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Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

theguardian.com

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Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#231

Post by throwaway2037 »

portaouflop wrote: post #221
throwaway2037 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do consumers think honey is a special food deserving to spend so much money upon it? I never understand it. Also, I am no doubting this specific Forbes-hosted blog (as I call them), but reader beware. I don't think there is any editorial guidance from the main publishing house. You see all kinds of dubious crap posted on that platform! In the last year or so, HN front page now specifically distinguished blog post…

Honey is a special food and one of the key ingredients for modern civilisation

   > one of the key ingredients for modern civilisation
I tried to Google about this but I could not find anything scientific. Lots of of pseudo-science, however. Can you explain more? Essentially, honey is sugar, an inessential part of the human diet. What am I missing?

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#232

Post by throwaway2037 »

solumunus wrote: post #224
throwaway2037 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I don't care about "olive oil fraud" from/within the EU. As long as the final country that bottles it is responsible for food safety, then I am OK with it. Seriously, if you told me that tomatoes were mislabelled from Portugal instead of Spain, I would not care. What are the tangible drawbacks for consumers of mislabelled olive oil from EU?

You’re overpaying for poor quality products. Quite simple.

So, if olive oil from Portugal is imported to Italy and bottled and mislabelled as from Italy, this makes it automatically lower quality? This is the kind of virtue signalling bullshit that I reject on HN.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#233

Post by fsckboy »

sitharus wrote: post #207
fsckboy wrote: post #83

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 c…

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…

>If you think the taste of honey is indistinguishable from sugar syrup...

you have completely missed the plot, it's sad.

I'm not talking about what I think of the taste of honey. I'm simply reading (with comprehension) TFA (and many similar articles over the past 30 years) that say that the honey market is filled with adulteration and it's difficult to control because there are few ways to tell the difference. The world's biggest experts on honey say this, not me.

I'm just pointing out what they say to you because you can't read.

You seriously seem to believe that industry experts have to cancel international events because you can taste honey and they can't.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#234

Post by dghlsakjg »

yumraj wrote: post #228
dghlsakjg wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crystallization isn’t an indicator of fake or low quality honey. We have had wildflower honey crystallize in the honeycomb when we left it in the garage over winter. It can be decrystallized easily with gentle heat. I put our jars in a water bath in a pot and leave it over a low setting for about an hour until it is good. The water never gets over 125 or so, which should be fine.

I had meant the other way, that it crystallizes so if it means that it’s a good honey.

There are a number of things that can affect crystallization; Storage conditions, filtering, what the bees foraged, etc.

There are some genuine honeys which rarely crystalize.

Afaik (as an amateur beekeeper), it is not a good indicator of anything in particular, there are even reports of adulterated honey crystallizing. This make sense, since honey and fake honey are both a supersaturated solution of sugars that will gladly crystalize if given an opportunity.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#235

Post by collingreen »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #232
solumunus wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re overpaying for poor quality products. Quite simple.

So, if olive oil from Portugal is imported to Italy and bottled and mislabelled as from Italy, this makes it automatically lower quality? This is the kind of virtue signalling bullshit that I reject on HN.

It sounds like you're trying to be angry. I don't see any virtue signaling here except some "holier than thou" from the tone in your comment.

Nobody is claiming that a label magically changes the quality. The comments above are claiming that olive oil from some regions fetch a higher price in the market, ostensibly for good reasons, and that taking something else and claiming it is from that region is fraud. I'm surprised that feels controversial.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#236

Post by tharkun__ »

sitharus wrote: post #202
colechristensen wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 90s percent of honey is fructose, glucose, and water. A very high 90s percent of corn syrup is fructose, glucose, and water. Getting the ratios the same is trivial. There is nothing magical about fructose or glucose from different sources, they’re exactly the same simple molecule. If you had very clean corn syrup, you could undetectably dilute honey and it would be quite the same. Lab tests being what they are thes…

Take a holiday to New Zealand and try honey here. It’s definitely not adulterated because we don’t allow any honey imports. Try clover, Rewarewa, Manuka, and multiflora, you can taste a clear difference between each. Of course they’ll likely be creamed honey rather than pourable, but that’s just a preference.

Oh absolutely, real honey has flavor differences en masse!

The worst we ever tried was pure Buckwheat honey. Very distinct. Sorta "refreshingly different" the first time you try it. For us personally, after that: toss.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#237

Post by throwaway2037 »

collingreen wrote: post #235
throwaway2037 wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if olive oil from Portugal is imported to Italy and bottled and mislabelled as from Italy, this makes it automatically lower quality? This is the kind of virtue signalling bullshit that I reject on HN.

It sounds like you're trying to be angry. I don't see any virtue signaling here except some "holier than thou" from the tone in your comment. Nobody is claiming that a label magically changes the quality. The comments above are claiming that olive oil from some regions fetch a higher price in the market, ostensibly for good reasons, and that taking something else and claiming it is from that region is fraud. I'm surp…

    > ostensibly for good reasons
Can you name some of these reasons?

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#238

Post by collingreen »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #237
collingreen wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're trying to be angry. I don't see any virtue signaling here except some "holier than thou" from the tone in your comment. Nobody is claiming that a label magically changes the quality. The comments above are claiming that olive oil from some regions fetch a higher price in the market, ostensibly for good reasons, and that taking something else and claiming it is from that region is fraud. I'm surp…

> ostensibly for good reasons Can you name some of these reasons?

I have no expertise in regional honey or olive oil or any of the other often-counterfeited things but I assume it is something like wine where the region implies terroir, relevant policies/regulations, and long histories of expertise/techniques. For example, I have heard honey is majorly impacted by the regional flowers around where it is produced.

I personally wouldn't know Italian olive oil from Greek from rancid American garbage but if people think they do and they are trying to buy something in particular then ideally they aren't mislead about that.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#239

Post by solumunus »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #232
solumunus wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re overpaying for poor quality products. Quite simple.

So, if olive oil from Portugal is imported to Italy and bottled and mislabelled as from Italy, this makes it automatically lower quality? This is the kind of virtue signalling bullshit that I reject on HN.

If something like this is done it’s done to save cost, which almost always correlates with quality.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#240

Post by portaouflop »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #231
portaouflop wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honey is a special food and one of the key ingredients for modern civilisation

> one of the key ingredients for modern civilisation I tried to Google about this but I could not find anything scientific. Lots of of pseudo-science, however. Can you explain more? Essentially, honey is sugar, an inessential part of the human diet. What am I missing?

Without bees agriculture is not possible. Without agriculture modern civilisation would not exist.
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