been pasteurized and "seeded" with the desired crystal size to create tiny, fine crystals that are uniform in size, resulting in a honey that is nice and creamy.

5- Raw honey — When it comes to choosing the healthiest and most natural honey, your best bet is to go raw. Raw honey is honey in its initial form – straight from the beehive, just as nature meant it to be.

We all know that the benefits of raw honey are many and varied. Raw honey retains all of its original vitamins, minerals, and enzymes and it is great for allergies, especially if havrvisted lin your area.