Vice: Your Fancy Honey Might Not Actually Be Honey

[China]

Your Fancy Honey Might Not Actually Be Honey

 

It may have been sweetened, heated, filtered, and turned into a fraud—and the entire agricultural system is at risk as a result.

 

Chris Hiatt knows he's had a good summer for honey when he can barely close his hands by the end of the season. At Hiatt Honey, his family's business, he regularly moves around hive boxes that weigh up to 70 pounds. "It is hard work, man," Hiatt, also the vice president of the American Honey Producers Association, said. "I drink two gallons of water every day because it's so physical. I love to do it. But it's not as fun as it used to be." 

 

For the past two years, his hands have barely been sore at all. Bee populations across the country are declining for many reasons, like exposure to insecticide and fungicide, disease, and mites, ultimately causing colonies to collapse. From April 2018 to April 2019, beekeepers in the United States lost over 40 percent of their hives.

 

But there's another threat within the honey community that's intimately entwined with the lives of bees and their beekeepers, one that is largely unknown outside their world: honey fraud.

Grab any random bottle of honey from your kitchen, coffee shop, or restaurant: According to a number of honey experts who spoke with VICE, the odds are high that your honey isn't what it claims to be. Honey imported from overseas is often adulterated—either by having sugars added to it or by being cleaned, heated, or filtered—and then is blended with small amounts of true honey until the sticky substance is uniform.

 

In a small experiment of my own, I bought honey from different stores to test them at two different honey labs. In half of the samples I sent to a lab in Germany, and more than half of those I sent to a lab in Missouri, the results indicated adulteration may have taken place.

 

This isn't necessarily an issue of food safety; adulterated honey isn't typically dangerous to eat. But it does mean that customers are paying top dollar for "raw" or "local" honey with purported health benefits that could in fact be nothing more than a mix of different sugars. And perhaps more important than the possible defrauding of the consumer is the fact that according to experts, adulteration is driving global honey prices down, leaving beekeepers, like Hiatt, barely able to sell their honey for a profit.

 

It's a harsh irony, given that the consumption of honey has gone up by over 40 percent in the last 20 years—from around 400 million pounds to 575 million in 2018. Honey has been seized upon by the wellness empire as a good-for-you sugar replacement, filled with enzymes and pollen that can provide benefits for allergies, coughs, burns, or, as described in an interview with Goop, as an "all-natural energy source." With its growing reputation as a luxury item, the retail prices for honey are increasing, and honey is being used more frequently in other food products.

With the demand for honey soaring, you would expect the price of honey to be increasing along with it. Yet the opposite has occurred.

 

This paradox is a result of adulterated honey, which artificially increases the supply of honey, said Michael Roberts, executive director of the Resnick Center for Food Law and Policy at UCLA School of Law. “As long as adulterated imported honey floods the domestic market, US honey producers will find it very difficult to build a sustainable business model predicated on authentic honey," he wrote in a recent white paper on the topic, presented at 2019's World Honey Congress, Apimondia, in Montreal.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[bearrock]

I want these people drawn and quartered!!!!

 

If looking for tips to tell apart the real and fakes

 

https://www.bee-america.com/content/how-detect-fake-honey

 

 

[Riggo-toni]

Same thing with olive oil. I only buy California Growers brand now. Imported Italian "extra virgin" olive oil is mostly produced in Spain, then "cut" with cheap oils like canola or safflower, then exported from Italy.

[Destino]

1 hour ago, Riggo-toni said:

Same thing with olive oil. I only buy California Growers brand now. Imported Italian "extra virgin" olive oil is mostly produced in Spain, then "cut" with cheap oils like canola or safflower, then exported from Italy.

When did olive oil and honey become street drugs that are getting stepped on the further they get from the growers?  Next I’m going to find out only 8 of my dozen eggs come from chickens.  

[The Sisko]

Just buy the blue sky honey from Heisenberg and you can't go wrong.

[superozman]

4 hours ago, Destino said:

When did olive oil and honey become street drugs that are getting stepped on the further they get from the growers?  Next I’m going to find out only 8 of my dozen eggs come from chickens.  

 

I'm sure we'll hear the same thing about Maple Syrup.  Crazy to think these things happen but they do.

[Dont Taze Me Bro]

1 hour ago, The Sisko said:

Just buy the blue sky honey from Heisenberg and you can't go wrong.

 

[China]

4 hours ago, Destino said:

When did olive oil and honey become street drugs that are getting stepped on the further they get from the growers?  Next I’m going to find out only 8 of my dozen eggs come from chickens.  

 

Look into seafood.  Much of the seafood sold in restaurants isn't what it's purported to be.  Often scallops are just punches from skates.

 

Oceana Study Reveals Seafood Fraud Nationwide

 

As Oceana's nationwide study and others demonstrate, seafood may be mislabeled as often as 26 to 87 percent of the time for commonly swapped fish such as grouper, cod and snapper, disguising fish that are less desirable, cheaper or more readily available.

 

Click on the link for more.

[Kosher Ham]

Nothing new here. I thought everyone knew that about honey. 

[NoCalMike]

I know sushi joints are routinely busted for using cheaper fish on their rolls than what is being advertised. Of course most people took a liking to sushi due to all the sauces and other stuff that is jammed into the rolls so they probably wouldn't even necessarily care about the cheaper fish being used if it wasn't priced based on the wrong stuff.

 

I remember first finding out that most "canned pumpkin" that people use for pumpkin pies is actually mostly just other types of squash blended up with a small amount of actual pumpkin. 

 

Food companies are some of the most deceitful in existence. 

[China]

Honeybees are still on the decline, recent survey found. That could sting crop production

 

Recent survey results show commercial honeybees are on track to have another year of colony losses. A decline in these essential pollinators could hinder food production.
Apart from his full-time job, Dane Strickland cares for nearly 100 honeybee colonies daily. He first started beekeeping 15 years ago after researching the health benefits honey could provide to his children.

 

“I thought to myself, ‘I want to be a beekeeper — that doesn’t look too complicated,’” Strickland said. “That right there is a joke in itself, because there's way more to keeping bees than just having a box in the backyard.”

 

Strickland now understands how challenging beekeeping can be, especially as honeybee colonies decline nationwide.

 

He’s president of Northeast Oklahoma’s Beekeeper Association and one of the few beekeepers in the the state to participate in the Bee Informed Partnership’s Loss and Management Survey annually.

 

This year, the nonprofit organization’s preliminary results show commercial beekeepers in the U.S. lost about 39% of their honeybee colonies from April 2021 to April of this year. That’s an improvement from last year’s record-breaking loss of more than 50% of all hives. But despite colony losses being down slightly, the partnership’s science coordinator and researcher Dr. Nathalie Steinhauer said it’s still a very high rate.

 

“We don’t want to minimize the stress that puts on beekeepers and bees, but this is also pretty much on par with what we’ve observed in the last 10 years,” Steinhauer said. “That doesn’t mean it’s okay or good, it just means it wasn’t an unexpected high this year.”

 

The phrase “bee colony loss” doesn’t mean nearly 40% of honeybees vanish every year. Instead, Steinhauer said loss rates are used as the mortality rate measure for bees. Meanwhile, the natality rate, or birth rate, is equivalent to beekeepers replacing their losses by splitting their colonies to make new ones.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Fan since a Fetus]

I’ve read some studies that say that Mason Bees are way better at pollinating than honeybees. Mason Bees are naturally from the states, unlike honey bees. The problem and it’s a huge problem, is that Mason Bees live in the ground. Everyone puts pesticides on their lawns which kills the Mason bees. Plus grass is so important in everyone’s yard that they don’t have enough bare dirt or area that is appealing to bees. 
 

when I bought my house last year, there were only a couple of Mason bees around my yard. I haven’t put any insecticide on my yard or plants, have gotten more flowering plants and this year I have a ton of Mason bees. I was wondering where they were staying and yesterday I noticed they have holes behind my shed. There are a lot. Mason Bees do not live in colonies, but they do live close to each other.

 

they don’t like hybrid plants and a lot of big store plants are produced for maximum flower production with no thought of pollen production. People buy these thinking they will attract bees when in fact they are doing nothing to help the bees. 
 

Also, Mason bees will only travel around 200yrds? From their home. They stay in the area. Everyone can chip in and stop putting insecticides in your yard and let things take care of themselves. I put two things in my yard over this first year and a half. I spray around my foundation, really close to the house. I also spot check for fire ants because they get out of control here in Texas. 
 

The Mason Bees love my fire bushes, Mexican blue bells, crape myrtles and other flowering plants. Look into the flowering plants that you are going to purchase, some are dangerous to bees and will kill them such as rhododendron. Put out plants that flower early in the season and always have plants flowering for all 3 of the warm seasons. 
 

Don’t buy tons of different plants either. Mason Bees generally have an idea of what kind of pollen they need that day and from what bush. I have 5 fire bushes. They usually stick to those fire bushes one day and some might be going to the Mexican Blue Bells the next day. 
 

one more thing, despite me having fire bushes, bees don’t typically like red flowers. I think they don’t see that color. Stick with blues, yellows and whites. Find the color that bees in your area like and find plants that are native. 
 

if everyone follows this advice, I have no doubt that bees will make a comeback.

[PleaseBlitz]

I just want some of the honey this bear got ****ing stoned on. 
 

 

[Die Hard]

2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

I just want some of the honey this bear got ****ing stoned on. 
 

 

 

 

I might know somebody who could help you.

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Die Hard

[Captain Wiggles]

2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

I just want some of the honey this bear got ****ing stoned on. 

 

Blue Honey. 👨‍🔬

 

 

[TradeTheBeal!]

Better believe the tailgate hippie knows…

[PokerPacker]

I've been tempted to start bee-keeping when I get a house and some land.

[SkinsFTW]

Reminds me of the baby formula coming from China that everybody in Japan was in an uproar about years ago when I lived there.  They were putting industrial products like melamine in the formula. Then they started finding weird stuff in the pastries that you buy prepackaged from China, sold in Japan everywhere.

 

The article about they honey says that they are adding sugar to the honey but what else is in there? Wouldn't it be a lot cheaper to use High Fructose Corn Syrup? Or is that what we call sugar now? LOL

[tshile]

On 3/9/2020 at 5:25 PM, NoCalMike said:

Of course most people took a liking to sushi due to all the sauces and other stuff that is jammed into the rolls so they probably wouldn't even necessarily care about the cheaper fish being used if it wasn't priced based on the wrong stuff.

I know this is an old post but - every time I hear someone respond to a question about what sushi they like with “California roll” I can’t help but laugh 

[SkinsFTW]

On 8/23/2022 at 9:15 PM, tshile said:

I know this is an old post but - every time I hear someone respond to a question about what sushi they like with “California roll” I can’t help but laugh 

 

After living in Japan for years I laugh at almost everything I've seen called sushi in the US. I'm sure there are good sushi places in SF or NYC but I'm talking about just in general around the country. 

 

My exwife (Japanese) worked in a sushi restaurant in VA Beach after we moved back to the US for the first time. She couldn't believe that they got shipments of fish for sushi 2x a week. In Japan they don't use anything that isn't fresh the same day. Even in the grocery stores. We'd go shopping usually at 7-8Pm because they marked down all the sushi to almost nothing to get rid of it every night. 

[tshile]

22 minutes ago, SkinsFTW said:

After living in Japan for years I laugh at almost everything I've seen called sushi in the US. I'm sure there are good sushi places in SF or NYC but I'm talking about just in general around the country. 

I had suishi at real Japanese places in Hawaii. I can’t tell you what any of it was other than it was delicious and I’d never had anything like it. 
 

In fact the same goes for the rest of the food throughout the meal. The only thing I remember the name of was okonomiyaki. We were the only non-Japanese people in any of them. So we didn’t know what we were doing and let our server pick everything
 

if I ever go back all ill eat is Japanese food. I’ve been to a few different countries. Outside of our bbq scene (including steaks) our food sucks compared to everywhere I’ve been. 
 

most of our food is some ****iation of someone’s delicious food 

Edited August 30, 2022 by tshile