What's in Your Honey?

Think you know what's in your honey?  Just plain ol' honey, made by honeybees, right?

Wrong!  Think again!  Unless you buy your honey from a farmer's market or direct from a beekeeper, you have no idea what is in that honey.

What are some of the things that could be in your honey - besides honey?  How about white sugar? Or high fructose corn syrup? Or rice syrup?  Or maybe chloramphenicol - a highly toxic anti-biotic?

And that doesn't just apply to raw honey, but especially to any foods that contain honey as an ingredient - like your healthy granola bar or your Honey Nut Cheerios.

Think that honey you just bought from Whole Foods is really organic?

Wrong again!  There is no such thing as organic honey in the US.


Last year the Seatte Post-Intelligencer did some incredible investigative reporting on the state of honey production, importation and consumption in the US of A.   Take some time to read this and you will be pretty shocked - here's a little excerpt -

"Big shipments of contaminated honey from China are frequently 

laundered in other countries -- an illegal practice called "transshipping" --

in order to avoid U.S.import fees, protective tariffs or taxes

imposed on foreign products that intentionally undercut domestic prices."

and this too -

Since 2002, FDA has issued three "import alerts" to inspectors

at ports and border crossings to detain shipments of tainted Chinese
honey.  The order in 2002 came after Canadian and European
food-safety agents seized more than 80 shipments containing
chloramphenicol, which can cause serious illness or death among a very
small percentage of people exposed to it."

Then there's this piece - this happened last week - busted! But he'll probably end up walking, free to continue his unscrupulous business practices.

Now howya like dem apples?