The Benefits of Raw Honey — Consciously Kosher

What is the difference between raw honey and regular honey? And why does it matter? The answer is more fascinating and subtle than you might think.

As a child growing up in the 1970s and 80s, I have fond memories of Winnie the Pooh romping sloppily through paws-ful of honey. He was often joined by heffalumps, woozles, rabbits and piglets. Pooh would go to great lengths to procure his precious honey, often resorting to begging and borrowing from his friends. Or he would hatch a plan with Christopher Robin to distract the bees so he could get their honey from the hive.

In retrospect, it’s amazing just how fresh that cartoon honey appeared: straight out of the hive, bees buzzing ’round his head as they went about their business.

This image is striking because it reminds me of how alive raw honey is, in stark contrast with the sterile mass-produced honey that lines most grocery store shelves

Between the first night of Rosh Hashanah and the waning hours of Simchat Torah more than three weeks later, we will consume honey on everything from challah and apples to brisket and kugel. Yet, for a food that gets so much extended play in our diets, most people still associate honey with a plastic squeeze bear.

Did you ever stop to think about what is in that bottle? How it is produced? Or how it affects your body?

Growing up, I never gave it a thought. But over the past several years, I’ve taken a keen interest in learning more about this most traditional of Rosh Hashanah foods.

Meet David Jefferson, Founder Of Bloom Honey

David Jefferson, founder of bloom honey (Image courtesy of bloom honey)

My search for more knowledge about honey led me to talk with David Jefferson, founder of Bloom Honey. I got quite an education in all aspects of honey production, from the benefits of raw honey to the types of varietals available.

In this piece, Mr. Jefferson relates why you should eat raw honey, how raw honey differs from processed honey, the nutritional benefits of raw honey, the meaning of honey varietals and where to purchase Bloom Honey.

What Kind of Honey Do You Sell?

Bloom Honey produces pure raw honey. Bloom Honey is a multi-award-winning product line that covers single floral varietals such as orange blossom, avocado, sage, buckwheat, white clover, as well as several infusions and an organic Highland from Mexico. Bloom Honey’s entire line is certified kosher by EarthKosher.

Are You Also A Beekeeper?

Technically, yes, I am also a beekeeper. In addition to Bloom Honey, we run a commercial beekeeping business. I run about 2,500 beehives. I'm not in the field necessarily caring for the bees, but I'm buying the queens, I'm buying pollen patties or I'm doing the pollination contracts. I'm finding locations and figuring out from where we're extracting our honey.

How Does Being A Beekeeper Differentiate You As A Honey Company?

Most small honey companies sell at the farmers markets. Some of them may be beekeepers, although many are not.

The big honey companies, including the national brands, are just honey packers or marketers. They source all their honey.

It’s hard to both source and pack, but we strive to do both. In addition to the honey that my bees produce, we also source honey from my network of beekeepers.

Raw Honey Is A Major Selling Point Of Your Business. Why Raw Honey?

Raw honey is honey in its original form, produced by the bees. It's a nectar secreted from a flower blossom, and then the bees do some processing to it. They add some enzymes, they remove moisture and it becomes honey.

Raw honey is a superfood from nature. It has many benefits, which we will get into shortly.

What Is The Problem With Mainstream Commercial Honey?

Mainstream commercial suppliers take honey and overheat it, pasteurize it and ultrafilter it before putting it in the plastic squeeze bear. And since it’s been overheated, and they've ultra-filtered it, it will never crystallize. They take a food with superfood benefits and make it no better than ordinary table sugar.

Honey is a carbohydrate. It's sugar. Ordinary table sugar is really bad for you. Americans are obese because, on average, we consume over 66 pounds of added sugar per year, including ordinary table sugar and high fructose corn syrup. [Editor’s note: Including natural sources, such as fruit, the number jumps to about 150 pounds per year.]

What Are The Health And Nutritional Benefits Of Raw Honey?

Raw honey may not be as overtly healthy as green leafy vegetables, or broccoli or bok choy. Despite being a sugar, though, raw honey definitely has superfood health benefits. They include:

Nearly 40 vitamins, minerals and trace elements
All 26 essential amino acids
Numerous live digestive enzymes
Prebiotic and probiotic properties

It is also a very potent antimicrobial, antibacterial and antifungal agent.

Throughout history, wounded soldiers in the battlefield would treat their wounds with honey to prevent infection.

What Is Manuka Honey?

You’ve likely heard of Manuka honey from New Zealand, which costs $50 a jar. Manuka honey is honey from the Manuka flower. Numerous peer-reviewed research studies demonstrate that it's very high in antibacterial activity. All raw honey has antibacterial properties, but Manuka honey has methylglyoxal [a potent antibacterial compound responsible for much of the honey's antibacterial properties].

Are There Benefits To Buying Locally-Sourced Honey?

People think they need local honey. That’s both true and false. Everybody needs raw honey, because if it's not raw honey, that means it's been overheated, pasteurized and ultra-filtered, and it's no better than ordinary table sugar. With processed honey:

The vitamins and minerals get degraded
The amino acids are broken down
The live enzymes are no longer alive above a certain temperature.

You really only need local raw honey if you have seasonal pollen allergies, like sneezing during springtime. But it has to be raw to have any benefit.

Here’s why:

Honey is made from nectar. It's a carbohydrate. Bee pollen is not a natural part of honey. The bees collect nectar and pollen. They bring the pollen back to the hive. If some of the pollen gets in the honey, it's just part of a natural process. However, ultra-filtering the honey doesn't allow any of the bee pollen particles into the jar.

On the flip side, when the honey is not filtered, but at most just gently strained to remove large particles of wax or dead bee parts, you’re allowing the bee pollen in.

When you have allergies to local pollen, eating a spoonful or two of local honey per day, over a few weeks or months, will enable your body to build up an immunity. When the flowers start blooming, you're not going to be sneezing like crazy.

Why Are Some Honeys Thinner And Clearer And Others Are Thicker And More opaque? Why Do Some Crystallize?

The average consumer is aware of the plastic squeeze bear. You squeeze some honey on your dinner muffin, for example. It tastes great. But it will never crystallize and it’s all the same color. So the big brands heat the honey to prevent it from crystallizing.

On the other hand, if it's raw honey, it will crystallize and turn solid over time. Furthermore, different varietals crystallize at different rates.

You do have to heat the honey to get it in the jar, because, when the honey is extracted, it goes into a 55-gallon drum and it'll solidify in there. Raw honey is typically heated to 120°F or less [to prevent it from losing its raw characteristics].

We try to heat ours to no higher than about 108F. The natural temperature inside a hive is usually about 95°F to 98°F, but it can get up to about 118°F.

What Factors Affect Honey Thickness?

The thickness varies with the different varietals, the temperature to which it is heated and also how much it gets filtered.We don't filter; we gently strain. However, we use, to my knowledge, the tightest micron strainer in the industry. If you could actually see particles or specks in the jar, that's a sign that they're not filtering the honey. They're just straining it very gently, while allowing most of the particles to come through.

What's The Difference Between Filtering And Straining?

Filtration acts to filter out the pollen and any particles of wax five microns wide or larger. You're filtering out little sugar crystals that would make the crystallization process happen sooner. So with filtered honey, there would be no pollen. There would be no particles, no propolis, no little particles of wax. There would be no crystals of sugar, which are also removed from the heating.

What this means is that the honey in the typical honey bear package will never crystallize. It'll stay liquid forever because it has been heated and filtered so heavily.

Straining is a more general term to mean filtering at a much lesser extent. We strain using a 400-micron-wide strainer. Pollen granules are between 2 and 200 microns wide.

With our strainer, the holes in the strainer are twice as wide as the largest pollen particles. That means all the pollen is getting through.

Realistically, you have to do some sort of filtration. Otherwise, the honey will have bee legs and bee wings. For honey producers that don't filter their honey, they've got to do something, so they strain it. Straining is basically filtering to a much lesser extent.

Is It True That Chinese-Exported Honey Is Adulterated?

A study was done in natural food grocery stores across the U.S., where they took samples of various honeys. They found that 75% of the honeys had no pollen detected. If the honey is raw, it should contain pollen. So, what can you trust?

There’s also the issue of integrity. Adulteration of honey is a problem. High fructose corn syrup costs a fraction of the cost of bulk honey. So whether it's from China or another country, they're putting some fraction as high fructose corn syrup and diluting it or adulterating it.

The U.S. has banned imports of Chinese honey in the past. But the Chinese find ways to circumvent the ban by funneling it through an intermediate country. And not necessarily as honey, but as fruit preserves or other similar products. They get it in and it’s a big, illegal racket.

These tactics give honey a bad rap. They also harm the U.S. beekeepers who produce honey and then sell it on the bulk market to a honey packer.

Once the honey packers buy the cheap Chinese honey, they're not going to pay the price that they should for local California beekeepers, or quality sage or orange honey. They’re getting honey for so much cheaper. At best, they might be incentivized to do a blend. For instance, they might buy sage honey and then blend it with the adulterated Chinese product to lower the cost. This still reduces the demand for that sage honey.

Raw honey is considered a superfood. So if you're buying honey that you think is raw, but it's really adulterated with corn syrup, that's obviously not good.

How Does A Consumer Know Which Brands To Trust?

There are a lot of honey brands that are very trustworthy. And there are a lot of honey brands on the shelves that may not be good options.

For some people, adulteration can be dangerous. It’s not an issue if you're eating actual honey. However, if it’s mostly corn syrup or some other junk, then that could affect blood sugar levels. Honey is a sugar.

True raw honey is suitable for Type 2 diabetics to consume. Adulterated honey is not. Raw honey has a relatively low glycemic index [in between a banana and table sugar]. This contrasts with a Snickers bar, which is junk sugar that spikes your blood sugar very high.

Consuming raw honey initially increases your blood sugar, followed by a slow, steady, sustained release over numerous hours. You don't have the spike and the crash that occurs when you consume processed honey or junk food.

Is Honey Animal-Based Or Vegan?

That is a philosophical question. I tend to err on the side of honey being more plant-based. However, without the bees, it would just be nectar.

The avocado tree produces avocado nectar. The orange blossom tree produces orange blossom nectar. So it's a plant product, right?

It's nectar processed by the bees. The bees add some enzymes and then they fan their wings to remove moisture until it gets to a certain moisture content and they tap it and let it cure. And that makes it honey. It’s produced by the plants but it would not be possible without the bees.

How Do Consumers Typically Choose Their Honey?

Most consumers evaluate a honey based on the cheapest price, the biggest bottle or the most familiar major brand. Then they grab a honey off the shelf. But once you understand the "honey set", you realize that most of it is not raw. So filter that out, if you want.

Interestingly, once you break out of the model of mass-produced honey, then your whole world opens up. You’ve got all these different varietals. And then the situation becomes: Which do you choose – and why?

Now just look at the raw honeys. These have superfood health benefits [as discussed earlier]. Within the raw honeys, what do you want? Do you want the big jar of super-raw, crystallized honey, like YS Organics? Do you want a California varietals honey, something really unique, something in an attractive-looking jar with a pretty label?

With Bloom Honey, we strive to be competitively priced. We're not the highest priced honey. We're not the cheapest honey.

How Resource-Intensive Is The Honey-Making Process?

Did you know that to make the honey that fits in one jar of Bloom Honey (or any other 16-ounce jar of honey), a beekeeper needs to collect nectar from over 2 million flower blossoms?! And the bees fly an aggregate of over 55,000 miles. It’s mind-blowing to think of all the bee labor that goes into a $9.69 16-ounce jar of Bloom Honey that, if you’re a honey aficionado, you'll eat in less than a week! It's not like the work that goes into making ketchup, where you're just crushing tomatoes in a large automated factory. I really view it as a gift of nature.

Another topic to consider: For most families, the honey jar will sit in the pantry for 3-4 months and serve a wide variety of uses during that time. You have to consider: do you really want to buy the one that's $5.49 and probably is junk – or buy the one that's $9.69 and is raw and pristine?

What’s The Difference Between Honey Varietals And Honey Flavors?

All of the honeys look and taste different. I get asked all the time: How do you flavor the honey?

The first hurdle on which I have to educate folks is that they're not flavors. They’re varietals. I don't flavor them. The bees collect nectar from different flowers, which produce distinctive varietal honeys. Each has slightly different properties.

But there’s a caveat: Bloom Honey does have two products that you could technically call flavors – although they are actually infused. I infuse our clover honey with the highest-quality organic Ceylon cinnamon in the world. And I infuse the orange blossom honey with organic turmeric.

How Does A Consumer Decide Which Varietal To Try?

What are you interested in? What do you want to try? For a mom buying for her three-year-old son and six-year-old daughter and who just needs a go-to honey for the kids and a table, I would recommend the white clover honey or the orange blossom honey. White clover is our most versatile honey. It goes well with anything.

What Are The Characteristics Of Each Varietal?

Orange blossom honey has a very sweet citrus flavor. Kids love it. It’s super sweet and tastes like oranges.

Sage and buckwheat honey works well with people who have pollen allergies. These are from wild flowers.

Some varietals, like avocado honey, are an acquired taste. Not everybody will love it. It doesn't taste like avocado. It's very dark and tastes almost like molasses.

Which Rosh Hashanah Foods Go With Which Varietals?

Different types of dishes and side dishes use different varietal to highlight the flavors of the foods.

Our Clover honey is the most versatile. It goes well with anything. It could go well with brisket. Buckwheat honey has a really rich flavor. It’s a little darker but very palatable.
Chicken: Try the orange blossom honey with the citrus. It goes well with a chicken glaze.
Challah: If you want citrus flavor, use the orange honey. Clover, sage and the organic Highland also go great. Sage honey would go.

What Are Other Uses Of Honey?

Put it in your smoothie. Mix it with oatmeal and blueberries. Add it to unflavored Greek yogurt along with some almonds or granola. For kids, drizzle some honey over a piece of toast topped with peanut butter and a sliced banana. It also goes fabulously with tea: sage honey goes with green tea or herbal tea. The turmeric-infused orange honey also goes very well.

Sometimes a dish calls for a more assertive varietal: Avocado honey goes well with desserts that contain ice cream, because of its syrupy consistency and unique, bold flavor.

Where Can Bloom Honey Be Purchased?

Bloom Honey can be purchased at Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Gelsons, Erewhon and Lassens Natural Foods. All of the specialty honeys may also be purchased on the Bloom Honey website.

A Taste Of Honey

With the samples that Bloom Honey provided, my kids and I decided to try the following six varietals for ourselves:

Cinnamon-infused Clover
Avocado
Buckwheat
Sage
Organic Highland
White Clover

bloom honey carries an entire line of varietals

We arranged the honeys from most opaque (cinnamon-infused clover) to least opaque (white clover). Then we sliced an apple into six parts and dipped a piece into each varietal.

With its complex flavors and sensation of spiciness, the Ceylon cinnamon-infused clover honey was the most strikingly unique. My boys went crazy over the combination of apples and cinnamon. This may be their Rosh Hashanah honey of choice.

My favorite was the dark, amber-colored avocado honey, with a deep, rich flavor and a molasses-like aroma. This was easily the most assertive varietal: Even when paired with a very sweet Fuji apple, the honey took center stage. The slightly lighter buckwheat honey tasted less deep with a hint of molasses. The sage honey was the least bitter of the three dark honeys.

On the other end of the spectrum, the organic Highland was light and airy, with a hint of fruity flavors. The white clover was pleasantly mild, neither assertive like the avocado nor overly fruity, like the Highland.

What was remarkable about this simple taste test was the wide variety of flavors, aromas, colors and textures in something as familiar as honey.

Apple-and-honey taste test with 6 varietals of bloom honey

Picking The Right Raw Honey Is Like Choosing A Fine Wine

Not many consumers are aware of the richness and subtlety of flavors and profiles that the varietals confer on your palette. It’s like with a fine wine.

My goal with this piece is to elevate the conversation around honey. With Rosh Hashanah occurring this week, honey is on everybody’s minds right now. But the opportunity is not just about buying cheap honey merely to satisfy the Rosh Hashanah custom. It’s about choosing a honey like you would choose a fine wine for the Passover Seders. On Rosh Hashanah, the honey should be about enhancing the experience.

So pick out a good honey instead of just treating it as an afterthought. Winnie the Pooh would be proud of you!

Shana Tova U’metuka!

This product was gifted by the brand. I was not compensated for this post. All opinions are my own.

Articles

The Benefits of Raw Honey: An Interview with David Jefferson, Founder of Bloom Honey