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Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

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51–60 of 63 posts

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#51
post #14

I'd love to see buckwheat honey in the US. It's dark brown, and it's much tastier than "regular" honey IMO.

My grandfather was a beekeeper in Montana and swore by spotted napweed honey. Of course spotted napweed is invasive and should be ripped out when found outside of its native Europe.

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

buckwheat honey could be an acquired taste for some. i love it. it's definitely available. buckwheat is a summer cover crop. that means the (good) beekeepers would allow the bees to keep some for their own food for fall/winter feeding. also...dont know a lot of people who summer cover crop anymore. i guess its definitely niche, but certainly available in the usa. i cant control where my bees go foraging. so i just la…

Buckwheat is grown as a grain crop in some parts of the US and Canada.

Excellent grain as well, cooked in a rice cooker.

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#53
post #23

> Manuka is a versatile sugar substitute that’s lower on the glycemic index,” he says. “It won’t spike your blood sugar levels immediately in the way white sugar does.” The sugar in honey is roughly a 50/50 mix of glucose and fructose, there is nothing metabolically special about the sugar. Fructose has a lower glycemic index because it is metabolized first into triglycerides- it may be better for diabetics in some c…

I like to think of it as wine vs vodka. Both have alcohol, but wine is somewhat better for you due to polyphenols

There is little evidence for wine being better than other alcoholic drinks. For example, see https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-red-wine-good-actuall... Most of the claimed benefits are either from observational studies or on rats etc.

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will trade manuka for maple syrup.

I've read that Canadian maple syrup is the cure for post-election-anxiety . At least that's how I figure we should market it to our friends down south!

> Canadian maple syrup is the cure for post-election-anxiety.

It's been working wonders for me :-)

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#55
post #11

I grew up in NZ and find it hilarious when I see a tub of manuka honey in a supermarket in the US. This is the most genius marketing ripoff of all time. Most honey you could buy in NZ back then was either clover honey or manuka honey, it cost about $3 for the same amount, and there was nothing special about manuka honey. Manuka is just teatree, by the way. And all honey has the same antimicrobial properties -- it has…

Exactly, manuka honey was always just ordinary honey in NZ! It's like this article is from an alternate reality or something.

[deleted]

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#56
post #2

A very partisan write up. I love NZ honey and make a point of buying a particular NZ manuka honey (arataki) when I see it, but the Australian manuka honey is not "cashing in" on the NZ trade, it has existed for decades and medicinal honey for tropical ulcer treatment has existed for decades in Australia. The decision to award DOC classification was itself a "cashing in" move despite manuka being patently a semi gener…

> NZ manuka honey is now also riven by violent gang crime cashing in on the huge profits. Hive stealing is a thing. I'd like to see a proof of that. The industry is very consolidated with a few dominant players and a lot of small beekeepers who happened to have manuka on their private land. It went through a boom, prices crashed and most unsavory operators moved on. There may be some opportunistic hive stealing, but…

Anecdotally, (as in, what I hear on the local grapevine) it's still going on. Intimidation, hive destruction etc.

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#57
post #32

I'm going to make so much money with my 'Scalable Manuka CBD Blockchain Honey'

Honey is one of the most adulterated foods. Honey blockchain is probably not a bad idea.

Fun fact, there's more "NZ manuka" honey sold annually in the UK alone than is actually produced in NZ.

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#58

I had an interesting chat with John McDermott at the IoT meetup in Auckland last week. He said that honey is one of the most difficult markets for IoT. What's so hard about it? Connectivity isn't great in NZ - there's no phone signal in the remote places where beehives are common. Artisan beekeepers don't care about analytics to increase their yield; they're just doing it for fun (sometimes after retiring from other…

I wonder if you could put a hacked touchscreen digitizer on the bottom of a hive and count varroa mite fall etc

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#59
The equivalent of Manuka honey in the Middle East and Northern Africa regions is Sidr honey. Sidr or Lote tree is very popular and revered in the regions because the tree is mentioned in both Bible and Quran:

https://www.pashaintl.com/blogs/blog/sidr-honey-vs-manuka-ho...

Re: Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

#60
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, manuka honey was always just ordinary honey in NZ! It's like this article is from an alternate reality or something.

Older beekeepers in NZ will tell you that until the late 1990s/early 00s, it wasn't even considered commercially viable and was only suitable as winter feed for bees, because all anybody wanted to buy was clover. There was not much space in the market for darker honeys from the NZ bush and scragglier hill country. This fit perfectly with the mindset of thousands of NZ farmers, who were diligently clearing the mānuka…

Not only was there not much market from it it is also quite difficult to extract.
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