7 ms·

But all the honey labels say the only ingredient is honey. We've always been able to assume that with things like jams, or any other food, when manufacturers ad

by jart 2y ago

But all the honey labels say the only ingredient is honey. We've always been able to assume that with things like jams, or any other food, when manufacturers adulterate it with things like corn syrup, or even mild poisons, they proudly say so on the label. To not do so is fraud. How can people just claim that an entire industry is committing fraud??? Even this article doesn't mention anything about proof, just suspicions. Why can't they prove it? To make these kind of claims without proof is arguably worse than fraud. This would all be outrageous if it's true, since it becomes impossible to make any rational choices as consumers if the food system has gone fraudulent.

_3u10 2y ago
That’s because honey is sugar syrup with a liberal sprinkling of marketing. The sugar syrup they are blending it with doesn’t have the right marketing and is therefore not honey.
- jart 2y ago
  No, it's not. Honey is defined by the USDA as being flower nectar that's been processed by bees[1]. Artificial honey can not be called honey[2]. If they're mixing it with high fructose corn syrup, then there should be a way to scientifically determine that. [1] https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Extracted_Honey_Inspection_Instructions%5B1%5D.pdf https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Extracted... [2] https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Extracted_Honey_Standard%5B1%5D.pdf https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Extracted...
  - ryandrake 2y ago
    Oh, the USDA publishes a rule! Surely everyone will follow that and the problem is solved. Unfortunately we get the behavior that we let people get away with. Regulators are asleep, courts let companies weasel their way around everything, and reality doesn't care about published rules and standards.
    - warkdarrior 2y ago
      Regulations like these are onerous. Have you ever watched a bee filling out a Dept of Ag or FDA form? Dept of Govt Efficiency will fix it.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
  - colechristensen 2y ago
    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 these days, someone could probably make a part per billion analysis that would be very hard to evade, but the difference is emotional not practical. People have wrong ideas that honey is so much healthier than corn syrup when it is indeed very similar. Not that i support selling corn syrup as honey, but it wouldn’t make any actual difference other than diluted flavor.
    - jfengel 2y ago
      The remaining 10 percent is very significant to flavor. You can definitely detect it with your tongue and nose. But as you say it is utterly irrelevant to nutrition or health. Even the antibacterial elements are real but negligible.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - maltyr 2y ago
      https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10346535/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10346535/ Numerous studies have concluded that honey does have a better effect on health than the same amount of simple syrup, at least. > It has been demonstrated that honey consumption can influence plasma lipid, glucose, and insulin levels through different biochemical mechanisms. The decrease in blood glucose may be due to the fact that honey has a stimulatory effect on insulin secretion and improves insulin sensitivity
      - carbocation 2y ago
        An uncited statement in a review article! If I'm rich in time and money enough to routinely take the time to wander down to my friendly beekeeper and buy their small-batch artisanal honey, for so many reasons I will live longer than someone who isn't. Someone should randomize people to honey vs fake-honey-sugar-mix and settle the issue.
- result2vino 2y ago
  This particularly americanised brand of nihilism is so bloody tiring.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
araneae 2y ago
I'm sorry you're just hearing this only right now, but unfortunately it's been happening for a while, and we've also known it for a while. I.e. https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/eu-agri-food-fraud-network/eu-coordinated-actions/honey-2021-2022_en https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/eu-agri-food-fraud-net... found widespread fraud and put measures in place to prevent it, but it continues to be challenging.
nextaccountic 2y ago
Note this also happens with olive oil https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/11-olive-oil-counterfeiters-arrested-following-operation-opson https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/11-o... https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/business/europe/top-italian-police-official-explains-how-olive-oil-fraud-works/133568 https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/business/europe/top-italian-po...
- dreamcompiler 2y ago
  To a first approximation it's accurate to assume any imported olive oil on a grocery store shelf in the US is fraudulent. The only kind I buy now is 100% grown in California and certified by the California Olive Oil Council. And it is very expensive.
  - ugh123 2y ago
    Absolutely. Avoid any blends outside the U.S.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  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?
  - Glawen 2y ago
    There was an article about the word enshitification, what you describe the real life example: you are paying a premium price for a product with a lowering quality every year that goes by. Fighting labelling fraud is the correct answer. If it is written extra virgin olive oil that means a certain oil quality expected in terms of taste. For me that means I can enjoy a non rancid oil on my tasteful tomatoes with real mozzarella di buffalo, and that is a world of difference with making the same salad with tasteless but "tested on rats safe" products
Etheryte 2y ago
If you find this hard to believe, I recommend reading this Forbes article [0] which gives some pretty stark numbers. I've included a few select quotes below: > According to the sampling and monitoring work carried out by the Brussels-based body, almost 50% of the honey from non-European countries is cut with sugar syrups made from rice, wheat or sugar beet. > All the 10 honeys entered via the United Kingdom were marked “non-compliant” and mixed with imports from Mexico, Ukraine and Brazil. > Apart from the main fraudulent addition of sugar syrups, the report also alerts of the presence of additives and colorings and the falsification of traceable information. So yeah, a considerable part of honey contains more than what's on the label and often isn't of the origin written on the label. As for outrageous, it is — beekeepers have been sounding the alarm on this issue for years — but nothing has been done to stop this on the policy side. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2023/03/24/half-of-the-honey-in-european-markets-is-fake-alerts-eu-investigation/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2023/03/24/hal...
- pradn 2y ago
  It makes total sense for European farmers to cry foul if cheaper imports get to masquerade as the real thing. This has been a big sticking point for the EU-Mercosur deal that recently concluded.
- alright2565 2y ago
  fyi, "forbes.com/sites" is just some blogging platform. In this case, it's mostly right, but the original source is https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/eu-agri-food-fraud-network/eu-coordinated-actions/honey-2021-2022_en https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/eu-agri-food-fraud-net...
  - gmerc 2y ago
    You’re too generous.It runs paid influence campaigns.
- throwaway2037 2y ago
  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 posts from these subsites, versus the main publisher's website.
NelsonMinar 2y ago
The phrasing in the article about "suspected to be fraudulent" is over-cautious, probably because of Britain's very generous libel laws covering newspapers.
0xEF 2y ago
Wait til you hear about maple syrup... That aside, yeah, this is a real problem with honey (and maple syrup) in the US. Food manufacturers will go to insane lengths to get around any laws that protect product purity and honest labeling because the profits are far greater than the fine for breaking the rules. As we all know, if the punishment is a fine, it's only illegal for companies that cannot afford to pay...like the guy at the farmer's market with the mason jars.
- Aloisius 2y ago
  I have never heard of maple syrup fraud in the US nor can I find any articles on it. Unless one is talking about imitation maple syrups, but those are labeled properly.
  - skylurk 2y ago
    It's also a thing, unfortunately. https://news.uoguelph.ca/2023/04/maple-syrup-fraud-undermines-the-authenticity-of-canadas-liquid-gold/ https://news.uoguelph.ca/2023/04/maple-syrup-fraud-undermine...
    - Aloisius 2y ago
      That "article" appears to be a promotion for a test to detect maple syrup fraud in Canada. It doesn't say maple syrup fraud is common in the US. It does cite an article about someone who bought fake syrup from a random "trucker" on the internet, but that article explicitly says it's not a big issue.
hofo 2y ago
I assume that the notion of adulterated honey is new to you and that you’re not in the industry. This has been an issue for decades, it’s nothing new. There are commercial honey producers and packers that are clean but the easiest and surest way to avoid fake honey is to buy local.

by jart 2y ago

_3u10 2y ago

That’s because honey is sugar syrup with a liberal sprinkling of marketing. The sugar syrup they are blending it with doesn’t have the right marketing and is therefore not honey.

jart 2y ago
No, it's not. Honey is defined by the USDA as being flower nectar that's been processed by bees[1]. Artificial honey can not be called honey[2]. If they're mixing it with high fructose corn syrup, then there should be a way to scientifically determine that. [1] https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Extracted_Honey_Inspection_Instructions%5B1%5D.pdf https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Extracted... [2] https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Extracted_Honey_Standard%5B1%5D.pdf https://www.ams.usda.gov/sites/default/files/media/Extracted...
- ryandrake 2y ago
  Oh, the USDA publishes a rule! Surely everyone will follow that and the problem is solved. Unfortunately we get the behavior that we let people get away with. Regulators are asleep, courts let companies weasel their way around everything, and reality doesn't care about published rules and standards.
  - warkdarrior 2y ago
    Regulations like these are onerous. Have you ever watched a bee filling out a Dept of Ag or FDA form? Dept of Govt Efficiency will fix it.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- colechristensen 2y ago
  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 these days, someone could probably make a part per billion analysis that would be very hard to evade, but the difference is emotional not practical. People have wrong ideas that honey is so much healthier than corn syrup when it is indeed very similar. Not that i support selling corn syrup as honey, but it wouldn’t make any actual difference other than diluted flavor.
  - jfengel 2y ago
    The remaining 10 percent is very significant to flavor. You can definitely detect it with your tongue and nose. But as you say it is utterly irrelevant to nutrition or health. Even the antibacterial elements are real but negligible.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - maltyr 2y ago
    https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10346535/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10346535/ Numerous studies have concluded that honey does have a better effect on health than the same amount of simple syrup, at least. > It has been demonstrated that honey consumption can influence plasma lipid, glucose, and insulin levels through different biochemical mechanisms. The decrease in blood glucose may be due to the fact that honey has a stimulatory effect on insulin secretion and improves insulin sensitivity
    - carbocation 2y ago
      An uncited statement in a review article! If I'm rich in time and money enough to routinely take the time to wander down to my friendly beekeeper and buy their small-batch artisanal honey, for so many reasons I will live longer than someone who isn't. Someone should randomize people to honey vs fake-honey-sugar-mix and settle the issue.
result2vino 2y ago
This particularly americanised brand of nihilism is so bloody tiring.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

araneae 2y ago

I'm sorry you're just hearing this only right now, but unfortunately it's been happening for a while, and we've also known it for a while. I.e. https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/eu-agri-food-fraud-network/eu-coordinated-actions/honey-2021-2022_en https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/eu-agri-food-fraud-net... found widespread fraud and put measures in place to prevent it, but it continues to be challenging.

nextaccountic 2y ago

Note this also happens with olive oil https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/11-olive-oil-counterfeiters-arrested-following-operation-opson https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/11-o... https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/business/europe/top-italian-police-official-explains-how-olive-oil-fraud-works/133568 https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/business/europe/top-italian-po...

dreamcompiler 2y ago
To a first approximation it's accurate to assume any imported olive oil on a grocery store shelf in the US is fraudulent. The only kind I buy now is 100% grown in California and certified by the California Olive Oil Council. And it is very expensive.
- ugh123 2y ago
  Absolutely. Avoid any blends outside the U.S.
throwaway2037 2y ago
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?
- Glawen 2y ago
  There was an article about the word enshitification, what you describe the real life example: you are paying a premium price for a product with a lowering quality every year that goes by. Fighting labelling fraud is the correct answer. If it is written extra virgin olive oil that means a certain oil quality expected in terms of taste. For me that means I can enjoy a non rancid oil on my tasteful tomatoes with real mozzarella di buffalo, and that is a world of difference with making the same salad with tasteless but "tested on rats safe" products

Etheryte 2y ago

If you find this hard to believe, I recommend reading this Forbes article [0] which gives some pretty stark numbers. I've included a few select quotes below: > According to the sampling and monitoring work carried out by the Brussels-based body, almost 50% of the honey from non-European countries is cut with sugar syrups made from rice, wheat or sugar beet. > All the 10 honeys entered via the United Kingdom were marked “non-compliant” and mixed with imports from Mexico, Ukraine and Brazil. > Apart from the main fraudulent addition of sugar syrups, the report also alerts of the presence of additives and colorings and the falsification of traceable information. So yeah, a considerable part of honey contains more than what's on the label and often isn't of the origin written on the label. As for outrageous, it is — beekeepers have been sounding the alarm on this issue for years — but nothing has been done to stop this on the policy side. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2023/03/24/half-of-the-honey-in-european-markets-is-fake-alerts-eu-investigation/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/ceciliarodriguez/2023/03/24/hal...

pradn 2y ago
It makes total sense for European farmers to cry foul if cheaper imports get to masquerade as the real thing. This has been a big sticking point for the EU-Mercosur deal that recently concluded.
alright2565 2y ago
fyi, "forbes.com/sites" is just some blogging platform. In this case, it's mostly right, but the original source is https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/eu-agri-food-fraud-network/eu-coordinated-actions/honey-2021-2022_en https://food.ec.europa.eu/food-safety/eu-agri-food-fraud-net...
- gmerc 2y ago
  You’re too generous.It runs paid influence campaigns.
throwaway2037 2y ago
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 posts from these subsites, versus the main publisher's website.

NelsonMinar 2y ago

The phrasing in the article about "suspected to be fraudulent" is over-cautious, probably because of Britain's very generous libel laws covering newspapers.

0xEF 2y ago

Wait til you hear about maple syrup... That aside, yeah, this is a real problem with honey (and maple syrup) in the US. Food manufacturers will go to insane lengths to get around any laws that protect product purity and honest labeling because the profits are far greater than the fine for breaking the rules. As we all know, if the punishment is a fine, it's only illegal for companies that cannot afford to pay...like the guy at the farmer's market with the mason jars.

Aloisius 2y ago
I have never heard of maple syrup fraud in the US nor can I find any articles on it. Unless one is talking about imitation maple syrups, but those are labeled properly.
- skylurk 2y ago
  It's also a thing, unfortunately. https://news.uoguelph.ca/2023/04/maple-syrup-fraud-undermines-the-authenticity-of-canadas-liquid-gold/ https://news.uoguelph.ca/2023/04/maple-syrup-fraud-undermine...
  - Aloisius 2y ago
    That "article" appears to be a promotion for a test to detect maple syrup fraud in Canada. It doesn't say maple syrup fraud is common in the US. It does cite an article about someone who bought fake syrup from a random "trucker" on the internet, but that article explicitly says it's not a big issue.

hofo 2y ago

I assume that the notion of adulterated honey is new to you and that you’re not in the industry. This has been an issue for decades, it’s nothing new. There are commercial honey producers and packers that are clean but the easiest and surest way to avoid fake honey is to buy local.