18 replies to this topic

[FrogPrincesse]

An article in Food Safety News raises concerns about the safety of Chinese honey and explains how it is making its way into mislabeled US honey.

Will you be throwing out your bottle of Suebee honey after reading this article?

[DanM]

Yet another reason to buy honey from local sources.

[Jenni]

Concering for those of us in India though...

[Norm Matthews]

I need to wear my glasses. I thought the heading was adultery and honey.

[Lisa Shock]

I have always preferred the flavor of raw, small producer honeys and that's all I have purchased since the 1980's. I miss Questa honey from New Mexico something awful.

[Pierogi]

No "commercial" honey for me either. And like most things, I read the label before it goes into my shopping cart (its a real PITA to keep my reading glasses out while I'm shopping, but hey....). The last honey I got was truly local, it came from my CSA, who'd sourced it through a SoCal producer harvesting sage blossom honey from about a 50-mile radius from me. The flavor is staggeringly good.

[Norm Matthews]

I always get a years supply of honey from a bee keeper who lives about 3 miles from here.

[heidih]

Count me in the group that only purchases from local beekeepers. We kept bees when I was a teen and from a taste perspective there is no going back. When the kids are selling their honey on the corner I brake hard. It is also nice to chat about the location of the hives and the various plants they are likely collecting from, and to know that they do not use pesticides. I believe the bees travel about a mile radius to collect (given that there are lots of flowers), so the fact that they know what their neighbors are up too is also nice. It has been incredibly rough lately for beekeepers but I am encouraged by all the buzzing I hear outside.

[Jenni]

A close-family-friend-who-is-basically-a-relative of mine in the UK makes honey, so in the UK it was kind of easy to get lovely local honey! But I'm being serious, looks pretty crappy now I'm in India. It's a shame, because honey is certainly quite popular and also is specifically used in traditional Indian medicine.

It's actually interesting to me because the traditional wisdom of India says that honey should not be heated and makes a big fuss of how to consume it for health benefits. This news is a real shame.

[annabelle]

I am friends with a couple who have an apiary, so we buy from them. Hubby has allergies and local honey is supposed to be good for that. It doesn't hurt that the honey is delicious and cheap! Ten dollars a quart for us.

[OliverB]

I almost only buy local honey, unless I need a large amount of it for something (a rare thing, as I don't make much sweet stuff). I buy it at the farmer's market. It's expensive (quite) but at the rate I use it it really makes no difference to me. It tastes great and it's local, which is always fun :-)

I never bought the cheap stuff though, even before. I bought some - at least by what's written on the label - good small area source honey. But since we have the honey guys (2 actually) at our market, I just buy it there. And a friend is probably getting bees soon, then I'll probably get it there :-) Or get my own bees, which I'd love to do, but can't, since I tend to leave the country for 4 weeks at a time in summer.....

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've kept bees, and I always buy local honey from small producers. I don't know if inspection has inproved, but it used to be considered that the commercial producers would boost yield by feeding the bees sugar water. I don't know if that still goes on, but it would explain why commercial honey is so bland.

[andiesenji]

I buy local honey. I know folks who live in Hollywood and the San Fernando Valley who drive up to Acton to buy their honey at Blum Ranch.
I often drive down there but I can also buy their product at a local store.

The quality is excellent. (They also grow some fantastic peaches.)

[Brasshopper]

I live in the middle of orange groves so I can get all the beeswax and honey locally I want to.

What I find hard to imagine is that artificial sweeteners can't be detected. Far as I'm concerned, they could sample some sue bee at a supermarket and when they find lead, recall the whole lot or more. Some of those things are hard to test for, like the pollen dna, but things like heavy metals have to be easy to test for, relatively.

[Brasshopper]

I have a friend who works in food safety in NY State. "In NY state we are on it investigating. Our lab can run tests for presence of antibiotics, presence of lead, and standard of identity (what % of it is really honey)"

If they come up with anything I'll ask to be kept posted and I'll relay to here. But if NY State finds problems, they will be able to cite and to get the feds involved, maybe. In any case, their labs can provide evidence if needed.

[FrogPrincesse]

Yet another reason to buy honey from local sources.

Local is definitely the way to go. But a couple of weeks ago I had no honey left in the house and no time to go to the farmers' market, so I picked up a bottle of "American honey" from my local grocery store. I threw it out after ready this article.

This morning, another article (twitted by Bittman) goes on to explain that the vast majority of honey in grocery stores isn't technically honey since its pollen has been ultrafiltered out. The practice is most likely used to hide the honey's origin. As expected, honey bought at farmers' market does not have this issue, nor did honey from "natural" stores such as Trader Joe's.

[budrichard]

Local, only way to go. We haven't purchased honey in a store in decades.-Dick

[janeer]

I was just about to post a link to this article. I too buy local honey--and frequently bring honey back from travels--but I think the magnitude of the problem documented in the article should not go un-noted, whether it affects us personally or not. One wonders, what else?

[budrichard]

I was just about to post a link to this article. I too buy local honey--and frequently bring honey back from travels--but I think the magnitude of the problem documented in the article should not go un-noted, whether it affects us personally or not. One wonders, what else?

Your question "what else?" is certainly valid.
I purchase no substantial food items from China and I try to purchase condiments from Taiwan.
There are craw fish, rabbits, many types of fish for sale in the USA labeled Product of China of which i purchase none .
I regard China as the equivalent of the USSR in the mid 20th Century, completely without Regulation and any sense of concern for the well being of individuals.-Dick