Honey

Completeness scorecard

Deterministic gap audit — no score is composite, no cell is LLM-judged. Each chip is re-derivable by re-running tools/evidence/build-ingredient-scorecard.mjs. review: residuals and missing data are worked autonomously via data/evidence/ingredient-scorecard-review-flags.csv and wiki/completeness-gaps.md.

This ingredient stub was created during the FDA FY2018-FY2020 Total Diet Study element-results ingest so future source ingests have a stable destination for this food matrix. FDA reports this item as TDS Food 172, “Honey.” fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020

Why this commodity accumulates heavy metals

Honey is unusual among food commodities in that its metal content reflects the surrounding foraging environment of the bee colony rather than any intrinsic biological accumulation by a plant or animal. Honeybees collect nectar, pollen, and water from a foraging radius of approximately two to five kilometers from the hive; metals present in that environment from soil, atmospheric deposition, industrial emissions, vehicle exhaust, or agricultural pesticide residues can enter the hive via contaminated floral sources, pollen, and water. Lead in honey is primarily of atmospheric and soil deposition origin; proximity to high-traffic roads, industrial facilities, or mining operations elevates Pb concentrations in honeybees and hive products. Cadmium enters honey principally through contaminated soils and agricultural inputs, particularly phosphate fertilizers applied to crops within the foraging range. Because honey is a bee-processed concentrate of nectar, it acts as an environmental biomonitor: systematic differences in honey metal concentration across geographic regions reflect differences in environmental contamination rather than commodity-specific physiological accumulation. This biomonitoring character distinguishes honey from virtually all other food commodities on this wiki, and it means that geographic sourcing is the dominant driver of inter-sample variance. Published studies from Italy, Morocco, and other producing regions confirm that Pb in honey can exceed the EU maximum level of 0.10 mg/kg (100 ppb) in apiaries near industrial or high-traffic sites naccari2025-honey-toxic-metals-microelements.

Heavy metal contamination profile

Per-analyte snapshot derived from the machine-readable contamination_profile in the frontmatter above. data gap indicates the literature has been reviewed for this commodity-analyte combination and no usable occurrence data was found (a finding, not a placeholder). The Key sources column shows the top 2-3 contributing sources by year and sample size, with numbered wikilink aliases.

Synthesis basis and censoring treatment

The lead, cadmium, nickel, and chromium cells were resynthesized on 2026-06-11 on a honey-as-sold basis, the form in which honey enters the ingredient supply chain. The primary occurrence literature reports honey concentrations directly on this basis, so no reconstitution or moisture conversion is applied; sources reporting in mg/kg are read as ppb without rebasing.

Values below the analytical limit of detection or quantification are treated as left-censored, not as measured zeros. The earlier profile reported lead, cadmium, nickel, and chromium at typical and 95th-percentile values of zero. Those figures were an artifact of the FDA Total Diet Study, which measured honey as TDS Food 172 with only three composites, every one of which fell below the reporting limit (lead 4 µg/kg, cadmium 1 µg/kg, nickel 40 µg/kg, chromium 50 µg/kg). With every composite censored, the FDA distribution collapsed into a degenerate tail (p10 equal to p90 equal to p95 equal to zero), and the reported zeros were pooled as literal zeros. The resynthesis records the honest left-censored floor as the reporting limit for each analyte (written <4, <1, <40, and <50 in the typical-low position) and recomputes the central estimate and upper tail from the detected primary-literature distributions, in which all four metals are low but non-zero, with right tails driven by industrial-proximity, traffic, and mining-region production.

The lead distribution rests on European and North African market surveys. Abeslami et al. 2025 report 130 to 190 µg/kg across seven eastern-Moroccan honey types by ICP-MS (Abeslami et al. 2025); Jr et al. 2025 (Wise) report a 28-sample US mean of 178 µg/kg by XRF with the highest single states at 367 to 918 µg/kg (Jr et al. 2025); Naccari et al. 2025 report Calabrian variety means of 79 to 125 µg/kg, exceeding the EU 100 µg/kg maximum level in the majority of samples (Naccari et al. 2025); Aghamirlou et al. 2015 report an Iranian all-sample mean of 508 µg/kg (117 to 1628 µg/kg) (Aghamirlou et al. 2015). The central estimate is anchored to the lower European and US market means and the 95th-percentile to the Abeslami and Wise upper bulk near 190 µg/kg. Documented industrial and artisanal-mining honeys are stratified out of the headline distribution: Salama et al. 2019 report western-Libyan location means of 2,420 to 10,980 µg/kg (Salama et al. 2019) and Teferi et al. 2026 report 18,000 to 21,420 µg/kg from artisanal-gold-mining districts in western Ethiopia (Teferi et al. 2026); these are reported as a separate mining and industrial stratum, not folded into the global percentile.

The cadmium distribution rests on the Iranian all-sample mean of 27.6 µg/kg (1.4 to 125.9 µg/kg) (Aghamirlou et al. 2015), Polish variety means of 10 to 40 µg/kg with a sample maximum near 70 µg/kg (Tomczyk et al. 2020), Moroccan values of 1.7 to 18 µg/kg (Abeslami et al. 2025), and Calabrian variety means of 6 to 9 µg/kg (Naccari et al. 2025); the 95th-percentile anchor is set near the Aghamirlou maximum of 126 µg/kg. The industrial and mining stratum is again separated: Salama et al. 2019 report 125 to 150 µg/kg and Teferi et al. 2026 report 1,380 to 2,300 µg/kg, both above the headline distribution.

Nickel and chromium are characterized at low confidence because few honey datasets in the corpus report them and the FDA reporting limits are high (40 and 50 µg/kg). The nickel distribution rests on the Iranian all-sample mean of 652 µg/kg (65 to 1,094 µg/kg) (Aghamirlou et al. 2015), Polish variety means of 80 to 720 µg/kg with sample maxima to 1,660 µg/kg (Tomczyk et al. 2020), and Calabrian variety means of 71 to 108 µg/kg (Naccari et al. 2025); the 95th-percentile is anchored to the Aghamirlou maximum near 1,100 µg/kg. The Teferi mining honeys at 6,050 to 8,850 µg/kg are stratified out. Chromium is reported as total chromium at low confidence; no honey hexavalent-chromium measurement exists in the corpus, so no Cr-VI value is inferred. The total-chromium distribution rests on the Iranian all-sample mean of 900 µg/kg (172 to 1,220 µg/kg) (Aghamirlou et al. 2015), Calabrian variety means of 11 to 86 µg/kg (Naccari et al. 2025), and the single Saudi Al-Baha detection of 160 µg/kg (Aljedani 2017, chromium not detected in the other three regions); the central estimate is anchored near the Aljedani detection and the 95th-percentile to the Aghamirlou all-sample mean near 900 µg/kg, with a single-sample maximum of 1,220 µg/kg.

FDA TDS FY2018-FY2020 Evidence

The normalized row-level data for this TDS food is stored in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_element_results_samples.csv, with per-food/per-analyte summaries in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_summary_by_food_analyte.csv. Concentrations are retained as FDA reported them, with the reporting-limit column preserved separately; reported zeroes are not rewritten as <LOD unless a source explicitly says to do so. fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020

Routing

This node is linked from the ingredient index and the FDA TDS source routing table.

Contamination Profile State

The machine-readable contamination profile is in_progress for analytes measured in the TDS file and pending for profile metals not measured by this source. Ingredient-level values belong here once cross-source synthesis is reviewed; product-category values belong on the relevant product page.

FDA TDS FY2018-FY2020 Occurrence Values

FDA Total Diet Study FY2018-FY2020 reports prepared/composite-food concentration distributions for this ingredient as TDS food “Honey” (fda2022-tds-elements-fy2018-fy2020). Values are in ppb-equivalent on the basis FDA reported. The full sample-level data are stored in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_element_results_samples.csv; per-analyte distributions in data/evidence/fda_tds_fy2018_2020_summary_by_food_analyte.csv. These distributions count as one source under persistent-wiki-ingest-rule synthesis discipline; numerical values stay in body scratch until a second independent source is integrated.

Ranges by source, region, and variety

The FDA FY2018-FY2020 Total Diet Study measured honey as TDS Food 172 with n=3 composites and found all seven measured analytes at or below the reporting limit 4. This US retail result contrasts with findings from European producing regions, where industrial and agricultural environmental contexts elevate metal concentrations. Naccari et al. 2025 analyzed 38 honey samples from Calabria, Italy, by ICP-MS and found that Pb exceeded the EU maximum level of 0.10 mg/kg in 80 percent of wildflower samples, with Al means of 4.5 to 6.0 mg/kg across honey types 2. Abeslami et al. 2025 measured seven monofloral and multifloral honeys from eastern Morocco and reported Cd concentrations of 0.0017 to 0.018 mg/kg and Pb of 0.13 to 0.19 mg/kg, with botanical-origin differences between honey types 1. These inter-regional contrasts illustrate the primary driver of honey metal variance: proximity to pollution sources rather than botanical variety, though botanical origin (which determines foraging plant community) provides a secondary modulating effect through differences in plant metal uptake and nectar metal content.

Processing effects

Honey processing involves extraction from the comb by centrifugation, filtration to remove wax and debris, and in some cases heat treatment for liquefaction or pasteurization. Filtration removes particulate contaminants including some surface-sorbed metals, and the filtered fraction generally shows slightly lower metal concentrations than raw comb honey, though this effect is not large in the current corpus. Creaming (controlled crystallization) does not alter metal concentration. Blending of honeys from different geographic sources is the most significant processing step from a metal-variability perspective: large commercial batches blend honeys from multiple apiaries and potentially multiple countries, and blending from diverse origins can average out both low and high metal concentrations. The Sn pathway does not apply because honey is packaged primarily in glass or food-grade plastic.

Ingredient-derivative risk

Honey used as an ingredient in processed foods (baked goods, cereals, beverages, confectionery) is present in formulations at relatively low inclusion rates; the contribution of honey’s metal content to the finished product is accordingly diluted. Concentrated honey, reduced honey, and honey powders prepared by spray-drying concentrate metals proportionally; a dehydrated honey powder with a water content reduced from 80 percent to 2 percent would concentrate metals by roughly a fourfold factor compared to liquid honey. Mead and other fermented honey products are not characterized in the current corpus.

Mitigation options

Sourcing levers

Geographic sourcing is the primary mitigation lever for honey. Apiaries located away from high-traffic roads, industrial facilities, mining operations, and intensively phosphate-fertilized agricultural land consistently show lower metal concentrations. Apiary audits that document the within-radius land use and environmental burden of the foraging zone provide a documented basis for metal-risk sourcing decisions.

Agronomic levers

Relocating hives away from known contamination sources is the most effective agronomic lever. Planting low-metal-accumulating nectar sources in the foraging radius reduces bees’ metal exposure, but controlling foraging targets at scale is not practically feasible. Soil remediation or pH amendment of agricultural land within foraging range reduces cadmium bioavailability in flora but requires cooperation with land managers outside the apiary operator’s control.

Processing levers

Fine filtration of extracted honey removes coarse particulate matter that may carry surface-adsorbed metals; this provides a modest but not transformative reduction in metal content. Blending from multiple low-contamination origins provides dilution and consistency.

Formulation levers

Substituting honey with alternative sweeteners in formulations where honey’s metal load is a concern is an option, though the sensory and marketing properties of honey are generally integral to its use. Including honey at lower inclusion rates achieves proportional dilution.

Testing and QC levers

Given the demonstrated regional variability and the finding that EU honey Pb exceedances are common near industrial zones, lot-level ICP-MS testing for Pb and Cd provides the most reliable quality assurance. Origin documentation and certificate-of-conformity requirements from suppliers should specify the apiary location and any environmental burden assessment. Testing frequency proportionate to supply-chain geographic diversity is appropriate.

Packaging and storage levers

Glass packaging avoids any plastic-leachate pathway; Sn migration is not relevant for honey as it is not packaged in tin-lined cans. Storage in cool, dark conditions maintains product quality without affecting metal concentration.

Regulatory limits that apply

The EU sets a maximum level for Pb in honey of 0.10 mg/kg (100 ppb) wet weight eu2023-contaminants-maximum-levels. No EU maximum level for Cd in honey has been set as of the current corpus state. The finding of Naccari et al. 2025 that 80 percent of Italian wildflower honey samples exceeded this Pb limit illustrates that the EU limit is an active regulatory constraint for this commodity, not a comfortable ceiling 2. The United States does not set a statutory maximum for Pb or Cd in honey. Codex Alimentarius does not list honey in its specific ML tables for Pb or Cd codex-cadmium-mls.

Sources

Auto-generated from source-page frontmatter. The “Used on this page for” column is populated by the orchestrator’s POPULATE-SOURCE-LEGEND action; pending entries appear as *[awaiting synthesis]*.

Page history

The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.