That manuka honey you're buying is probably a sham

Manuka (New Zealand Tea Tree) Flowers and Honey (iStock)

The world’s most precious — and priciest — honey may not be such a sweet deal after all.

Manuka honey is a health and beauty elixir that Scarlett Johanssen, Kourtney Kardashian, Gwyneth Paltrow and hundreds of chic New Yorkers swear by.

But most of the supposed manuka on store shelves worldwide is a falsely labeled sham, according to research commissioned by the Sunday Times of London.

A mass-spectrometer analysis compared genuine manuka, direct from New Zealand hives, to manuka-labeled honey sold in British stores and online through Amazon.

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The researchers found that the real deal contained four specific compounds that could not be detected in any of the retailers’ supposed manuka.High-end London grocer Fortnum & Mason cleared all the “manuka honey” off its shelves last week when its product failed the British paper’s test.

The sticky stuff is made by bees in New Zealand, where they feed on manuka bushes that grow in the wild. The rare plants are so inaccessible that honey farmers seek them out with helicopters and drop hives nearby.

This article originally appeared in the New York Post.