Here's a very straightforward guide to buying honey. If you see honey at a supermarket, no you don't, that's sugar syrup. If you see honey online, no you don't, that's sugar syrup. If you find an old dude with a small stand and a bunch of (most likely unlabelled) jars who only accepts cash, that's where you get real honey.
But all the honey labels say the only ingredient is honey. We've always been able to assume that with things like jams, or any other food, when manufacturers adulterate it with things like corn syrup, or even mild poisons, they proudly say so on the label. To not do so is fraud. How can people just claim that an entire industry is committing fraud??? Even this article doesn't mention anything about proof, just suspicions. Why can't they prove it? To make these kind of claims without proof is arguably worse than fraud. This would all be outrageous if it's true, since it becomes impossible to make any rational choices as consumers if the food system has gone fraudulent.
The "down to earth local grower" is a form of marketing that appeals to you. It's not a guarantee of quality, and probably more variable. Many vendors at farmer's markets just buy and relabel stuff, because producing goods efficiently enough to make a profit is actually hard.
How do you know this? Is there actual reporting on what percentage of honey in supermarkets is adulterated, rather than just anecdotal reports that at least some is?
The place I buy honey is run by an older woman in Vermont who owns a lovely apiary. I've visited and seen the process, she's fantastic, her product is delicious, and it's as real as it gets. They're 4th gen family owned, so they really know what they're doing and it's all about the bees, the honey and their reputation.
Plus the honey is so delicious. When I visited she gave me this little container of the foam that collects on top of the raw honey. It was delicious, I ate a little spoonful of it every day until it ran out.
I don't work for them, I don't get money from them, I'm just an enthusiastic long-term customer.
I would easily say that the old dude with a small stand in the market is the most suspicious. Most of them are frauds tricking tourists and co by the "local artisanal" aspect. In the same way that it is now very hard to find a Christmas market selling authentic artisanal products.
And in 2024, if he does not accept cash, it might probably because he is happy to not declare all his incomes. That is a bad sign if you expect such a guy to be honest to not mess with his honey!
This isn’t true at all in the United States at least.
Sugar syrup or even honey adulterated with sugar syrup behaves differently. I’ve had some cheap generic brand bottles that flowed too easily, dissolved too quickly, and never crystallized. Probably sugar syrup.
But I haven’t seen this once since over a decade ago in my college days when I shopped at some questionable neighborhood supermarkets.
Everything I’ve bought from local supermarkets and chains like Costco has felt, looked, flowed, tasted, and crystallized like real honey.
You should probably be more suspicious about those roadside shops, too. With the rise of “farmers’ markets” as a side hustle you can no longer tell what’s what just by the fact that they’re operating out of a stand and taking cash. Around here, a lot of the “farmers’ market” and even roadside stand operators are reselling products they get from other entrepreneurs who sell them the produce, honey, and other goods. There’s a group of people here who have roadside stands with signs spray painted by hand to look like mom and pop DIY operations, which tricks people until they realize those exact signs are in 100s of locations across the state. It’s just another business preying on people’s lack of trust in institutions but implicit trust in anything that feels mom and pop, just like your comment implies.
All of the honey I buy at grocery stores crystalizes almost immediately… sugar syrup won’t do that. I usually buy something that appears to be directly from a local farm with a name and address I recognize, and is in a regular mason jar with no fancy branding.
On the complete opposite end, if you go to a supermassive grocery store and buy their store brand then you'll be getting real honey simply because they have deep pockets and a massive target on their backs if they're committing fraud.
>said the UK should require importers to label the country of origin on all honey, including blends
It actually does require that, it must specify country of origin and whether it is a blend, if it's a blend then it contains syrup and possibly antibiotics.
Buy single origin which in europe is certainly available, in the UK avoid anything that has the line "a blend of EU and non-EU honey", you should be buying UK honey anyway if you're UK-based, it is better and not blended (except where fraud has been committed as in the article).
I buy my honey from an old man, who parks off of Beach street, off of I-30, most saturdays. He drives a 30 year old van, falling apart, and places his goods on a plywood table.
Most of the honey is in canning jars, with a home printed label. The claim is it is sourced locally, and there are significant variations in color and taste over the year.
Is he scamming me and buying fake honey on Amazon and re-packaging it to look artisinal? Maybe. But I am convinced it is the real deal.
I have a Flow Hive in an urban environment, and to me, my honey - it’s harvested by a clever cell, and it isn’t harvested by scraping comb, so it is very clean and homogenous - is indistinguishable from most industrially distributed honey. So I feel like your criteria would mean I’d be accused of adulteration.
Can people see and taste the differences between (a) sugar syrup and (b) dehydrated flower nectar and liquid sugars? Certainly in the case of small scale harvesting in a traditional hive: it will be have ground up comb, dead bee parts and gas that, in my opinion, adds little.
Sometimes bees get into stuff like a cherry syrup factory and they barf out blue food coloring into the cells which dehydrate and become blue honey, which you can also see.
Do people physiologically interact with something in the honey other than its sugar? Like is there something missing from sugar syrup? One clinically proven difference is that honey is an effective antibiotic on wounds whereas sugar syrup is not. Of course besides antibiotics in the honey, the bee barfs out other stuff that gets in there that can affect the development of bees, and trace amounts of pollen and bee poop get in it too, but I don’t think any of that interacts with us.
It’s a complex problem. You can easily read more about it, bees are well studied animals. For most culinary purposes you don’t want weird solids, moisture, gas and contaminants like that, so industrial honey suits people better anyway. But if you are applying it to a wound you want bee produced honey without comb, which readily exists in the medical supply chain. It is not accurate to say that the small town seller is the only source, or even the best source, of “real honey.”
I think the FDA should build towards mass food analysis. To sell something en masse you should have to put down a deposit, and the FDA should do an annual analysis of your food (via mass spectometry) from samples from the food store. They should mix dozens of samples from different states to get good coverage.
Should you fail (illegal pesticides, ingredients differ than label, too much lead, whatever) then you lose your deposit, all profits made that year on that product, and go through a process of re-earning the right to sell that product.
For small local brands I'd exempt them until the economics became viable.
we already have this in the FDA. it’s just isolated to nutrient labels for most foods. the deposit is your business. failing a random annual FDA inspection is already extremely financially impactful
what you’re looking for is deeper analysis than nutrition labels. this is actually something small local brands start with. they pay for private “certifications” like organic, non gmo, etc.
> For small local brands I'd exempt them until the economics became viable.
Why would they suddenly become viable? The only way that would happen is if the price of the product is increased to cover the costs of what you're proposing. This will destroy small suppliers and increase the cost of everything to cover a set of risks that you haven't even fully characterized yet.
> To sell something en masse you should have to put down a deposit, and the FDA should do an annual analysis of your food (via mass spectometry) from samples from the food store
Why don't we see more private enforcement? Class action lawsuits against fraudulent producers and distributors?
According to the article, the switch is occurring somewhere in the supply chain. So in your proposal, what part of the supply chain would bee on the hook for this deposit and profit reaping?
Actually I think the opposite is true in many cases. Food quality and safety standards are higher than ever.
This stuff sticks out because it’s getting caught and called out. There was a time when information spread slowly, tracking supply chains was basically impossible, and many businesses would do shady things because they knew they were unlikely to get caught.
Now we can sample things like honey with lab equipment that is basically magic compared to technology 50 years ago, so these things are getting caught. We also have the internet to share stories, so they’re getting seen.
So while people are becoming more aware, I think these things are actually better than in the past.
We used to sell _literal_ "snake oil" as a curative.
What you may actually be witnessing is a low awareness society turn into a high awareness one. What is being highlighted is you never should have had that trust in the first place.
The phrase "a sucker born every minute" is not near as old as "caveat emptor" or "cui bono", but the constancy of viewpoint should have told you something
If you want to put your local beekeeper out of the business of selling honey, then by all means, complain about an inadequate regulatory state. Because that's who the bureaucrats will go after.
I agree, especially when you consider that apparently they have a hard time detecting mixed in sugar syrup. What are they basing the ratings on, if they can't ensure the baseline "it's honey"?
Simplest approach is to make two categories blended and pure. With contestants only being allowed to enter one. This would incentivize otherwise would be cheaters yo enter the category they can legit compete in, reducing the amount pf testing required to only those in the pure category, which would keep costs down.
the reason that adulterated honey is difficult to detect is that honey is just sugar syrup, and if you add more sugar syrup you'll get more sugar syrup than you started with.
the mistaken belief is that there is something special about natural honey. people: it's sugar syrup, it'll give you diabetes as fast as a truckload of mountain dew.
Now, I don't believe in homeopathy, perhaps you do. But that's what the honey cult is, homeopathic. What the govt should allow is the sale of labelled fake honeys, it would be dirt cheap and would taste indetectably different, i.e every bit as good, and no more unhealthy.
(if you don't like the viscosity of your sugar syrup, change the %age of water. if you want it to crystalize, dry it out. it's rock candy, not magic)
You've somehow overgeneralized it. This is of course fructose, but with much better properties. :)
Just facts [0]:
- honey contains antioxidants, amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and vitamins and minerals, such as Thiamin, riboflavin, pyridoxin, vitamin A, niacin, panthothenic acid, phyllochinon, vitamin E, and vitamin C
- honey also has been successfully used for wound and burn healing. (If you grab a frying pan or burn your hand/skin, apply honey, there will be no blisters or peeling skin.)
- honey consumption reduces risk factors of cardiovascular diseases
That's factually incorrect. First of all, obviously it has tons of extra flavor, which indicates a whole range of additional chemical compounds.
> But that's what the honey cult is, homeopathic.
Honey has scientifically proven antibiotic properties [1].
> adulterated honey is difficult to detect
I don't know what you mean by "difficult", but it can certainly be detected [2]. And it can be observed how the antimicrobial properties diminish as adulteration increases.
Now, does this mean honey has health benefits when you eat it? Not necessarily. The antibiotic properties have traditionally been utilized when applying honey on top of a wound to prevent infection -- not by eating it.
You may very well be right that consuming honey isn't any different from consuming HFCS. But it does have a lot of additional chemical compounds in it (as the antibiotic properties demonstrate), so the best answer is that we really don't know.
In any case, it is demonstrably not "just sugar syrup". But yes, you're probably correct that it will give you diabetes just as fast as Mountain Dew.
If you think the taste of honey is indistinguishable from sugar syrup, you haven’t had real honey.
In addition to flavour compounds from the nectar, honey contains trace amino acids that cause it to slowly undergo the malliard reaction at room temperature, resulting in a caramel undertone that increases as the honey ages.
The flavour also strongly depends on the nectar, with some being very subtle and resulting in a very syrup-like honey, and others being extremely strong.
Other than flavour, and some anti-microbial properties, it has the same dietary properties as sugar syrup.
Etheryte|1 year ago
jart|1 year ago
liontwist|1 year ago
umanwizard|1 year ago
EA-3167|1 year ago
Plus the honey is so delicious. When I visited she gave me this little container of the foam that collects on top of the raw honey. It was delicious, I ate a little spoonful of it every day until it ran out.
I don't work for them, I don't get money from them, I'm just an enthusiastic long-term customer.
Champlain Valley Apiaries: https://www.champlainvalleyhoney.com/
I cannot recommend them enough.
greatgib|1 year ago
And in 2024, if he does not accept cash, it might probably because he is happy to not declare all his incomes. That is a bad sign if you expect such a guy to be honest to not mess with his honey!
reaperducer|1 year ago
I get my honey from a local beekeeper who delivers to my door. He welcomes people to tour his farm to see how it's produced.
He also sells his honey in the local chain supermarkets. Your broad generalization is false.
yumraj|1 year ago
Unverifiable provenance in both cases..
Aurornis|1 year ago
Sugar syrup or even honey adulterated with sugar syrup behaves differently. I’ve had some cheap generic brand bottles that flowed too easily, dissolved too quickly, and never crystallized. Probably sugar syrup.
But I haven’t seen this once since over a decade ago in my college days when I shopped at some questionable neighborhood supermarkets.
Everything I’ve bought from local supermarkets and chains like Costco has felt, looked, flowed, tasted, and crystallized like real honey.
You should probably be more suspicious about those roadside shops, too. With the rise of “farmers’ markets” as a side hustle you can no longer tell what’s what just by the fact that they’re operating out of a stand and taking cash. Around here, a lot of the “farmers’ market” and even roadside stand operators are reselling products they get from other entrepreneurs who sell them the produce, honey, and other goods. There’s a group of people here who have roadside stands with signs spray painted by hand to look like mom and pop DIY operations, which tricks people until they realize those exact signs are in 100s of locations across the state. It’s just another business preying on people’s lack of trust in institutions but implicit trust in anything that feels mom and pop, just like your comment implies.
pfortuny|1 year ago
c2h5oh|1 year ago
deadbabe|1 year ago
UniverseHacker|1 year ago
Spivak|1 year ago
randomcarbloke|1 year ago
>said the UK should require importers to label the country of origin on all honey, including blends
It actually does require that, it must specify country of origin and whether it is a blend, if it's a blend then it contains syrup and possibly antibiotics.
Buy single origin which in europe is certainly available, in the UK avoid anything that has the line "a blend of EU and non-EU honey", you should be buying UK honey anyway if you're UK-based, it is better and not blended (except where fraud has been committed as in the article).
bud_davis|1 year ago
Most of the honey is in canning jars, with a home printed label. The claim is it is sourced locally, and there are significant variations in color and taste over the year.
Is he scamming me and buying fake honey on Amazon and re-packaging it to look artisinal? Maybe. But I am convinced it is the real deal.
bpodgursky|1 year ago
elorant|1 year ago
bena|1 year ago
doctorpangloss|1 year ago
Can people see and taste the differences between (a) sugar syrup and (b) dehydrated flower nectar and liquid sugars? Certainly in the case of small scale harvesting in a traditional hive: it will be have ground up comb, dead bee parts and gas that, in my opinion, adds little.
Sometimes bees get into stuff like a cherry syrup factory and they barf out blue food coloring into the cells which dehydrate and become blue honey, which you can also see.
Do people physiologically interact with something in the honey other than its sugar? Like is there something missing from sugar syrup? One clinically proven difference is that honey is an effective antibiotic on wounds whereas sugar syrup is not. Of course besides antibiotics in the honey, the bee barfs out other stuff that gets in there that can affect the development of bees, and trace amounts of pollen and bee poop get in it too, but I don’t think any of that interacts with us.
It’s a complex problem. You can easily read more about it, bees are well studied animals. For most culinary purposes you don’t want weird solids, moisture, gas and contaminants like that, so industrial honey suits people better anyway. But if you are applying it to a wound you want bee produced honey without comb, which readily exists in the medical supply chain. It is not accurate to say that the small town seller is the only source, or even the best source, of “real honey.”
unknown|1 year ago
[deleted]
lttlrck|1 year ago
zug_zug|1 year ago
Should you fail (illegal pesticides, ingredients differ than label, too much lead, whatever) then you lose your deposit, all profits made that year on that product, and go through a process of re-earning the right to sell that product.
For small local brands I'd exempt them until the economics became viable.
foolfoolz|1 year ago
what you’re looking for is deeper analysis than nutrition labels. this is actually something small local brands start with. they pay for private “certifications” like organic, non gmo, etc.
akira2501|1 year ago
Why would they suddenly become viable? The only way that would happen is if the price of the product is increased to cover the costs of what you're proposing. This will destroy small suppliers and increase the cost of everything to cover a set of risks that you haven't even fully characterized yet.
JumpCrisscross|1 year ago
Why don't we see more private enforcement? Class action lawsuits against fraudulent producers and distributors?
move-on-by|1 year ago
Michelangelo11|1 year ago
Aurornis|1 year ago
This stuff sticks out because it’s getting caught and called out. There was a time when information spread slowly, tracking supply chains was basically impossible, and many businesses would do shady things because they knew they were unlikely to get caught.
Now we can sample things like honey with lab equipment that is basically magic compared to technology 50 years ago, so these things are getting caught. We also have the internet to share stories, so they’re getting seen.
So while people are becoming more aware, I think these things are actually better than in the past.
Rygian|1 year ago
akira2501|1 year ago
What you may actually be witnessing is a low awareness society turn into a high awareness one. What is being highlighted is you never should have had that trust in the first place.
thwarted|1 year ago
cortesoft|1 year ago
dannyobrien|1 year ago
lijok|1 year ago
Fixed that for you.
readthenotes1|1 year ago
slackerIII|1 year ago
thih9|1 year ago
m104|1 year ago
1123581321|1 year ago
layer8|1 year ago
Kapura|1 year ago
syndicatedjelly|1 year ago
hackernewds|1 year ago
CamperBob2|1 year ago
DennisP|1 year ago
hn_throwaway_99|1 year ago
johnea|1 year ago
This is a purely subjective process. Different people like different things.
Honey is as varied as the forage that it's produced from.
This whole process of determining a "We're #1" is just a symptom of the autistic ape.
pentamassiv|1 year ago
29athrowaway|1 year ago
Isamu|1 year ago
andrewclunn|1 year ago
cbzbc|1 year ago
Sharlin|1 year ago
fsckboy|1 year ago
the mistaken belief is that there is something special about natural honey. people: it's sugar syrup, it'll give you diabetes as fast as a truckload of mountain dew.
Now, I don't believe in homeopathy, perhaps you do. But that's what the honey cult is, homeopathic. What the govt should allow is the sale of labelled fake honeys, it would be dirt cheap and would taste indetectably different, i.e every bit as good, and no more unhealthy.
(if you don't like the viscosity of your sugar syrup, change the %age of water. if you want it to crystalize, dry it out. it's rock candy, not magic)
laxk|1 year ago
Just facts [0]:
- honey contains antioxidants, amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and vitamins and minerals, such as Thiamin, riboflavin, pyridoxin, vitamin A, niacin, panthothenic acid, phyllochinon, vitamin E, and vitamin C
- honey also has been successfully used for wound and burn healing. (If you grab a frying pan or burn your hand/skin, apply honey, there will be no blisters or peeling skin.)
- honey consumption reduces risk factors of cardiovascular diseases
[0] https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/the-sweet-science-behind-honey...
crazygringo|1 year ago
That's factually incorrect. First of all, obviously it has tons of extra flavor, which indicates a whole range of additional chemical compounds.
> But that's what the honey cult is, homeopathic.
Honey has scientifically proven antibiotic properties [1].
> adulterated honey is difficult to detect
I don't know what you mean by "difficult", but it can certainly be detected [2]. And it can be observed how the antimicrobial properties diminish as adulteration increases.
Now, does this mean honey has health benefits when you eat it? Not necessarily. The antibiotic properties have traditionally been utilized when applying honey on top of a wound to prevent infection -- not by eating it.
You may very well be right that consuming honey isn't any different from consuming HFCS. But it does have a lot of additional chemical compounds in it (as the antibiotic properties demonstrate), so the best answer is that we really don't know.
In any case, it is demonstrably not "just sugar syrup". But yes, you're probably correct that it will give you diabetes just as fast as Mountain Dew.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey#Antibiotic
[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37107465/
sitharus|1 year ago
In addition to flavour compounds from the nectar, honey contains trace amino acids that cause it to slowly undergo the malliard reaction at room temperature, resulting in a caramel undertone that increases as the honey ages.
The flavour also strongly depends on the nectar, with some being very subtle and resulting in a very syrup-like honey, and others being extremely strong.
Other than flavour, and some anti-microbial properties, it has the same dietary properties as sugar syrup.
baobabKoodaa|1 year ago
khushy|1 year ago
[deleted]
domofutu|1 year ago
bluGill|1 year ago
ljf|1 year ago
thg|1 year ago