Have you ever seen a brand name product on the shelf labeled with something like "Sweetened with Honey" and wondered just how much honey (if any) is actually in the food?

In the December 2011 edition of the American Bee Journal Bill Kentor, President Great Foods Inc, talks about being in the honey business and selling honey to food producers and packagers.

He recalls having conversations with food ingredient buyers who indicated they used honey in their products to help sell their product. They report that sales of honey-sweetened foods exceed sales of foods sweetened with other sweeteners.

So how much honey are they using? Are they even using any honey?

The declining content of honey in processed foods was studied by a concerned beekeeper Jim Fisher. Jim Fisher's "Wall of Shame" identifies many popular foods that have little or no honey in it, and the "Hall of Fame" that does actually have quite a bit of honey in it.

A few things to note before jumping over to Jim's site:

The FDA defines "Natural Flavor" as the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional.

I suppose that honey, a derivative of plant material (nectar), can be labeled as "natural flavor" and not specifically called out on the label. Although I have to wonder why would anyone want to hide honey by labeling it as "natural flavor"??

If a product lists "natural flavor" on their label, we can't be certain that there is no amount of honey in it. However, we can determine how much honey is used in comparison to other sweeteners by how far down the list of ingredients the word "natural flavor" or even "honey" appears on the ingredients list. If it's listed below other sweeteners, that there is more other types of sweeteners than there is honey.

Bill Kentor suggests that it's insufficient to identify a problem without also suggesting a solution. What can be done to make food product labels more accurate with regards to honey ingredients?

We can voice our requests to the FDA, that they require at least 10% honey be used in any product that displays the word "honey" on the front of the label.

After all, the FDA currently has the same 10% minimum requirement for the use of Maple Syrup when the word "Maple syrup" is displayed on labels.