Honey - contamination

[Durgan]

Honey laundering: The sour side of nature’s golden sweetener - The Globe and Mail part of the largest food fraud in U.S. history, is the fact that honey, nature’s benign golden sweetener, is the lucrative contraband.

What consumers don’t know is that honey doesn’t usually come straight – or pure – from the hive. Giant steel drums of honey bound for grocery store shelves and the food processors that crank out your cereal are in constant flow through the global market. Most honey comes from China, where beekeepers are notorious for keeping their bees healthy with antibiotics banned in North America because they seep into honey and contaminate it; packers there learn to mask the acrid notes of poor quality product by mixing in sugar or corn-based syrups to fake good taste.

[pollypurebred39]

Thank You. I support our local community by purchasing our honey from local bee keepers. Better for you anyway since your local area's allergens in the honey work like a vaccine against seasonal allergies.

This article just drives home the point of eating less processed foods, including cereal.

[nuisance26]

~Well that's creepy. I only buy local honey though. It helps with seasonal allergies and is just plain tastier.~

[monkeywrangler71]

Weird, I've never seen a bottle of honey from China or any other Asian country. The grocery store here carries a large local producer and the national brand, which last I checked was a mix of Canadian and Brazilian.

Beekeeping is very expensive, particularly now that bee populations are in such poor health. I expect, and am more than willing, to pay a relatively high price for honey.

[madhen]

There was a spot on both the Rachel Maddow Show and the Keith Olbermann show about honeybees near a maraschino cherry manufacturing plant producing red, sort of nasty-smelling and nasty-tasting honey, because they were sipping the sugary run-off. The honey was ruined, but I'll bet the bees were in 7th heaven!! Hey, a sugar stream!! No more collecting a drop here, a drop there!!

[Missy]

Durgan, this is completely off topic...but, I can't seem to get the link in your signature to work. All I can get to is the journal entries for last year.

[Josephhgoins]

Thanks!

I have never wanted to have my own bee hives more!

Maybe in 2012 I can get this done.

[Durgan]

Durgan, this is completely off topic...but, I can't seem to get the link in your signature to work. All I can get to is the journal entries for last year.

durgan.org | Garden Journal 2011 This is the 2011 journal, which has few entries, since just started.

durgan.org | Garden Journal 2010 This is the 2010 Journal

[Missy]

durgan.org | Garden Journal 2011 This is the 2011 journal, which has few entries, since just started.

durgan.org | Garden Journal 2010 This is the 2010 Journal

thanks. I like reading the journals.