What is Raw Honey?

When you walk through a supermarket or browse an online honey store, you’ll find hundreds of bottles of honey—and some of them will say ‘raw.’ But what is raw honey? For a lot of people, that label doesn’t make sense; who would cook honey? It comes right out of a hive, right?

Well, yes, it does. The honey that bees make is totally edible, and heating it is an extra process. So why do commercial honey brands heat their honey? It’s for filtering and for consistency. When honey is heated above hive temperature, the proteins and crystallization nuclei—the things that make it crystallize—break down. Crystallization is a totally normal process, but some people are turned away from it, and supermarkets want to avoid losing any customers. They filter and heat their honeys, removing pollen and pieces of honeycomb, and keeping the honey clear and runny.

What’s Different

So is processed honey good, then? Well, it’s not so easy to answer that. The heating process removes healthy antioxidants, digestive enzymes, and a lot of the other nutritional benefits of raw honey. The pollen and honeycomb can have their own benefits, as well as a more natural taste. And the crystallization is a sign of purity, and not detrimental at all; placing a crystallized honey jar in a bowl of warm water will melt those crystals easily.

Raw Honey is less consistent only in its viscosity and color. Bees make different types of honey depending on temperature, flowers, and the needs of the hive. It’s only filtered for aesthetic reasons, but it severely affects the nutritional benefits of the honey in the process. The flavor of raw honey is richer, and those factors—the temperature, local flowers, and hive needs—come through to your palate in a more intense way.

Why it Matters

Well, of course you want your honey to taste good. If you’re buying a jar of honey, created by bees—in a special place like the Himalayas for instance, here at Heavenly Organics —then you’re going to want to taste the complexity of the natural world. You want to experience the flowers, the altitude, and the clarity of the organic hive untouched by pesticides and herbicides.

Beyond that, your food is one of the few things in your life that you should have total control over. The things you put in your body should be beneficial for you; why use an empty sweetener like white sugar or processed honey when you can have the antioxidants, antibacterial properties, gut-boosting digestive enzymes, vitamins, minerals, and pollen that can improve immune response, increase energy, and make you feel better about what you eat? 

If your goal is to have a pretty-looking jar of honey for a shelf, then regular honey is for you. But if you want a real, delicious, nutritious sweetener—that still looks gorgeous, might we add—then raw honey is the product you want.