Most of the honey on American grocery shelves is laundered, adulterated, or stripped of the compounds that made honey a medicine for ten thousand years. Here's what happened to it, and how to find the real thing. You go to the grocery store and buy honey. The label says honey. The bottle looks like honey. Tastes like “honey.” And yet… There is a reasonable chance it is not honey at all. You see, manipulation of honey, or simply put, fraud, in American grocery shelves has been a constant throughout our history. Most of what sits on the shelf today has been ultra-filtered to remove the one biological fingerprint that would prove where it actually came from. The federal government ran a sting operation on this starting in 2001, and it wasn’t until 2013 that people and companies were charged. The fraud is well-documented, and almost nobody outside the honey industry knows about it. Even today, such honey fraud exists. It’s quite a shame because real raw honey tastes great, is good for you, and was even used by civilizations across time and geographic space for medicinal properties. Here is what happened, what it means for what you have been eating, and how to find the real thing… In 2011, Food Safety News commissioned an investigation that tested 60 containers of honey purchased from major US retailers (supermarkets, big-box stores, drugstores, and smaller outlets) for pollen content. Pollen is the only reliable way to trace honey back to its country of origin. A field called melissopalynology maps pollen grains back to the flowers the bees visited, and from those flowers back to a specific region. Of the 60 samples tested, 76% had been ultra-filtered. The pollen was gone, so they couldn’t trace the honey. The FDA has stated, in writing, that ultra-filtered honey is not honey and should not be labeled as such. However, the FDA does not routinely check retail honey for pollen content. The industry's public defense is that American consumers prefer clear honey over cloudy.

Propolis is astoundingly complex and contains as many as 300 active compounds. These components were found to fight cancer in a variety of ways including: - Preventing the growth of new blood vessels to feed cancer cells - Preventing the spread or metastasis of cancer from one organ to another - Halting cancer cell division - Inducing apoptosis or programmed cell death In addition, propolis was found to mitigate the side effects or toxicity of chemotherapy drugs used in the treatment of cancer. Bees make propolis by gathering resin from pine and other cone-producing evergreen trees. They blend the resin with wax flakes and pollen, and take it back to the hive. There they use the sticky mess to patch holes, seal cracks and build panels in the hive. 1. Anti-Microbial Action Propolis has a wide range of antibacterial properties. It is also has anti-fungal and anti-viral powers. In one animal study, applying a propolis solution to wounds helped speed healing in diabetic rats. In children, propolis has been found to: - Prevent respiratory tract infections - Remedy symptoms of the common cold - Prevent middle ear infections 2. Heals Burns A 2002 study from the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine found that propolis may promote the healing of minor burns. The researchers compared a propolis skin cream with silver sulfadiazine, a drug used to treat burns. Study results showed propolis was just as effective as the drug in treating second-degree burns. 3. Prevents Dental Cavities Greek and Roman physicians used propolis as mouth disinfectant. Modern studies show it may be effective in the treatment of periodontitis and gingivitis. Many studies have also found that extracts from bee glue limit bacterial plaque and reduce tooth caries. Other studies show that propolis may even help regenerate dental pulp, as well as bone tissue, and cartilage. 4. Treats Parasites Preliminary trials show propolis may eliminate parasites. In one study people who took propolis had a 52 to 60% success rate in eliminating the parasite giardiasis.