Nature Nate’s Honey: Heated, not raw, with high levels of the toxic compound HMF (+ possible syrup additives)
Written by Ajay Chohan, Founder @ Small Batch Goodness
Why Nature Nate’s branding is misleading: High levels of the toxic compound HMF found in samples indicate Nature Nate’s honey has been heated up to 120 degrees. Nature Nate’s honey is thus no longer “100% pure & raw”
Potentially harmful ingredients & processes in Nature Nate’s Honey Production: Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), High Heat
Nature Nate’s “Raw” & “Unfiltered” Honey
Nature Nate’s markets its honey as “100% pure, raw & unfiltered honey.” The assumption here is Nature Nate’s suppliers get the honey from the honeycombs of free buzzing bees, perhaps strain the honey a little to remove any unwanted particles, and then Nature Nate’s directly bottles it into the containers we purchase. Nowhere does 100% pure, raw and unfiltered lead us to think the honey might be heated to make it easier to process, flow or any other reasons. Sadly, heating is precisely what testing of Nature Nate’s honey samples has shown.
Why should you care if your honey is heated?
Before we get into the class action lawsuit that showed heating and high levels of the toxic compound HMF in Nature Nate’s, let’s quickly review why we want our honey to be completely raw. The health benefits of pure, raw honey are incredible. Honey has been prized for thousands of years for its nutritional profile.
As this post from Pure Healing Foods states, “honey contains all of the B-complex, A, C, D, E, and K, minerals and trace elements: magnesium, sulfur, phosphorus, iron, calcium, chlorine, potassium, iodine, sodium, copper, and manganese. The live enzyme content of honey is one of the highest of all foods. Honey also contains hormones, and antimicrobial and antibacterial factors.” Raw honey is also full of cancer fighting antioxidants.
Unfortunately, most of these benefits are eliminated when you heat honey. Heating destroys most of the live enzymes, free amino acids and phytonutrients that raw honey has. Heated honey thus is no longer raw with all its health benefits and is potentially toxic! The HMF values found in Nature Nate’s sampling show that their honey is more than just “slightly warmed” as well.
Please Note: Here is my article on the best completely raw + unfiltered honey from small producers with integrity.
Class action lawsuit against Nature Nate’s Honey around its heating practices, the toxic compound Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) and even adulteration:
In March 2020 Marilyn Pierce brought a class action lawsuit against Nature Nate’s after finding high levels of the toxic compound HMF in multiple testing samples. While toxic in itself at high levels, these HMF levels also implied the honey was heated. The lawsuit asserts that Nature Nate’s honey is heated to as much as 120 degrees and is thus no longer raw (1). For context, heating honey to even above 105 degrees denatures the beneficial enzymes and other healthful qualities we touched upon above.
Codex Alimentarius, a global reference standard for resolving consumer protection disputes, has determined the maximum Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) safe limit in raw honey to be 40 mg/kg (1). Nature Nate’s on the other hand tested HMF values of 69 mg/kg, 80 mg/kg, 103 mg/kg and 232 mg/kg in the samples tested (1)! These are very high values! HMF at these levels has been shown to be deadly during testing on bees and is thus likely toxic to humans as well.
At high levels, Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is toxic and can potentially cause cancer:
So, what’s the big deal about your honey having elevated HMF levels? Well, for additional context, earlier studies in the 1970s & 80s have show that when sugar syrup with HMF values of 150 mg/kg was fed to bees, it caused a mortality rate of 50% within 16 days (2, 3, 4)! It was thus consequently recommended that the HMF levels in sugar syrup that was being fed to bees (another harmful practice) should not exceed 20 mg/kg (2, 4). The end product honey that we consume having HMF levels north of 200 mg/kg, as the testing of Nature Nate’s honey showed, is certainly troubling.
What might have caused this high mortality rate to bees fed with high HMF containing syrups? Well, as The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry here states, “…various animal experiments showed that HMF has a number of structural alerts that pose possible genotoxic and carcinogenic risks. Some studies have revealed that HMF may induce genotoxic and mutagenic effects in bacterial and human cells and promote colon and liver cancer in rats and mice” (2). Yikes. Nature Nate’s claims they only “slightly warm” the honey to make it easier to flow and process. Well, the HMF values found tell a different story.
Possible adulteration of honey with added syrups and Nature Nate’s questionable quality control of suppliers:
Another concern raised in the case was possible adulteration of honey with added syrups. Casetext, while summarizing the Marilyn Pierce vs. the Nature Nate’s case here states, “the second factual basis is that the tested samples showed that syrups had been added to the honey (1).” The fact that this addition of syrups is considered one of the “factual basis” of this class action lawsuit implies there is likely acknowledgement by both parties of these added syrups existing in Nature Nate’s honey. Pierce was unable to prove though whether it was Nature Nate’s itself or one of its suppliers that have adulterated the honey with syrup. In either case, consumers expect “100% pure and raw honey” to not contain any added syrups!
So, how can syrup end up in honey in the first place?
Let’s do a little investigation here. Let’s first group Nature Nate’s and its suppliers together and call them “the relevant entities.” The syrup found in the honey either ended up there because one of the relevant entities added it OR because the relevant entities fed the honey bees themselves heated sugar syrups!
In commercial beekeeping it is sadly common practice to feed the bees themselves various heated sugar syrups. Not only is this completely unnatural (you know, bees should be buzzing around collecting nectar from flowers), these heated syrups fed to bees can contain HMF as well, toxic to bees and other living beings as we covered above. The HMF levels found in Nature Nate’s honey could thus be indicative of either the honey being heated or the honey bees themselves being fed heated sugar syrups as part of their diet (or a combination of both)! Either way, neither of these practices is healthy for the bees, humans or the environment. And the HMF levels found in Nature Nate’s honey are not acceptable either.
The court “dismissed the case with prejudice”, but important questions remain.
It is also interesting the legal reasoning Nature Nate’s used to try to get the case dismissed. As written on the Casetext page on this civil action lawsuit, a key component of Nature Nate’s defense was that “Pierce and Dave never sent the statutory 60-day pre-suit notice for deceptive trade practice claims.” So it was a procedural argument about the proper legal course not being followed. Well, that doesn’t say anything about the actual content of Marilyn Pierce’s arguments, which is what we as consumers care most about.
If truly raw honey is what you are looking for, Nature Nate’s is not the one.
As discussed, not only does heating produce the toxic compound Hydroxymethylfurfural, it also destroys most of the health benefits found in actual raw honey! Honeybees do a pretty good job of producing this wondrous nectar for us with so many health benefits that the less we mess with it, the better. We don’t need to be heating, filtering and processing this honey, or equally bad feeding the honeybees heated sugar syrups as part of their diet!
To Nature Nate’s credit, their honey is not completely useless like Walgreens’ Nice! Honey or Safeway’s Signature Select clover honey and many other brands sold at major retailers. A lot of these brands go through ultra-filtration, a process that destroys all pollen and other nutrients in honey, turning the honey into an unhealthy sweetener. Nature Nate’s honey is not ultra-filtered like the Walgreens or Signature Select brands. However, Nature Nate’s does need to eliminate the heating process and make the vetting standards for its suppliers tighter, to truly be called 100% pure, raw and unfiltered honey.
Finding raw honey with all its healthful properties intact.
I have extensively researched small beekeepers producing authentic raw and unfiltered honey. Honey which comes from bees buzzing around healthy biodiverse ecosystems. You can read that article here.
Sources - Research for Yourself!
1. https://casetext.com/case/pierce-v-n-dall-honey-co#N196662
2. http://depa.fquim.unam.mx/amyd/archivero/HMF_26874.pdf
3. Jachimowicz, T.; El Sheribiny, G. Problematic der verwenung von invertzucker fur die bienenfutterung. Apidology 1975, 6, 121−143
4. Kammerer, F. X. Aktueller stand der erkenntnisse ü ber die fütterung von bienen mit zucker. Imkerfreund 1989, 1, 12−14