this Honey is 'funny'

by veya_victaous Mon Sep 03, 2018 6:19 am

AUSTRALIA’S biggest listed honey company and some of the country’s largest supermarket chains are facing accusations of selling fake honey, according to tests.
A report led by leading international scientific lab that specialises in honey fraud, found that almost half the samples selected from supermarket shelves was “adulterated”, meaning it had been mixed with other substances.
The ABC reported that the adulterated samples were all products that blend local and imported honey.
Capilano’s Allowrie branded Mixed Blossom Honey, which sources honey from Australia and overseas, and markets itself as 100 per cent honey, showed up as “adulterated” in the majority of samples tested, the publication reported.
However, it strongly denied any issues with its products and criticised the type of test — known as Nuclear Magnetic Resolution — used to detect the impurities, pointing out it differed from the official Australian test.
The results are set to ignite a storm over how honey purity is tested that will involve the Federal Government as well as local and international regulators, the ABC reported.
Aldi has already moved to pull an affected product from its shelves as a precaution.
Trevor Weatherhead, executive director of the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council, told Melbourne’s 3AW that he thought the report was “vague”.
“I hadn’t known about it until this morning,” Mr Weatherhead said.

“It’s interesting that they say it’s adulterated but they don’t say what it is.”
But Phil McCabe, president of the International Federation of Beekeepers’ Association (Apimondia), believes the NMR test is the most accurate available and thinks consumers are not getting what they paid for.
“Adulterated honey isn’t honey at all,” he told 7.30.
“By and large [the impurity] is some kind of syrup that’s been converted to look like honey, it tastes like honey.
“Everything about it seems to be honey, when in fact it’s just sugar syrup or something else.
“Consumers don’t realise what they are buying and eating isn’t honey.”
Mr McCabe said he would refer the tests, obtained by Fairfax Media and 7.30, and commissioned by top law firm King & Wood Mallesons, to Interpol for further investigation.

more at https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/food/a-report-has-accused-capilano-and-supermarket-giants-of-selling-fake-honey/news-story/c696334cc809427d059aa52bb1357d23

by veya_victaous Mon Sep 03, 2018 6:23 am

my opinion is simple if it's not made by bees it's not honey and should not be marketed as such...

I know this also highlights issues on the 'vegan honey' industry since it is just flavored sugar syrup.

by 'Wolfie Mon Sep 03, 2018 7:26 am

Until those overseas dumbfuck stirrers actually provide a proper report, and tell us what that "adulteration" is, I will be taking their accusations with a large pinch of salt...

Well known sources of adulterated honey include China and the USA, where isomerised corn syrup (HFCS -- high fructose corn syrup) is often found being blended with honey and fraudently resold as a pure product..

It is rarely beekeeprs themselves who end up adulterating their produce to this extent (as that will ruin their own reputations and damage local market impressions..), but more often unscrupulous packers/merchants and exporters, more interested in "making a quick buck", and with little interest in the industry itself.

The most likely source of any contaminating honies that might be found here will likely be from Chinese honey imported and blended with local honey for supermarkets, during the current drought in eastern Oz..

As for that clown from Apimondia, he can shove his suspect test up his Euro-centric arse, and spin on it...

When I extract honey from my beehives I have a fair idea where it comes from, and I've never knowingly 'adulteratad' any of it..

by veya_victaous Mon Sep 03, 2018 7:30 am

I personally always from the beekeepers directly (since i have the option ) and the better ones say what blossoms not just 'mixed blossoms'

by 'Wolfie Mon Sep 03, 2018 9:11 am

veya_victaous wrote:
my opinion is simple if it's not made by bees it's not honey and should not be marketed as such...

I know this also highlights issues on the 'vegan honey' industry since it is just flavored sugar syrup.

There are food standards laws that do control the marketing of such products as honey, meat, vege's, fruit, milk, wine, etc.

If foods are adulterated, or sold as something they're not, or mislabelled in any way, then that is fraudulent advertising..

As for those so-called commercial "Vegan xx" products, they are a common scam from unscrupolous marketers, quite happy to rip off those gullible Vegans out there.

There are a couple of blatant problems with any foods commercially labelled as "vegan_this" and "vegan- that" :

* There are no official food classifications, as yet, to recognise so called "vegan" foods (as opposed to other terms such as "organic" or "vegetarian"..);

* Foods such as honey, meat, dairy or wine have recognised, long-standing and universally-accepted meanings -- leaving those faux "vegan" scammers open to legal actions.

That scam company that has been selling their fake shit as "Vegan Honey" isn't the first time we've seen smartarse scamsters trying it on down here, either -- back in the late 1970s/early 1980s that shitty little tourist trap up near Coffs Harbour that sells itself as a vineyard/grapes oriented tourism attraction was caught out selling their grape jelly/jam product as "Grape Honey", and the scam even made it into parliament during the 1980s, helping to codify the definition of certain types of natural food products, and their composition, purity and claims..

by Original Quill Mon Sep 03, 2018 4:38 pm

Shades of the old debate over butter vs. margarine.

No question, in all fields of production, intermediary capitalists (distributors) try to 'bulk up' any given product with what is essentially industrial filling. Less costly product = more profit. Even today, one hears about some North African company or other substituting used motor oil for table-ready salad oil.

Usually, the only government concern is, is it harmful? The origin industry is the only entity that imposes standards based upon quality. After all, the more bulk filling sold with their product, the less original product they sell.

by eddie Mon Sep 03, 2018 9:42 pm

I have to bow to Wolf’s knowledge on this to be honest, and I think cheap honey is probably full of sugar or fructose or some shit.

Btw, I’ve never heard of vegan honey! How the hell is honey not “vegan”, anyway? Bees aren’t harmed when making honey....or am I going batshit crazy?

by veya_victaous Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:03 am

eddie wrote:I have to bow to Wolf’s knowledge on this to be honest, and I think cheap honey is probably full of sugar or fructose or some shit.

Btw, I’ve never heard of vegan honey! How the hell is honey not “vegan”, anyway? Bees aren’t harmed when making honey....or am I going batshit crazy?

they are 'enslaved' by the keeper Rolling Eyes

..... plus bees do die when collecting the honey, the better the bee keeper the fewer deaths

Hell Most domestic sheep will die if they are not sheared, yet vegans are against wool too Rolling Eyes

logic, reasoning and reality are not part of the Vegans thought process.

by eddie Tue Sep 04, 2018 12:30 am

Well I have to join you in the rolly eyes, I dont get the whole “dedicating my life to how animals feel”.

It’s a waste of time. We have to concentrate on each other - humans.

by 'Wolfie Tue Sep 04, 2018 6:26 am

One of the major concerns with this problem comes down to the maintenance and survival of a healthy beekeeping sector, within any country's agricultural economy.

Depending on whichever country you look at (the size of agriculture within the national economy, the actual mixture and proportion of pollination-dependant crops (fruit, vege's, nuts, legumes and oilseeds..) and pastures (e.g. clovers, lucerne/alfalfa..) across the rural economy..), honeybees can be responsible for pollinating anywhere between 40% and 70% of that country's crops.

If beekeepers are reduced in number through poor financial returns on their honey crops, that will mean less beehives available for pollination each year (while beekeepers might be paid for pollinating high value crops, such as almonds and canola, most fruit and vege' growers aren't accustomed to paying for pollination, as that is often provided incidentally by bees either on their farms or neighbours, where that beekeepers main source of income is the honey crop..).

If low prices for honey made it un-economic for those beekeepers to have their hives there, than the farmers may well find themselves having to pay around $100 -->> $150 or more/hive to have beehives brought onto those crops during the flowering period, if that grower is to maintain their production. Which in turn will be putting up the production costs for many fruit and vege's..

https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/dire-consequences-fake-honey-imports-could-lead-to-a-humanitarian-disaster-20180903-p501df.html

If honey prices dropped far enough, many commercial beekeepers leaving the industry would mean even fewer hives available. Those beekeepers who stayed in for pollinating purposes would need to build up the number of hives they manage to make up the shortfall (Over in the USA, there is one family operation that manages some 75,000 beehives from California down through Texas -- reputedly the biggest single beekeeping operation in the world..).

Food shortages, higher shop prices, land degradation -- threats of lower farmgate prices (and lower consumer faith in the product) -- add aduleration to yet another problem facing the beekeeping industry (and the knock-on effects on agriculture overall), alongside pollution (especially pesticide poisoning), climate change, land clearing/deforestation and habitat loss, urban sprawl..

https://www.smh.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/capilano-supermarkets-accused-of-selling-fake-honey-20180827-p5000u.html

Even worse, when you consider how many of the world's population these days are living insular existences in ever-growing cities, increasingly separated from natural cycles, more scared of Islamist terrorists and Communist bogeymen than the merchants and corporatists usurping their supply of food, clean water and fresh air..

What are the industrialists, miners, timbermen and big pharma'/agribusiness goons going to eat, once they have destroyed our food chains ???

Let those coalminers eat coal, I say..
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