# what is RAW



## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

Your honey is raw then. You could strain it and it would still be raw.


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

afss said:


> ok, so i searched raw and the site, for what ever reason, said no threads found.
> 
> snip


afss,

To do three character searches such as "raw" you need to use the Google search window here: http://www.beesource.com/

Here are results for "raw honey":

http://www.beesource.com/search-res...y&sa=Search&siteurl=www.beesource.com%2F#1512

I had a question about raw honey last week: http://www.beesource.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247419


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## AmericasBeekeeper (Jan 24, 2010)

Even strained, it is easier and you get the best honey from the bottom. Florida was the first state to define honey and several are following. For the paranoid, it was initiated to prevent the sale of relabeled Chinese sugar products as honey within Florida and companies that take junk honey and refine it with heat and fine filtration, eliminationg all the pollen and flavinoids that make honey different from sugar syrup (and disguise the country of origin).


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## Michael Palmer (Dec 29, 2006)

Comb honey


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

Very fine wax floats to the top of the buckets. Just skim it off with a ladle. Having a spout in the bottom of the bucket helps also.


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## beemandan (Dec 5, 2005)

AmericasBeekeeper said:


> For the paranoid


It hardly seems like it's limited to the paranoid. From your description, to me it sounds like the intent of the law is pretty good....


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## LSPender (Nov 16, 2004)

The correct definition, as quoted from " The Honey Revolution" By Ron Fessenden, MD

page 148.

Raw Honey is honey that has not been heated or combined with diatomaceous earth and filtered through a micro-pore filter. Raw honey is pure honey. Nothing has been added or removed.

Note the heat thresshold is 140 degrees, after that the enzymes that offer health benefits are eleminated


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## BeeCurious (Aug 7, 2007)

> 140 degrees


Hold on to your hat!

I got hate mail when I mentioned 118 degrees...


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## Mike Snodgrass (Mar 11, 2010)

Little confused here....if alls you do is run it thru a paper or cloth filter before bottleing, does that make it no longer RAW honey?


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## LSPender (Nov 16, 2004)

The term raw main focus is on the handling tempature, max 140 degrees.
Most beeks handle the raw honey at much lower temps. ie 90 to 120 degrees which keeps all the enzymes active.

I do have to remind customers that the bee hives itself stores the honey naturally between 90 and 95 degrees.

If you would like to sample a honey that has been heated and filtered, just purchase some sue bee honey at the grocery store.

One of the main purposes for doing this process, flash heating to 195 degrees and filtering with diatomaceous earth is to remove the crystaliztion process to keep the honey clear and pourable on the self.


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## WI-beek (Jul 14, 2009)

I just call my honey "raw filtered honey". If that aint good enough for em, you know what.


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## Bee Bliss (Jun 9, 2010)

Wow, I knew DE was used to clean beeswax but I sure didn't know it was put in honey! Yuck!

The book "The Honey Revolution" is very good although I have not finished it. On Page 150 another comment is "Heating honey may kill some of the heat-labile enzymes contained in honey."

Yes, yes, we know that enzymes are not living. Let's not go thru that again.  I would like to note that many times military supplies, etc. are noted to be "live" and we all know that it does not mean "alive". Just like "kill" does not necessarily mean ending life!

In the past I have bought Wisconsin honey that was raw and "gently heated" to preserve the quality of the honey which was fine for my use.


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## waynesgarden (Jan 3, 2009)

LSPender said:


> The correct definition, as quoted from " The Honey Revolution" By Ron Fessenden, MD
> 
> page 148.


Curious. What, exactly makes that the "correct definition?" Is he citing a legal code? Or is it the author's opinion?

Wayne


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## LSPender (Nov 16, 2004)

The correct definition is The accepted industry standard, all industries have them.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

Waynesgarden makes a very good point. I happen to think that his definition is, in fact, a good one but not sure that there is truly any industry standard and that it would be extremely difficult to enforce. I have always suspected that, because raw would be a type of honey that consumers would perceive as being more healthful that many in the industry play a little "fast and loose" with usage of this term.


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## LSPender (Nov 16, 2004)

Wikepidia:
Raw honey is honey as it exists in the beehive or as obtained by extraction, settling or straining without adding heat (although some honey that has been "minimally processed" is often labeled as raw honey).[38] Raw honey contains some pollen and may contain small particles of wax. Local raw honey is sought after by allergy sufferers as the pollen impurities are thought to lessen the sensitivity to hay fever (see Medical Applications below

yes its the industry standard, when you do a search on raw honey and find the same definition in 5 or more places, its standard.

I suggest everyone take a look at wikepidea on different subject, if the info on their is incorrect post a response to have correct info in the market place.

The web site wilepidia is used by our custmers as info source for many things.


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

But, apparently there is a difference or there are variations of what the industry standard is, because wiki says "w/out adding heat" and you say "max 140 degrees" and "90 to 120". So, which is it? "w/out adding heat" or "90 to 120" but less than a "max 140 degrees"?


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## max2 (Dec 24, 2009)

Here is but one definition from Australia:

Nothing artificial is added. The use of pesticides and antibiotics is illegal in Western Australian bee keeping. We then keep all the good things the bees have collected by gently taking the honey from the combs; we do not heat our honey, we filter by gravity and we don’t strain the good bits out. We tap into glass jars. So you get honey as nature intended. Sometimes thick and sometimes runny. Always with all the goodness of live enzymes, trace minerals and low GI. And all the taste.


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## jim lyon (Feb 19, 2006)

While there is overwhelming agreement in the industry that raw honey should be unheated and unfiltered there is no actual definitive code that defines and mandates the handling requirements for honey to be labeled raw. Our own national honey board site concedes there is "no official definition of raw honey" I think it may be an oversite that a uniform code has never been established. Unfortunately as things stand right now there is nothing preventing a large packer from labeling millions of pounds of commercially processed honey as raw if it meets their own definition. The onus is really on the small packer to define what they are selling clearly on their label or, in the best case, to have a more personal relationship with their customers as Larry describes.


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## deknow (Jul 17, 2006)

beekeepers generally define raw as "any honey heated to the temperature that I heat my honey to". 

there is absolutely no standard, and there is no consensus within the honey industry.

people who actually care about raw foods are generally looking for products that never get heated above either 104f or 115f.

if you want to be upfront and let the customer know what they are actually getting, it is best to put specifics on the label (ie, what temp you heat your honey to). 

if your goal is to sell stuff to people that want "raw food" but don't care if they are getting what they think they are getting, then "raw" is what you want to use, regardless of how you heat your honey.

deknow


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## John Smith (Jan 31, 2006)

Good Summation, deknow. We are dealing with semantics now, so go your hardest.

I ask my customers who want only RAW honey, "What is your take on fixing a lanky teenager who is said to be RAW BONED?" 

Any beekeeper who exports his honey directly to overseas markets declares his honey as RAW. In this context, it means honey that has not been refined, somewhat like the teenager. It means it is in the same from as it was when it left its original producer and can be legally sold on any market as RAW HONEY. Now the simple fact that it may have been boiled is by the way. The simple fact that most of the impurities have floated off, the same. The simple fact half of it may have been boiled and half of it not, is, yep you guessed it, it is by the way.

Ever get a raw deal?

Ever gotten sprung in the raw?

Beats cooking your goose anyway!

My honey is "Cool Processed." Ten percent of it may have been up to 90 Deg.C if it was next to the uncapping knife, but the other 90 percent didn't get up to body heat, if it was processed in winter.

So deknow has it right. If the customer wants raw honey, give him raw honey, not a raw deal, as he may be just a simple raw boned teenager. Anyway, when selling honey from a Farmer's Market (out in the blazing sun) I tell people in jest, how can my honey be raw when it is sitting here now cooking in the sun?

These folk who speak authoratively about 140 Deg. F............ do they have libraries full of research documents to back this up? Those who mention 165 Deg. F ........ where do they pick that figure from? Are all honey types likely to melt at the same degree? And what about the report that the oxydase actually rebuilds itself over time?

Did the one lonely expert back in 1912 who declared raw honey at 140 Deg F (or whatever number he picked) make a judgement call, or did he work from exhaustive testing? I have never seen any expert refer to actually scientifically derived data on how much damange, which properties were damaged the most, and were any of the properties completely lost, or only partially so.

Oxydase is one our enemies like to highlight, because it is the one supplied by the bee. It will be in all honey, yes, even if the bees were fed High Fructose Corn Syrup. The enormous body of information that remains asleep (and who would waken it?) pertains to all the compounds, minerals, nutrients and poisons that are supplied by the plant kingdom. Obviously these are far too complex, far too numerous and even elusive for anyone to want to discuss them. Might it be that some of them, maybe even that mythical one that cures cancer, may in fact be enhanced, augmented and potententised by the heating process?

The suggestion that honey is valueless as a medicine if heated above any specific temperature is a complete fallacy, and perhaps even an outright lie. If anyone wants to test this for himself, simply bring a sample of honey up to 209 Deg. F, allow to cool, then apply it to a burn, a leison, or ingest it for a tummy ache, or any of the myriad other maladies we use honey for on a a daily basis. 

I heard a long story recently about some emminent scientist/priest who has declared most authoratively, "There is absolutely nothing in honey." This was, (I deduced) supposed to put paid to all those old wives tales about its healing properties. However, I sprang to attention with glee, at this news, as why would I want to injest honey that had additives in it? Honey does not need to have anything in it! Honey is honey, and as such it is the finest product the biosphere can offer us, regardless of all the compounds now being manufactured under the guise of medicine. When honey has 'somethin in it' it had better have an ingredients label on it too.

Scientist/Priests can take the long jump. My honey is beautiful, it is raw, cool processed, not ultra filtered or any of those simple refinements that are done to honey to keep it from being too raw. So if you really want to get a raw deal, buy your honey from some faceless corporation.

If I were picking a number (randomised and off the cuff like everybody else does) for the maximum temperature to heat honey to with the purpose of protecting the oxydase, I would pick (rounded) 140 Deg.F. This is about the temperature required to melt the beeswax. In Arizona, we occasionally had hives get so hot the combs would melt, and indeed, mother nature let that honey go to waste............... well, nearly.

Ironically, though, myriad other life forms, animals, insects, etc., relished it when they found it, and I doubt if any one of them were poisoned by it.

If our enemies had their way we would have to put the skull and crossbones on our honey. Why is this? It is simply that our product is too fierce a competitor for their snake oil and high tech medicines. They would lose a lot of income if our honey becomes once again the medicine of choice.

Cooked honey is better than no honey!

Cheers,

JohnS


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## John Smith (Jan 31, 2006)

............... and something not to my attention then...............

The current interest in what are known as Glyconutrients (various forms of sugars, especially long chain ones, aka polysaccharides) is highlighting how important sugars are to our health, especially as they are like passwords are to computers when our cells first meet and set up a communication line. When certain minor sugars are absent, the cells don't recognize the goodies from the baddies, hence we develop cancer etc.

Ironically, sugars are VERY heat stable. So boiled honey is still a cheaper source of polysaccharides than expensive pills from a factory. The problem with marketing honey based on the polysaccharides is that no one honey contains them all (the essential ones) but a variety of floral types would go a long way toward covering the range.

Michael Palmer, you got it right. Raw honey is still in the comb.


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## Honey Hive Farms (Nov 1, 2012)

Honey Hive Farms,

Raw honey is just what it sounds like. Our honey is taken from the hive, uncapped, extracted and then drains into a larger micron filter to get the bee parts and wax out. 

NOTE:
No heat or to high of heat as it kill some of the good stuff within the honey
Not boxing it with other honey, (mixing it with say honey from other sources would be a bonus)
If our honey was any more raw it would have bee parts in it

Tim Moore


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## SWM (Nov 17, 2009)

Years ago, Richard Taylor once wrote that describing honey as Raw was like describing bananas as Boneless...it just doesn't fit. I tend to agree with him and avoid using the term.


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## Gino45 (Apr 6, 2012)

Well, the alternative to 'raw' is the old term 'pure', which one still sees out there in the market.
I've always thought that it was acceptable to use a coarse kitchen strainer on honey and still consider it as raw as pollen and some fine wax still remains in it. Raw unheated honey, (mine anyways) will not pass through a very fine filter such as the 'micron' filters sold by Mann Lake. Again, I don't really disagree with Palmer's concept or the idea that heating to 95 degrees F is acceptable as that matches the temperature in the hive. But heating to 140 and calling it raw, as Johnny Mc would say, "You can't be serious"!


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## Jim 134 (Dec 1, 2007)

I say Comb honey



BEE HAPPY Jim 134


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## sqkcrk (Dec 10, 2005)

SWM said:


> Years ago, Richard Taylor once wrote that describing honey as Raw was like describing bananas as Boneless...it just doesn't fit. I tend to agree with him and avoid using the term.


I like it.


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## KQ6AR (May 13, 2008)

I've read a couple definitions of raw honey, they both stated straining is OK but not filtered. One listed 110F as the max temp, the other said 115F.
We sell all our liquid honey as raw, it brings a higher price than the ones in a grocery store.


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## Bill91143 (Jun 7, 2013)

What I prefer, and what I do with my honey is, nothing added, no heat other than the natural sun heat on my barn, and no filtering, just straining to get the big stuff out. It's easy that way, and it is about as close to natural as I can get, without having chunks of wax and an occasional bee floating around in it.


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