Is manuka honey actually worth it, or just expensive honey?

how the MGO number actually measures manuka honey

Here's the number that matters, and it's not the price. It's the MGO count, 50+ on this jar, and it stands for methylglyoxal, the compound that forms naturally in manuka nectar and gives the honey its antibacterial reputation. Regular clover or wildflower honey has trace amounts at best. Manuka can carry it in real, measurable concentration, and that concentration is what the number on the label is reporting. MGO 50+ is the entry tier: real manuka, genuinely tested, just at the lower end of a scale that climbs past 800+ in the strongest, priciest jars. Do the per-serving math with me. A 250 gram jar gives you roughly fifty teaspoon servings, so you're paying pennies more per spoon than you think, not the sticker price all at once. The QR code on the lid is the part actually worth using: it pulls up a batch-specific purity report, so instead of trusting the label, you're checking the lab result yourself, which is the honest way to verify a honey that's easy to fake and hard for a shopper to test at home. Non-GMO and glyphosate-free claims sit next to that, but they're farming standards, not potency, so don't let them do the MGO number's job in your head. The multifloral sourcing just means the bees worked more than one manuka bush, which is normal and fine, not a downgrade.