Is Raw Honey Better Than Regular Honey?

Raw Honey vs. Regular Honey

Each year, hundreds of millions of pounds of honey are used throughout the world in recipes, as health supplements, and even as topical treatments. Much of what consumers are looking for today, though, isn’t regular honey you might get off the grocery store shelf. Instead, it’s raw honey, and many experts believe raw honey is a far better choice than any other option available today. 

What’s the Difference Between Raw Honey and Regular Honey?

All honey is that sweet syrupy liquid that comes from honeybees. They create it to use as a food source and maintain their hives. Raw honey comes directly from the hive itself. Small beekeeping operations pull the honey out of the honeycomb, filter it lightly to get rid of bits of debris like dead bees and beeswax, then bottle it. In the bottles, it looks cloudy and opaque because it’s completely unprocessed. 

Regular honey, though, is typically a clear, smooth, amber liquid. While regular honey comes from beehives, too, once it’s pulled out, it’s heavily filtered to remove any impurities. Then it’s pasteurized, or heated to a fairly high temperature, then bottled and shipped to consumers. Pasteurization is done for a number of reasons. Many believe it makes the honey look nicer. Some also say it increases the shelf-life of honey. Others believe it kills potentially harmful yeast cells. 

Is Raw Honey Better Than Regular Honey?

Which one is the right choice as you prepare to buy your next jar or bottle of honey? It depends a bit on what you’re looking for. The pasteurization process that occurs with regular honey actually kills most of the antioxidants and nutrients inside honey. Many studies have shown that those antioxidants and nutrients can do so many good things for your body including relieving pain and swelling and offering long-term health benefits. 

Pasteurization can also affect the flavor. Raw honey tends to vary in color and texture for one key reason – the flowers the bees pollinated change that color and texture, and the change can be absolutely delicious, no matter what uses you find for honey in your kitchen. 

Those shifts in the flowers the bees pollinated have one more excellent benefit – they’re great for allergy sufferers. Many depend on raw honey to help fight seasonal allergies and ensuring you get that variety of different flowers is key to making that happen.

The other key difference between raw honey and regular honey is that much of the honey you’ll get off the shelf in your local grocery store contains added sweeteners, like high fructose corn syrup. Raw honey, though, is just what you might pull from the hive, and that’s an added incentive for many who are trying to stay away from sugar today.  

At Sunny Honey, we believe raw honey can do so much for your table and your health. Learn more about our products today.