Here’s How to Find The Best Ethically Produced Honey!

Many of ‘us are working towards following a healthier and more sustainable path when it comes to following a diet plan. In this sustainable path of eating more humanely, you may reduce eating more meat, dairy, and eggs.

Looking for labels that read pasture-raised, MSC certified, and pasture-raised will eliminate all the harmful stuff you may not need and include the healthy stuff you may need.

Most conventional beekeepers utterly disregard the health of bees to maximize the honey production output. In such a case, the condition of bees in most such farms is cramped, unhealthy, and inhuman. This works when you choose more animal-based products, but what if you choose more sustainable honey? Here’s what you need to watch out for when you choose the best type of honey, read ethically-produced honey.

Organic Certification

When someone raises the honey bees organically, following the guidelines set by the country you live in,  it ensures quality and ethics. While USDA is less strict European regulations are far more strict. The beehives need to be organic, natural, and non-toxic materials. One should not clip the wings of the queen bee.

You should feed the bees with organic matter only. And the location of the beehives also holds great importance. They also need to be placed with 50% organic and wild vegetation, with no polluted areas, within a parameter of a 3-kilometer radius from the beehive. These rules and regulations differ from one place to another, but these are the general rules.

Locally Sourced

When you buy locally, it is easy to ask for information. For example, you get to know exactly how the honey is produced and inquire about the honey-keeping techniques. You can find out whether the bee-keeping rules align with your ethics. You can also visit the place where the honey is kept.

Local honey utilizes the neighboring bees and can use the local and seasonal nectar. When you buy local honey, you align with the location and the season. Food must be sustainable, locally produced, and fresh to keep you nourished and disease-free. The more food-miles your food covers, the less nutritious it is.

Also, you help the bees when you choose organic and local, in a way you promote healthy-bee-keeping practices and help nature flourish.

Non-sugar-Fed Honey

During these times, bees need to depend on the surplus stock they have been building through the various seasons. They feed on their pantry, and they consume their honey. Ideally, wintertime means no flowers and no pollen, so there should be no honey production.

Many honey producers tamper with this natural process to make the honey they produce more commercially viable. During winter, they harvest the surplus and feed the bees with (cheaper) sugar syrup. This goes against the natural process. To be sustainable beekeepers, you need to honor what nature originally intended. Ensure you get honey from bees that feed on flowers and not sugar syrup.

Procure Raw Honey

Always procure raw honey. At big industrial production facilities, they process the honey so that it does not become a crystallized syrup out of the huge 300 kg barrels. It means they do not heat the honey above 35 degrees Celsius or 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heating can also make the filtering easier and consume less time. Furthermore, heating honey above the specified temperature kills all the essential enzymes that are naturally present. The factors that drive these practices are efficiency and profit. Companies often put profit above ethics, and quality is never on their list.

The enzymes act as specialists to trigger off several processes in the body. They help you to function well. Raw honey also contains certain bee pollen, with several antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Conclusion

It also contains bee propolis, a glue-mimicking substance that binds the hive together. Propolis also boasts anti-inflammatory and anti-fungal properties. Raw honey is therefore medicinal. Heating it will, however, change the basic composition of the honey. Antioxidants slow down the aging and cell degeneration process.

Honey has many benefits for the human body. However, you need to consume it the right way. Besides that, you should also procure it the right way. Do your research to find out if the honey you have your hands on comes from ethically and organically raised bee farms. That way, you can boost your health by giving back to the planet.