
Fancy honey might not actually be honey - elorant
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/884kq4/your-fancy-honey-might-not-actually-be-honey
======
predictmktegirl
I'm not sure globalization is very effective for economic growth when we're
unable to enforce consistent rule-sets. If that growth is just regulatory
arbitrage, we're only exchanging capital for fragile optimizations instead of
production efficiency. Things seemed to be working pretty well when countries
made good-faith efforts to not undermine the rules for local maximization. New
actors have since entered the system who don't seem to mind playing the game
exploitatatively even if it destabilizes the long-term equilibrium.
Ironically, these players are often described as having "multi-generational
thinking" but I won't name names.

To normalize the playing field, investments are needed to fund port-of-entry
enforcement, quality control, and authenticity, among other things. Tariffs
are the most sensible tax to fund these kinds of expenditures, which brings us
back to square one. In fact, I think tariffs are probably a good quantitative
measure of how egregiously another country violates it's trading partner's
standards at the margins.

------
yborg
Another downside of globalization, it has become cheap and easy to move food
items across the world, so Vietnamese sugar syrup can be sold here as "honey"
and it becomes a race to the bottom - actual honey producers either go out of
business or have to do the same thing. Then a free trade advocate will point
to how much the consumer price of "honey" has declined to show how well it
works.

This should be straight up regulated, the FDA apparently has no source origin
or testing requirements for honey, unless someone actually is sickened by a
batch it's all caveat emptor and this stuff is all labeled "raw", "pure" or
even "organic" and it takes an NMR machine to know differently.

I do find it surprising that the one sample out of four that wasn't obviously
adulterated was the brand from Wal-Mart.

~~~
radicalbyte
Balsamico, Cider and Pine Nuts suffer from this problem.

The Balsamico you see in the supermarket is red wine vinegar with added sugar
and flavourings. The real stuff it fermented, it's closer to whisky than
vinegar.

Cider should be made from pulped apples, sadly it is all too common for it to
be made from commercial apple syrups. These are ultra-processed mixes of sugar
from various apples. The production process removes the aromatics, so those
have to be re-added.

Chinese pine-nuts are far more common than the real Italian pine nuts. They
taste nothing like the real thing because they come from a different species
of tree.

I've come to the conclusion that anything you buy at a supermarket or chain
store is basically fake rubbish. If you want the real thing you need to go
visit farm shops at the source.

~~~
msds
>visit farm shops

And come up with a good estimate for their production capacity vs sales...

~~~
jbay808
You know, I'd rather live in a world where the supermarkets are well stocked
with product that anyone can afford, but where it's still accurately labeled
as "cider-like product" instead of cider, "honey-like syrup" instead of honey,
and "frozen dairy dessert" instead of ice cream.

Because the genuine article isn't always cheap to make, but it shouldn't have
to compete with imitation products that are disguising themselves as it with
no way for consumers to know the difference.

~~~
lobotryas
I used to laugh that Kraft singles were labeled as “cheese product” instead of
just, you know, cheese. Now I can appreciate Kraft for their “honesty” (even
if it may have been mandated by law). Still don’t buy their products, but I
don’t have a negative view of the brand. I’m sure there are things they are
actually good at/for.

------
rrauenza
And your olive oil might not be olive oil.

Our daughter is allergic to sunflower oil which is commonly used to adulterate
the olive oil. Chips supposedly made with olive oil will sometimes give her a
rash.

For bottled olive oil we try to buy local California olive oil...,

~~~
amlozano
I used to trust the California Olive Ranch brand for olive oil, but lately
noticed they started labeling their some of their bottles as imported and
accidentally bought some. It tastes fine, but if I recall correctly the
problems with olive oil usually come from imports where laws and regulation
rules change from country to country.

Luckily I live close to a real olive mill, but there really is no way to know.
Plus you have people arguing the vast majority of olive oil sold in the USA is
"authentic" for some measure of authentic, which is really hard to discern:
[https://www.aboutoliveoil.org/the-facts-about-uc-davis-
olive...](https://www.aboutoliveoil.org/the-facts-about-uc-davis-olive-
centers-olive-oil-report)

This feels like another one of those areas where as a consumer following the
research and knowing what products are good to buy is almost a full time job.

~~~
colanderman
FWIW, they were probably forced to import to meet demand due to the poor
California olive crop last year.

~~~
hoopleheaded
After I noticed the change I went to the website to see what it was about and
this is exactly what happened.

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airstrike
As an immigrant, I see most if not the entirety of the US food industry as a
deadly practical joke.

We're all stuffing our face with sugar, dairy, fatty red meat and processed
food and nobody really seems to care. Most of the so-called healthy
alternatives aren't healthy at all. Just look at what are called "protein
bars" at your local market and check how much sugar those have, to name one
example.

~~~
jniedrauer
> Just look at what are called "protein bars" at your local market and check
> how much sugar those have

Something to bear in mind here is that products designed for athletes won't be
healthy for people who aren't training at high volume. The metabolic pathway
for sugar is very different when taken during or after training.

~~~
airstrike
Sure, but Luna Bar Protein isn't designed for athletes...

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robbrown451
The problem, if it is even a problem, is that 99% of the reason we initially
sought out honey no longer exists. We liked it because it was the purest
source of sugar that was available. We didn't care that it happened to be bee
vomit flavored with a bit of plant sperm, or that we were exploiting the
reproductive strategies of flowering plants, we just wanted the sweet.

This is similar with maple syrup, which comes from sugar maple trees. We
sought it out for the sugar. Now that it is a really, really expensive way to
get sugar, we still love it. Nevermind that other trees produce very similar
flavors. Ever try birch tablets? They taste a lot like maple, probably just as
complex a flavor, but of course they need regular sugar to sweeten them
because birch trees make plenty of flavor, but not much in the way of sugar.
Still, we seek out pure maple syrup because of tradition.

Now that we have far cheaper and purer sources of sugar, we still want honey,
but again, more for traditional reasons than anything else. We try to convince
ourselves of the benefits, because we really want to keep these traditional
foods in our lives. And while we don't want it to be fake, we also can't
actually tell the difference if it is.

This just lends itself to fraud.

~~~
alecst
Well, I like honey because good honey tastes different from plain sugar.
Traveling in Greece I tasted some honeys that were unlike anything I had ever
tasted before, ranging from bitter, to floral, to earthy. It's the sweetness,
sure, but not only the sweetness.

~~~
robbrown451
I suspect you can get equal or better flavors elsewhere. If it comes from the
clover, couldn't you just get them from the flowers?

I'm not suggesting honey flavors have no benefit, but it just seems odd that
we have chosen those specific flavors as being tasty (honey and maple), when
their primary attraction was that they came with sugar which was otherwise
scarce (but no longer is).

~~~
lonelappde
But that's all flavor is. Yes it's an obsolete sense, but we are animals not
computers. We can't download a new taste program to change what we like.

~~~
robbrown451
Are you saying that desire for honey is hard wired into us? I believe that's
true for sugar, but not the additional flavors in honey.

Anyway, people buy fake honey simply because they think it is honey. So I
don't think it is the specific taste that you can only get from actual honey.

Most people these days buy fake maple syrup (since real is so expensive), and
tests have shown most can't tell the difference from real, and many prefer the
fake.

~~~
alecst
Rob I'm not disagreeing with your greater point but do you mind linking me to
some of these taste tests with maple syrup? I could only find one in a cursory
search online and it was between two people. Sorry to bug you!

------
ivanhoe
I only buy honey that has crystallized a bit. AFAIK only natural honey does
this. It's insane that people don't like this, so sellers are heating the
honey to stop the crystallization.

~~~
nkrisc
I have a jar of honey that stays a soft solid around room temp, sort of like
coconut oil does. I assume that's crystallized honey? Or maybe it was just
adulterated with coconut oil.

It comes in a wide-mouth jar so it's at least easy to scoop out.

~~~
rolph
honey can have natural source maltose and that will make a honey crystallize
like you describe. these are often sold as creamed or whipped honey, and are
often stirred to promote crystallization.

A honey lacking maltose will crystallize into large hard crystals that have to
be melted .

~~~
nkrisc
Ah, thank you. That will help me research it more.

~~~
rolph
check out these

[https://honeypedia.info/honey-ingredients-a-comprehensive-
li...](https://honeypedia.info/honey-ingredients-a-comprehensive-list)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey)

------
jerkstate
I grew up eating hyper-local honey (from my backyard) and the decline of
honeybees is a real tragedy. Luckily I still know folks in my area who keep
their own bees and my family can still get enough propolis and filtered honey
for now. To us, the health benefits of eating local raw honey seem legit. I
have never had allergies - my wife, who grew up in a big city and has terrible
springtime allergies, notably improves when she eats local propolis. It also
seems to improve sore throats and other minor illness discomfort (although
that could be the "Mary Poppins Effect," being a spoonful of sugar)

You can buy 10lbs-50lbs at a time and eat it over the course of years. So pay
attention to your local classifieds (craigslist, nextdoor, facebook) in late
summer and early fall, and buy honey as local as you can get.

------
uranium
While the adulteration problems appear to be real, this reporter goes out of
their way to exaggerate the problem. They diss Whole Foods honey for not being
raw, when it's...not labeled as raw. Whole Foods certainly does sell some
honey labeled as raw, but you pay more for it.

~~~
kevinpet
Headline: "might not actually be honey" Article: "adulterated" with no mention
of degree

It seems likely the whole article was a part of the strategy of the class
action lawsuits mentioned near the end. Extremely exaggerated rhetoric, little
in the way of verifiable claims.

------
StrangeDoctor
Did I miss something or is this article a bit light in details?

This testing organization claims 70% of honey they tested was adulterated in
some way after talking about the most egregious offenders, making you assume
it’s all just imported sugar filtered with hydrocarbons with a little honey
mixed in. But they also claim just heating up raw honey to make it easier to
work with is an offense according to their rules.

While I’m all for more transparency or standardization this feels a bit
submarine like.

------
jedberg
So you’re telling me the “crazy hippies” who demand to buy only local honey
from local farms were actually right? That it is actually better for you?

Guess I’ll have to start finding local honey.

~~~
dehrmann
> That it is actually better for you?

Nutritionally, honey isn't that different from sucrose, so no. It's like the
HFCS vs sucrose argument; they're basically the same, and you're still eating
sugar.

I do actually buy local farm honey, though. It's incredible how you can see
and taste difference in monofloral honey.

~~~
wyxuan
Mind explaining how it tastes different? I'm curious as to what the difference
is.

~~~
magicalhippo
Think of the difference between a Vienna sausage, bratwurst and chorizo.

Consistency, smell, flavor varies a lot, same for the honey depending on what
the bees "ate".

------
LargoLasskhyfv
Every time i'm reading something like this, i'm wondering where my f-ing
Tricorder from Star Trek is. What would it take to get the equivalent of mass
spectrometry into a miniaturized clip on module for a smartphone which you
could point at anything for a few seconds, and get the results on your app
just from the backscatter? I don't care about the means, just the results.

Oh, and not as something exotic but massproduced and cheap, so that everyone
can afford it, use it casually on a daily basis and make a wide berth around
all the fraud that is always out there even before putting it into the
shopping cart.

~~~
pontifier
They do exist, they are just expensive. probably the price would come down if
there were more demand. It's Probably on its way to a smartphone in 20 years
or so if demand justifies it.

[https://www.spectro.com/products/xrf-spectrometer/xsort-
xrf-...](https://www.spectro.com/products/xrf-spectrometer/xsort-xrf-gun-
handheld-analyzer)

~~~
LargoLasskhyfv
Oh! Wow. Interesting. But unsuitable for "casual" use. I'd imagine some
questions from the manager if i'd were to hold that over some fruits in the
supermarket :-)

I got these when i did that with a borrowed gammascout maybe 10 to 15 years
ago, even with the beeping disabled.

Panic, Panic! Don't do that here! What do you think the customers think? Don't
come back here! Go, go, out, away!

Well, what do I as customer think if that's forbidden?

------
LargoLasskhyfv
Anybody remembering the blue honey in france, coming from bees gorging on the
trash from a nearby factory producing M&Ms?

[https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121011-blue-...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/10/121011-blue-
honey-honeybees-animals-science/)

While searching that i learned about another kind of "blue honey", which is
also _very interesting_.

------
moomin
I could be wrong about this but... from a European perspective this strikes me
as an American problem. It’d be interesting to see if the same problems
applied to European honey.

~~~
mprev
One example: [https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/food-safety/tesco-honey-test-
not...](https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/food-safety/tesco-honey-test-not-fit-for-
purpose-say-food-safety-experts/599902.article)

~~~
cbzbc
I suppose the key there was that it was withdrawn after this was found out
(and own brand supermarket stuff is often the cheapest variant if a product
with all the corner cutting that implies)

~~~
moomin
Yeah, I'd say this supports my hypothesis, in that the article is about
whether or not good honey was rejected by the processes in place, not whether
bad honey was making it onto shelves despite failing tests.

------
pontifier
To me, the most interesting thing in this article was the purification method
using aliphatic resin. This seems almost magical in its ability to pull out
pesticides and other impurities.

I'm interested to see where that goes, as I can see that actually being a
selling point rather than something to hide.

I'm adding that to my food safety/purification/sterilisation methods list.

------
PaulHoule
I know the honey I eat is real because it comes from the bees that live
downstream of my driveway. My beekeeper tells me they have the best flavor of
any of his hives, probably because it is in the middle of a complex beaver
habitat.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
Our bees get their nectar from from the many nearby gardens. It is really very
interesting how much it influences the taste to have nectar from cherries,
apples, pears, spring flowers etc. Most of our neighbours say we have the best
tasting honey.

------
NicoJuicy
There's a company nearby that we joke has 6 billion workers for them.

They do a lot of testing if it's actual honey and most of the fake honey comes
from China.

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m0zg
90% of the aticle is spent implying that heating up honey to prevent
crystallization somehow makes it "not honey". I'm not sure I follow the logic
there.

~~~
James_Henry
It makes it no longer raw honey (depending on your definitions).

~~~
m0zg
Sure, but it's still _honey_.

~~~
James_Henry
Yes, but that's not all people care about which is what the article
specifically states. It's still honey but not "raw" honey.

------
b06tmm
I buy my honey locally in south Louisiana, they're usually in generic Mason
jars and can be found in places like hardware stores and barber shops, from
local bee keepers.

What the heck is "fancy" honey? Did not read the article.

