It seems like each day there’s a new chemical to fear that is lurking in the shadows going unnoticed. While that reality is actual, with a little bit of self-education you can protect yourself from the dangers of these chemicals.
Glyphosate is found in a lot of foods we eat, especially honey. Fortunately for us, some brands have taken a stand against glyphosate. So I’ve put together this list of 7 best glyphosate-free, raw & organic honey brands that have your health as priority #1.
What is glyphosate?
Glyphosate is a very popular pesticide and herbicide used in many countries including the United States. Its main function is to control the growth of unwanted broadleaf weeds and grasses. It is non-selective meaning it will kill just about any plant that it comes in contact with.
This chemical absolutely should not be in our food or water. Glyphosate has been the center focus of the Roundup lawsuits for its alleged role in causing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in those who come into contact with it on a regular basis.
What is glyphosate-free honey?
Glyphosate-free honey is honey that is produced from bees that have not come into contact with plants exposed to glyphosate. These glyphosate-free honey brands usually have a glyphosate-free certification. Bees responsible for producing honey can also pollinate crops, trees, and plants that may contain glyphosate.
Places with lower instances of the use of glyphosate like New Zealand tend to be common places where glyphosate-free honey comes from.
Despite many health organizations including the WHO claiming that glyphosate does not pose a carcinogenic threat to humans, a lot of people aren’t buying that. Thanks to the help of The Detox Project, verifying glyphosate-free products has become a very common practice.
The Detox Project is an organization that tests products for being glyphosate residue free. Earning a product status of “Certified Glyphosate Residue Free” will earn you their stamp of approval on your website and product packaging.
While conducting this review, I learned that some brands (like Killer Bees Honey) perform their own glyphosate evaluation whether in-house or via third-party testing. If you see a brand without this seal, it doesn’t necessarily mean they aren’t glyphosate-free, but if you want to be 100% certain, you should go the extra step and check out their website for more information. Killer Bees Honey for example lists all of their quality testing and glyphosate testing results on their website for the world to see.
Best Glyphosate-Free Honey Brands
Many honey retailers have taken a stand against glyphosate and have pledged to make their products glyphosate-free. Let’s take a look at the best ones on the list.
Heavenly Organics Raw Honey
Heavenly Organics honey is one of the few honey brands I could find that promises 100% of their products are certified glyphosate residue free, verified through The Detox Project. Their honey comes from naturally-occurring wild beehives in parts of India and the Himalayas. They have three variations: Acacia honey, Neem Honey, and White Honey.
The beehives used for sourcing their honey are located in remote areas far away from the use of any chemicals like glyphosate. An added bonus of Heavenly Organics honey is that their honey is so far away from any trace of urban pollutants that its likely to be one of the cleanest honeys on the market.
Additionally, Heavenly Organics guarantees their honey has never come into contact with GMOs, pollutants, adulterants, pesticides, herbicides, or antibiotics. Heavenly Organics not only cares about providing a quality product to its customers, but they value sustainability, ethical employment, and the protection of the wild bee population.
Comvita Manuka Honey
Comvita Manuka Honey is one of several honeys on this list with an origin in New Zealand. Manuka honey comes from the nectar of the Manuka flower which is common in this area. Comvita has been supplying manuka honey for consumer and medical purposes since 1974.
They have a wide array of products including honey sources exclusively from the manuka flower, multi-floral honeys from multiple flowers, bee propolis, and more.
Comvita’s mission is to provide high-quality manuka honey for consumers and medicinal uses. Sustainable and regenerative practices are part of their core values. Additionally, Comvita gives back to the community through the Trees for Bees program as well as several other sustainability initiatives.
New Zealand Honey Co. – Manuka Raw Honey
New Zealand Honey Co definitely stands out amongst the competition for the best glyphosate-free honeys. With tons of different variations of their manuka honey, educational articles, recipes, and skin care guides, New Zealand Honey Co makes using manuka honey seem more like a lifestyle.
Manuka honey has tons of different uses, and not just for cooking with or eating. But it’s a highly effective wound healing aid, has antibacterial properties, and can be used to treat acne and burns just to name a few. New Zealand Honey Co makes it easy to integrate manuka honey into your routine and understand its various applications.
NZHC seriously cares about quality. They have this cool feature on each jar that has a scannable QR code that will show you the UMF certificate and show you exactly where your batch came from.
They also have a strong commitment to sustainability, sourcing 95% of their packaging from recycled sources, with goals to improve that even more in the future.
New Zealand Honey Co. on Amazon
Killer Bees Honey
Killer Bees Honey is one of the few verified-toxin-free brands of honey I could find that comes from bees in the United States. Their bees are located in North Carolina isolated in the mountains and surrounded by over half a million farm-free acres of the Pisgah National Forest. Meaning, there is no glyphosate, toxins, pollutants, or adulterants remotely close to them.
Killer Bees Honey promises a product that is unfiltered, unprocessed, unadulterated, raw, non-GMO, organic, sustainable, gluten-free, and cholesterol-free. They’ve taken quality an extra step and abide strictly by the NCSBA’s Certified Honey Producer Program’s strict standards for a quality product.
I actually reached out to Killer Bees honey personally because I couldn’t find the Detox Project’s stamp of approval saying they are a certified glyphosate residue-free honey. However, someone from the company shortly responded to me with this message:
Hi Joseph,
We have every batch of honey tested by multiple labs in both the US and EU for any and all agro-toxins, including a separate test for glyphosate. Each year our honey comes back free of said toxins including glyphosate. Fact is, we have been told by two labs that we have the purest honey they have ever tested coming out of America. We are the only beekeepers in the Americas that have their honey tested and then publish the results.
All test results are listed and can be downloaded via a pdf on our honey page and can be found here: https://www.killerbeeshoney.com/pages/our-honey
Thanks for asking, btw. We wish more people asked about all toxin levels found in honey. It would be better for not only their health but the health of all pollinators.
Best
I really appreciate their transparency on this, and they do in fact post all of their testing results for the world to see on their website. This is almost unheard of. And for that, I give them extra points.
Manukora Raw Manuka Honey
Manukora Raw Manuka Honey is another premium New Zealand raw manuka honey. Their honey is unique in that they distinguish their manuka honey with different levels of MGO (methylglyoxal), the active compound responsible for manuka honey’s antibacterial effects. Unlike most manuka honey brands that use the UMF rating. UMF is Unique Manuka Factor that indicates the same qualities, just in a different way.
These compounds aren’t found in any other kinds of honey on the planet. Manukora third-party tests each batch of their honey to get a highly accurate MGO value. Additionally, manuka honey contains prebiotics and antioxidants. The higher the MGO value, the more of these compounds you’re getting.
Manukora is an exclusively-honey company. At the time of writing this, they don’t have any other kinds of products. However, their manuka honey is one you’re likely to see on store shelves like Whole Foods or Fresh Thyme.
Kiva Raw Manuka Honey
Kiva Raw Manuka Honey comes from the Kiva Health Food brand. They are a health and wellness company specializing in providing its customers with innovative foods from around the world which taste good and improve health.
Kiva has countless positive reviews online, and their honey tastes amazing. It’s the brand of manuka honey that I’ve been buying for a while now.
Because of their geographical location and source, Kiva is a close competitor to the other manuka honey brands on here. The quality and source are nearly identical to the competition since they come from the same area in New Zealand.
Wedderspoon Raw Premium Manuka Honey
Wedderspoon Manuka Honey is another company that takes consuming manuka honey to the next level. They’ve got a vast library of products including manuka honey, manuka beauty (skin), propolis sprays, throat drops, and manuka pops. Not to mention, they have loads of unique and healthy recipes to help spark inspiration when thinking of how to get your daily dose of manuka honey in.
Wedderspoon is without a doubt the most popular manuka honey on this list. It can be found on Amazon with over 17,000 reviews and a high satisfaction rating.
This manuka honey also comes from New Zealand, so rest assured it is a glyphosate-free, raw, organic, and pure honey.
Wedderspoon also differentiates itself from the competition with its “KFactor methodology”. This methodology involves 5 factors they use to ensure quality including traceability, raw & unpasteurized, free of antibiotics, glyphosate, and pesticides, produced and packaged on-site in New Zealand, and is Non-GMO verified.
The unfortunate part about the KFactor is that it’s pretty much impossible to know the true quality of the manuka honey. They don’t use the UMF or MGO scales, which is a tad confusing in my opinion.
Summary
If you’re trying to avoid glyphosate, be cautious about what honey you buy. It’s still unclear whether or not other “organic” brands of honey are glyphosate residue-free or not. Since a lot of them don’t have the official stamp of approval from The Detox Project.
Personally, I would not buy any honey (organic or not) that doesn’t have explicit testing available to the public or the Detox Project’s glyphosate residue-free stamp of approval on their bottle. The flowers that these honey bees pollinate and collect nectar from could easily be exposed to glyphosate, not to mention all the other various chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides that infect our country.
Consider this as well, I looked thoroughly through the search results for “glyphosate-free honey” and very few brands came up with anything even suggesting the presence of glyphosate in honey. This list is exhaustive and includes all the glyphosate-residue-free honeys I could find.
There is no shortage of options, and manuka is probably the highest quality honey money can buy. If you’re not so concerned with getting the unique medicinal benefits of manuka honey, I’d go with Heavenly Organics honey or Killer Bees honey.
If you’re looking for a higher quality product like manuka, Manukora is the cheapest option at the time of writing this. I didn’t include tax or shipping in the prices, so that will vary. I priced all of these from Amazon Prime, which would include free shipping. So prices may vary if you’re shopping without Amazon Prime.
Honey is a great addition to a healthy diet, especially the animal-based diet which I’m currently having great results with. The animal-based diet is also a great diet for helping you avoid potential toxins, heavy metals, forever chemicals, microplastics, herbicides, and pesticides in your food.
Be sure to subscribe to my email list below to stay up to date on future insights concerning your health and well-being. Thanks for reading.
Glyphosate Frequently Asked Questions
Where has glyphosate been banned?
According to EHN glyphosate has been or will be banned in 10 countries, including Mexico, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, and at least 15 others.
What is manuka honey?
Manuka honey is a variant of honey that comes from Australia and New Zealand with unique chemical properties, real healing properties, flavor profiles, and textures. The honey is vastly different than the honey we are used to getting here.
The honey gets its unique properties from the manuka plant. When the bees pollinate and collect nectar from these plants, it produces manuka honey. It has been shown to aid in healing wounds, is antibacterial, and has unique compounds exclusive to manuka honey.
How to know which foods are glyphosate-free?
Most organic foods should be glyphosate free. When shopping for fruits and vegetables make sure to shop organic to avoid the possibility of consuming glyphosate. When shopping for packed foods like cereal, bread, wine, and other common foods containing glyphosate, look for organic alternatives.
Better yet, if the food has the “Glyphosate Residue-Free” stamp of approval from The Detox Project, that is your best bet.
How can you remove glyphosate from your body?
To remove glyphosate from your body, some suggest that you can consume foods high in binding agents such as humic or fulvic acid. Additionally, fiber and chlorella can potentially bind to this compound and help detox it from your system.
How do you remove glyphosate from drinking water?
Most commercial water filters will remove all traces of herbicides and pesticides including glyphosate.
Does reverse osmosis remove glyphosate?
Reverse osmosis will remove herbicides and pesticides such as glyphosate. Another effective method is carbon filtration.
Is glyphosate to blame for gluten intolerance, gluten sensitivity, and Celiac disease?
There is still no scientific evidence or research to support the claim that glyphosate is causing gluten intolerance, gluten sensitivity, or Celiac disease. However, this is a common theory. Anecdotally, lately, you’ll hear stories of people traveling to other countries where glyphosate isn’t used, and having significantly less bloating and inflammation when eating their gluten-containing products like pasta or bread.
What other foods contain glyphosate?
Glyphosate can be found in almost every kind of non-organic consumable product including bread, cereal, wine, oats, chickpeas and hummus, pasta, dog food, fruits, vegetables, and meats.