Raw Honey vs Regular Honey Labels: Raw, Pure, Unfiltered and the Added Sugars Line

The short answer: no federal rule defines “raw” on a honey label, and none defines “pure” or “unfiltered” as label claims either. The FDA’s 2018 honey guidance covers what may be called “honey” at all, and USDA’s voluntary grade standard describes “filtered” and “strained” honey. Everything else on the front of the bottle is the maker’s own wording. This explainer reads one bottle, Nature Nate’s 100% Pure Raw & Unfiltered Honey, against those two documents and the FDA’s added sugars guidance, so you can see which words come from a rule and which come from the brand.

How we wrote this: label figures and wording come from the front and back bottle images of the 16 oz bottle on the Nate’s Honey product page, viewed in October 2026. The brand now prints “Nate’s Honey” on the bottle; many stores still list it as Nature Nate’s. Process wording is quoted from the brand’s Raw & Unfiltered page and FAQ. We have not tested this honey, and a bottle in a store may differ from the web image.

Raw honey vs regular honey at a glance

Label word	Defined by a federal rule?	Where the meaning comes from
Honey	Named by FDA guidance	A food that is only honey must be named “honey”; a blend with sugar or corn syrup cannot be
Pure / 100% Pure	No	The maker; the FDA guidance covers blends, not the word “pure”
Raw	No	The maker; neither FDA guidance nor the USDA grade standard defines it
Unfiltered	No	The maker; USDA’s voluntary standard defines “filtered” and “strained” styles
U.S. Grade A	Voluntary USDA standard	USDA grade standards for extracted honey
Organic	Yes, USDA organic rules	USDA certification; this bottle does not make an organic claim

What the FDA’s 2018 honey guidance says

The FDA’s Proper Labeling of Honey and Honey Products guidance (February 2018, nonbinding) is a set of questions and answers. It accepts a dictionary definition of honey as “a thick, sweet, syrupy substance that bees make as food from the nectar of plants or secretions of living parts of plants and store in honeycombs.”

The guidance then makes four points that matter on a shelf:

• A food that contains only honey “must be named ‘honey'”, and it does not need an ingredient statement because it is a single-ingredient food.
• A floral source such as “Clover Honey” is optional, and it may be used only if there is information that the plant named is the chief floral source.
• Honey mixed with a sweetener such as sugar or corn syrup cannot be labeled only “honey”. The guidance gives “Blend of honey and corn syrup” as an example name, with each ingredient listed.
• Honey with a flavor added becomes something like “raspberry-flavored honey”, with “natural flavor” in the ingredient list.

What the guidance does not do is just as useful to know. It does not define “raw”, “pure” or “unfiltered”, and it does not set a heating limit or a filtering rule. The words “raw” and “unfiltered” do not appear in it. So when a bottle says “raw”, you are reading the brand’s description of how it handled the honey, not a term the FDA has defined.

“100% Pure” on this bottle

The front of the bottle reads “100% Pure Raw & Unfiltered Honey”, and the back reads “Ingredients: Honey”. The back panel text says the brand is “making sure it’s 100% pure just as it is straight from the hive”, and the product page says, “By testing every batch, we ensure this honey is 100% pure.” The brand’s Raw & Unfiltered page adds that it tests for “no added corn or rice syrups”.

Read “pure” here as the brand’s statement that the bottle holds honey and nothing else. That lines up with the FDA guidance in one way: a bottle that also held sugar or corn syrup could not be named only “honey” under that guidance, whatever the front said. The guidance itself does not define “pure” as a label claim.

“Raw” on this bottle: what Nate’s says it means

The back of the bottle reads “Gently warmed for pourability”. The product page says the honey is “never pasteurized”, and the brand’s Raw & Unfiltered page explains its own use of the word: “We don’t cook our honey at high temperatures,” and instead “we gently warm the raw honey so we can handle it.” Its FAQ says the honey is warmed “to the minimum temperature necessary to make it the right consistency to pour into the bottle.”

Neither the bottle nor those pages give a temperature. Another brand calling its honey raw may warm it more, less or not at all, and the label alone will not tell you which.

“Unfiltered” vs “strained”: the USDA wording

USDA’s United States Standards for Grades of Extracted Honey (effective 1985, voluntary) is the closest thing to a federal definition here. It describes two styles:

• Filtered: honey “filtered to the extent that all or most of the fine particles, pollen grains, air bubbles, or other materials normally found in suspension, have been removed.”
• Strained: honey “strained to the extent that most of the particles, including comb, propolis, or other defects normally found in honey, have been removed. Grains of pollen, small air bubbles, and very fine particles would not normally be removed.”

The standard does not use the word “unfiltered”. Nate’s describes its process in terms close to the strained style: “We don’t filter it. We only strain it to get the bee parts and wax out,” and the product page says “pollens intact”. That is the brand’s account of its own process; the label does not print a USDA style.

U.S. Grade A

The back of this bottle prints “U.S. Grade A”. Under the same USDA standard, Grade A is extracted honey that meets the table requirements and scores at least 90 points across factors such as soluble solids, absence of defects, flavor and aroma, and clarity. The standard is voluntary, and the label does not say who assigned the grade.

The added sugars line on a single-ingredient honey

This is the panel line most people ask about. Here is the Nutrition Facts panel from the back bottle image:

Line (per 1 Tbsp, 21g)	As printed
Servings per container	About 22 (16 oz bottle)
Calories	70
Total Fat, Saturated Fat, Trans Fat	0g, 0g, 0g
Cholesterol, Sodium	0mg, 0mg
Total Carbohydrate	17g, 6% DV
Fiber	0g
Total Sugars	17g
Added sugars	No gram line; “34% DV†”
Protein	0g
Footnote (†)	“One serving adds 17g of sugar to your diet and represents 34% of the Daily Value for Added Sugars.”

Two rules explain that layout. The FDA’s definition of added sugars includes sugars that are “packaged as such”, and an FDA constituent update gives “a jar of honey” as an example. Then the 2018 Farm Bill said single-ingredient honey, sugar, agave and syrups do not have to print “Includes Xg Added Sugars”. The FDA’s June 2019 guidance, Declaration of Added Sugars on Honey, Maple Syrup, Other Single-Ingredient Sugars and Syrups, says these packages must still include the percent Daily Value for added sugars. It allows a “†” symbol after that percent, leading to a footnote that gives “the gram amount of sugar added to the diet by one serving of the product and its contribution to the percent DV for added sugars.”

That is what this bottle does. By our arithmetic, 17g against the 50g Daily Value for added sugars in 21 CFR 101.9 is 34%, which matches the panel. Also by our arithmetic, 17g of sugar in a 21g serving is about 81% of the serving weight.

One thing to watch: the text version of the panel on the same product page reads “One serving adds 15g of sugar to your diet and represents 30% of the Daily Value for Added Sugars”, while its Total Sugars line reads 17g. The bottle image prints 17g and 34%. We use the bottle image here, and you should go by the bottle in your hand.

Our maple syrup grades guide covers the other common single-ingredient syrup, and our guide on how to read a Nutrition Facts label explains the Total Sugars and Added Sugars lines on other foods. If you are comparing honey with zero-sugar sweeteners, our monk fruit vs stevia vs allulose explainer shows how those panels read.

Crystallization: what the maker says

The back of the bottle reads “store at room temperature to slow natural process of crystallization.” The brand’s FAQ says that when honey is hardened or crystallized, “it is simply raw honey going back to its natural form,” and that it “can easily and safely be returned to a liquid state.” The USDA standard also lists crystallized and partially crystallized honey as types of extracted honey, separate from grade. The bottle does not print a method or temperature for re-liquefying, so we do not give one here.

Organic: not on this bottle

This orange-cap bottle does not carry a USDA Organic seal. The brand’s FAQ explains why in its own words: “Since our classic honey includes honey from the U.S., it can’t be certified organic,” and “the USDA will not certify honey sourced from the U.S. as organic” because bee flight paths cannot be traced. Nate’s sells a separate green-cap Organic Raw & Unfiltered Honey that it describes as “USDA certified organic”.

Under 7 CFR 205.301, a product labeled “organic” must contain at least 95 percent organically produced ingredients, excluding water and salt. Our Non-GMO Project Verified vs USDA Organic guide covers how the organic seal works on other foods.

Other lines on the back

• “Don’t feed honey to babies one year or younger”, printed on the back of the bottle.
• “Gluten Free” and “BPA Free”, printed next to a circled U kosher symbol.
• The maker’s name and city, Nate’s Honey of McKinney, TX.

How to read a honey label in five checks

1. The name of the food. A bottle of only honey is named “honey”. Words like “blend of honey and” mean other sweeteners are inside.
2. The ingredient line, if there is one. Honey alone does not need one. If you see sugar, corn syrup or flavor listed, it is not a plain honey.
3. Raw and unfiltered as the maker words them. Look for how the brand explains its heating and straining, on the bottle or its site.
4. The added sugars percent and footnote. On single-ingredient honey, expect a % DV with a † footnote rather than an “Includes Xg” line.
5. Seals as printed. Check for the USDA Organic seal before reading “organic” into the label.

The bottle

See the Nature Nate’s 100% Pure Raw & Unfiltered Honey product page for the full label on its own, or browse the pantry collection.

FAQ

Is raw honey different from regular honey on the label?

Only in the words the maker chooses. There is no federal definition of “raw” for honey labels, so a bottle that says raw is describing the brand’s own process. Both kinds must be named “honey” if honey is the only ingredient.

What does “pure honey” mean?

The word is the maker’s. The FDA’s 2018 guidance says honey mixed with sugar or corn syrup cannot be labeled only “honey”, but it does not define “pure”. Nate’s says it tests every batch to back its “100% pure” claim.

Does the FDA define raw honey?

No. The FDA’s 2018 honey labeling guidance does not define “raw” and does not set a heating limit, and the USDA grade standard does not define it either.

Why does honey list added sugars?

The FDA counts the sugar in a package of honey as added sugar. Single-ingredient honey may skip the “Includes Xg Added Sugars” line but must still show the % DV, often with a † footnote. This bottle’s footnote reads 17g and 34%.

Is crystallized honey still honey?

The USDA standard lists crystallized honey as a type of extracted honey, and Nate’s FAQ calls crystallization “raw honey going back to its natural form.”

What is the difference between strained and filtered honey?

Under USDA’s voluntary standard, filtering removes “all or most of the fine particles, pollen grains, air bubbles”, while straining removes most particles such as comb and propolis but would not normally remove pollen grains.