Another Food Scandal to Report, Honey

In our brave new world where pizza is a vegetable and bread sandwiched between bread counts as a nutritious meal, now this. Three-quarters of all honey bought in the US – yes, the gold-coloured, ambrosial extract derived from that delightful dalliance ‘twixt bee and flower - contains no pollen at all.

Food Safety News reports that it had dozens of popular honey brands tested, with most showing zero pollen. The reason apparently is ultra-filtration – customers demand a nice, clear honey. All sounds very reasonable. But according to Food Safety News, it’s an indicator of something much murkier afoot – involving a country not altogether averse to the odd food scandal. You’ve guessed it! China.

According to the article, regular filtration is effective enough at getting out the bee legs, wings and other bits of trash from honey, and nowhere near as expensive as ultra-filtration. So the only reason all these honeys have been ultra-filtrated is to remove their pollen ‘fingerprint’ – essentially the unique, identifying ‘stamp’ of various flower extracts in the honey that can tell you where in the world it was produced.

The article concludes that this must mean most of the honey in the US is illegally laundered honey … from China. In a (honey) nut-shell, Chinese honey has had import restrictions imposed on it from the US for years because the Feds believed it wasn’t up to scratch, quality-wise. So the Chinese launder it through other countries that don’t have any similar honey-based trade restrictions. Clever, huh?

And evil, too, according to comments like this under the article: “I'm sure it is only a matter of time before the chinese (sic) crooks start purchasing foreign pollen to add to their chemical stews.”

Shudder. What makes it more complicated is that the retail and grocery giants have little idea where or by who their honey gets bottled. Which leads this eater to reason it might well be possible that China is taking a bit of unfair flack on this. China's terrible recent track record in food safety seems to mean it is guilty until proven innocent, but it should be noted that restrictions and wrangling over food imports are often politically-motivated – just ask France’s unpasteurized cheese makers what they think of the FDA.

But it’s not all one way traffic. China is getting its own back by banning a few imports itself. A batch of frozen ham from the US was detected by the Chinese authorities as containing a muscle-enhancing livestock feed additive that is banned over here. More recently (and surprisingly), a batch of Evian and Volvic mineral water from France was sent packing, according to this piece in the Shanghai Daily. Rejected!

The upshot of all this is, of course, shop at a farm. Buy local. Wear hemp. Grow a beard. And try to get along with one another...

Image: Telegraph.co.uk