Is Store-Bought Honey Real Honey?

Buying honey is not always straightforward. First, there are at least 26 different types of honey, each with a unique flavor profile. And second, there's a concern that the honey you get at the store might not be real, pure, 100% honey. Sometimes honey gets diluted with other sweeteners, or even water, to increase the volume of the product while lowering production costs. Despite that, most of the honey you'll see on the store shelves will be real honey — with a few exceptions.

Real honey is one that only comes from bees, simple as that. It doesn't include any other ingredients. Under the umbrella of real honey, you'll encounter honey that's been processed in different ways, such as raw, filtered, or pasteurized (heated). Raw honey only goes through minimal processing, but that doesn't mean non-raw honey isn't authentic or pure. Filtering is a completely normal, standard process that results in a clear, easily spreadable honey, which is something a lot of consumers are looking for.

Fake honey, on the other hand, includes additional ingredients. The FDA defines honey as a single-ingredient product, so as soon as something else is added to the mix, the product is not allowed to be called just honey anymore — it has to be called a honey blend, for example, and list the additional ingredients on the label in descending order by weight. Make sure you're reading the labels closely when shopping for honey.

Ideally, the FDA's regulation of honey would mean that you can 100% trust all labels, but unfortunately, food fraud exists — and honey is one of the products with the highest rate of food fraud reports. What this means is that sometimes fake honey will get fraudulently mislabeled as honey. In the past, this has especially been the issue with honey imported to the United States, but some tests found nonauthentic British honey, too. This problem puts the consumer in a tricky situation: Can we trust the labels or not? The internet has a plethora of hacks on how to test your purchased honey to check whether it's real or diluted, but according to the National Honey Board, the only reliable test is the one done in a lab — and by the time you buy the honey, it's often already been done.

With that said, it's understandable why some people continue to have doubts about the authenticity of their purchased honey. Thankfully, there are some additional ways to ensure the honey you're buying hasn't been tampered with. Buying directly from beekeepers is the best way to be 100% sure of the honey's origin. Alternatively, you can look for the True Source Certified label on honey at the store, as it ensures the honey is tested, audited, and traceable.