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Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn’t Honey

144K views 557 replies 46 participants last post by  John Smith 
#1 ·
I've found this article just recently, and many facts surprised me.

For example:
"•76 percent of samples bought at groceries had all the pollen removed, These were stores like TOP Food, Safeway, Giant Eagle, QFC, Kroger, Metro Market, Harris Teeter, A&P, Stop & Shop and King Soopers.

•100 percent of the honey sampled from drugstores like Walgreens, Rite-Aid and CVS Pharmacy had no pollen.

•77 percent of the honey sampled from big box stores like Costco, Sam’s Club, Walmart, Target and H-E-B had the pollen filtered out.

•100 percent of the honey packaged in the small individual service portions from Smucker, McDonald’s and KFC had the pollen removed. "

From: http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/11/tests-show-most-store-honey-isnt-honey/#.UQ1sbh3m1n5


Boris Romanov
 
#447 ·
There is a wealth of great info on here and a really deep pool of beekeeping experience. Select your topic, you will soon learn who knows of what they post and who just loves to post.
 
#457 ·
You know how you can stand between two mirrors facing each other and see the reflection getting smaller and smaller and presumably never ending. Just the same unchanging image over and over and over and over getting smaller and smaller and smaller.........................
 
#461 · (Edited)
Hi Boris.

You can have your opinion about how honey should be sold. That is totally fine. I wish you the best selling your product your way. You can even lobby to change the laws and standards. All fine.


The USDA calls my product Honey. The United Sates District Court of Northern California has ruled in September and January that my product is honey. The burden falls on you to change the system. You could get the definition changed. It looks like that has to be done at the federal level. Until then, please understand I have every legal right to call it "honey".

These legal cases are a hoot to read. Please keep posting any lawsuits that are pending. I've learned a lot. It's nice to catch up on Current news.
 
#466 ·
...The USDA calls my product Honey. ... You could get the definition changed. It looks like that has to be done at the federal level. Until then, please understand I have every legal right to call it "honey".
I am not sure, it is true that USDA called your product honey. Based on my reading of the law suits, US courts (4 out of 5) permitted to call your product "honey" because FDA have no definition what is honey. In US, Federal law prevails over local.
 
#474 ·
Wait. Hold on a minute. You eat ketchup, Boris? You worry about pollen counts and preservation of enzymes and possible contamination with HFCS in the honey you buy, and then you're buying that processed olio of ingredients known as "ketchup" that is commonly used to conceal a multitude of sins when it's used as a condiment on other processed foods?
 
#475 ·
Actually Kieck, I believe that Boris wrote that he doesn't buy honey. I don't know what his beef is. Maybe he feels the same way about beef that he does about honey. I sure hope that it isn't just honey that he is so radically adiment about. But that's what happens. People get on a jag about one thing and then they smoke and drink and drive fast and all sorts of other things. But, darn it, honey has to be what I say it is or it isn't really honey. Give me a break.
 
#480 · (Edited)
The very specific question was raised by squarepeg

Ian's reply "...So even if a neighbouring bee yard was robbing a neighbouring yards pail spills, that syrup will be going into the nest, not into the supers" looked very funny to me. It's very interesting to see how bees were trained to do this...

To reply to squarepeg I posted some additional info in the post# 467

Mark posted his comments on it voluntarily, therefore I asked him to reply to my post.

Mark's failure to answer to my post #471 and his capitulation is a type of the answers too...
 
#484 ·
Reminder - no answers to your questions without real proofs that you are a beekeeper, who has LIVE bees... -Boris
By your same logic, you've never offered proof that you have "LIVE" bees, either, Boris.

And, by that same logic, you haven't demonstrated any evidence that you are a processor and canner of tomatoes, yet you're offering opinions on ketchup.

Seriously, I did send you everything you need to verify that I have bees. I sent you the links to the location and registration maps for the state is South Dakota along with my name. I sent you the phone number of the state apiarist here and told you to contact him and verify that I have bees. And I posted in this thread that I had done so. Your failure to verify this for yourself looks very poorly for your ability to fact check, I think.

I also invited you to come visit and witness my apiaries for yourself. When can I expect you, Boris?
 
#487 ·
Well, I've read almost 500 posts and feel quite a bit dumber than when I started, but despite this, I still have a couple of questions.

Is anyone concerned that the relative lack of standards in American honey may be a source of consumer disillusionment at some point? Could it end up hurting American producers if folks come to believe that there's no way they can know where their honey was produced, and under what management and processing procedures?

I understand that in a number of other first-world countries, it is is illegal to sell honey which has had the pollen removed. I wonder if some forum members from these countries would be willing to chime in and say what, if any, problems these regulations have caused producers.

I guess I'm asking if there is a severe downside to being able to confirm where and how honey was produced? I guess consumers would have to be re-educated to accept lesser clarity, but maybe that wouldn't be impossible. I have to say that the raw honey I've tried is almost always a lot better tasting than the commodity honey I used to buy at the supermarket.
 
#488 ·
Frankly, I think that it is not the function of government to tell us what honey is.
Further, I believe that market pressure is sufficient to police inferior products - that when a consumer compares one product to the other only products that provide adequate value for their money will be repurchased.

I think we have been depending too much on Big Brother to tell us what we produce, and been too lax in our marketing if consumers can't tell what real honey is.

A superior product properly priced to reflect it's value will always sell better than an inferior fraudulent one priced as if it were good, so long as that superior product is properly marketed.

If a consumer can but once be induced to try real honey, he will never be satisfied by a diluted imitation.

Let's solve our own problems through quality product and marketing.
The government is no good at solving problems anyway, they usually just make them worse.

And let us not presume that just because the government says a thing, that their saying so makes it true, as in "If it doesn't have pollen, it is not honey."

We all know what honey is, and we all know that pollen isn't honey.

And honey with pollen filtered out is honey with the pollen filtered out, not something else.

Let consumers decide if they are satisfied with that junk, and let us produce such good honey that we make sure they're not!
 
#489 · (Edited)
I love "commodity honey"!
As for the lack of standards, US is ahead of many "first-world countries" - I find it very disturbing that US standards related to health (if any) often 10x worse that European or Japanese. In many cases, the standards just do not exist as for honey. It seems to me, the interests of big companies prevail in US policies. As I explained in my previous post - since there is no regulation on honey and honey is commodity without a standard, I will recommend to my friends, family etc. do not purchase the product labeled just "Honey", because it may be anything. I will also provide free of charge the whole, raw, unheated, 102% edit: "organic" honey from my beehives in Santa Monica to all my friends and family.
 
#494 · (Edited)
... I will recommend to my friends, family etc. do not purchase the product labeled just "Honey", because it may be anything...
In my opinion a situation on the honey market is getting worse.
During my last visit to the local ShopRite superstore, I have seen some products from ShopRite and BeeMaid that were labeled as Honey without mentioning/indication of the floral source of the nectar.

Formally, it's legal: " The name of a plant or blossom may be used if it is the primary floral source for the honey."
http://www.honey.com/honey-industry...labeling/?/nhb/industry/labeling-information/

But many years ago I did not see "unknown" Honey in my local stores.
And a truthful solution is very simple. For example, my honey labeled as Wild Flower Honey.
http://www.beebehavior.com/bees_and_flowers.php

Boris Romanov
 
#490 ·
I have to admit that I'm often dubious about the government when it comes offering help. But I think there's a place for regulation, too. If there was no regulation at all, what would prevent a canny businessperson from selling flavored and colored syrup as honey? It might not be very tasty, but it would to some extent diminish the ability of legitimate producers to sell real honey. I guess the best thing to hope for is that regulation strikes some sort of happy medium between too much and not enough. That's why I was wondering how producers in other countries that require honey to have pollen think that policy has worked out.

In looking into this further, there was a weird EU court case that ruled that GMO pollen in honey rendered it unsalable... but that seems to be yielding to common sense now.

How did you feel about the tariffs placed on Chinese honey? Was that a legitimate use of government power?

BTW, I spent the first couple years of my life in Elmira, where my grandfather was a sideline beekeeper. He's been gone fifty years, so I doubt you'd have known him, but he was a great man.
 
#491 ·
Tariffs on foreign goods in general, and dubious ones in particular are:
1) good for the economy in general, and give consumers motivation to buy goods produced here, and
2) one of the few legitimate means of the federal government to raise revenue.
Before property and income taxes, tariffs were the primary revenue source...and there were times when they had a budget problem: what to do with the surplus revenue.

If you want to discuss political things, though, probably ought to PM or pick up the conv on the Coffee Klatch forum, I expect :)
 
#492 ·
"Is anyone concerned that the relative lack of standards in American honey may be a source of consumer disillusionment at some point? "

I posted this experience elsewhere on besource..

We had a bunch of US students staying here in January for a few days. Many purchased honey from me ( with pollen, I may add) to take home and commented that they never tasted honey of this quality at home. Most would not have access to a beekeeper and the stuff they buy at super markets maybe simply not good enough to turn these young people onto honey?
 
#493 ·
Is anyone concerned that the relative lack of standards in American honey may be a source of consumer disillusionment at some point? Could it end up hurting American producers if folks come to believe that there's no way they can know where their honey was produced, and under what management and processing procedures? -rhaldridge
Finally. Good questions, rhaldridge. Important questions, I think.

As far as a lack of standards, I believe the standards are in place. Just within the U. S., these standards have been set up the USDA:

http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getf...STELDEV3011895

When was the last time you saw "U. S. Grade A Light Amber Honey" labeled and offered for sale as such? The failure, I think, is not on the part of the standards. The failure is on the marketing side to market honey clearly labeled to those standards. Nothing prevents honey packers from putting such labels on their products.

To take it a step further, if you chose to differentiate your honey in the marketplace by labeling it (just as an example): "U. S. Grade A Honey, Dark Amber, Extracted, Unfiltered, Unheated," I see no reason that you couldn't.

Of course, I doubt many packers would want to label their honey to the grade standards if their product is even U. S. Grade B. Similar grades are used for other products. How often do you see Grade B cheese in grocery stores? How often do you see Grade B eggs labeled as such? The immediate perception in the minds of buyers is "Grade A is better than Grade B."

As far as labeling for where honey is produced, I see a real marketing advantage in doing just that. "Locavore" movements are catching on. Any number of people seem to want food produced nearby, for various reasons. The point here, I think, is that labeling of this sort shouldn't have to be legislated.

I understand that in a number of other first-world countries, it is is illegal to sell honey which has had the pollen removed. -rhaldridge
The U. N. has standards for honey, found here (and, like the USDA standards, linked in posts earlier in this thread): http://www.codexalimentarius.org/inp...0/cxs_012e.pdf.

How and where enforcement occurs, I'm not sure. But the standards are in place.

The problem that comes with deliberately removing pollen is that it removes the evidence of where that honey was produced. However, as has been pointed out already in this thread, pollen is really a contaminant in honey, both from pollen introduced environmentally in the hive and pollen introduced in to the honey through the extraction process. And some honeys may naturally have not pollen (i. e., honeydew honey).

In some instances, honey is ultra filtered to remove antibiotic and pesticide residues, and the pollen obviously is removed at the same time. My guess is that if honey that was handled in this fashion was required to be labeled as such, at least some consumers might even seek it out. "Ultrafiltered" carries a connotation in the minds of quite a few people that it must be better. "Ultrafiltered" sounds like an improvement over "filtered," doesn't it?

Many purchased honey from me ( with pollen, I may add) to take home and commented that they never tasted honey of this quality at home. -max2
Possibly. Or possibly they tried a food that they simply had never chosen to purchase in the past. I've watched enough people shopping in grocery stores to believe that few people really consider the quality of various items. If it's displayed prominently and labeled attractively, and if the product is an item that the person has consumed in the past, a grocery item needs to quality statement to appeal to consumers, I think. Look at any number of items. Processed cheeses sell well. Artificial pancake syrups sell well. White bread sells well. Any number of other items could be listed similarly.

And, in the U. S., much more honey is consumed than is produced domestically.
 
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