Raw honey

Definition

In general usage, raw honey means honey taken from the comb, strained coarsely, and bottled without being heated beyond about the temperature of the hive. It retains its pollen, its enzymes and its aroma volatiles, and it will crystallise on its own schedule. Commercially processed honey is typically warmed to around 60-70 °C to delay crystallisation and pressure-filtered to remove the particles that crystals would otherwise form on — which produces a clear, stable, long-liquid product with less aroma and no pollen.

Where the word gets used loosely

There is no agreed legal definition of 'raw' in most jurisdictions, including the EU and the United States. A producer may warm honey substantially and still call it raw, because no threshold exists to breach. It is a meaningful description when it comes from a beekeeper who will tell you what they actually did, and close to meaningless on a supermarket jar. Pollen content is the most useful objective proxy: honey that has been ultrafiltered has had it removed.

Guide records that discuss this

• Raw, filtered and processed honeyWhat actually happens between the hive and the jar, which of it changes the honey, and why the word 'raw' carries less information than it appears to.
• What is the healthiest honey?The honest answer is that no honey is a health food, the differences between types are small, and the question people are actually asking usually has a better answer than the one they are looking for.

Question records that discuss this

• Is raw honey better than ordinary honey?Better for flavour, yes — raw honey keeps aroma compounds, enzymes and pollen that heating and fine filtration remove. Better for health, no: there is no good evidence that any of that produces a benefit. And 'raw' has no legal definition in most markets, so the word on a supermarket jar guarantees nothing.