[Newsbot]

Title: Canadian beekeepers blame diluted imports for plummeting honey prices
Category: Health
Posted By: DrCaleb
Date: 2017-03-13 07:02:13
Canadian

[DrCaleb]

Has anyone else been paying attention to ingredients on honey containers? "May contain honey inported from Argentina" Why? Even my local honey plant is doing this now.

We have bees. They work hard. How is it cheaper to import honey from a quarter of the planet away?

Now it "may contain syryp". Why? Was 'honey' not good enough?

[prairiechickin]

All good questions, I suspect there is a W5 investigation in the offing.

[Strutz]

DrCaleb DrCaleb:

Has anyone else been paying attention to ingredients on honey containers? "May contain honey inported from Argentina" Why? Even my local honey plant is doing this now.

We have bees. They work hard. How is it cheaper to import honey from a quarter of the planet away?

Now it "may contain syryp". Why? Was 'honey' not good enough?

Honey should not contain anything else but HONEY! Diluting it with other products to save a few bucks? No. If I want syrup or sugar I'll buy syrup or sugar. I will be making sure to watch labels next time I need to buy honey. Right now both types of honey in my cupboard are Canadian products and contain only honey.

I remember as a kid my grandma used to get her honey from a lady down the road who had several hives in her orchard and jarred it herself. Grandma used to trade her jam or jelly that she made for her honey. It was so good!

[ShepherdsDog]

We get honey from the in laws. My BiL has several hives on his land and the hive owners, who are neighbours and friends repay him in honey. He gets more than he can use. We only use a few pounds a year.

[herbie]

$1:

Now it "may contain syryp". Why? Was 'honey' not good enough?

Business.
Why add 40% water and a binding agent to margarine and then sell it to you as 40% less fat for $2 more?
Or half a candy bar for a quarter more because it's "diet" compared to a whole one...

[DrCaleb]

Strutz Strutz:

Honey should not contain anything else but HONEY! Diluting it with other products to save a few bucks? No. If I want syrup or sugar I'll buy syrup or sugar. I will be making sure to watch labels next time I need to buy honey. Right now both types of honey in my cupboard are Canadian products and contain only honey.

They are getting hard to find! My local honey plant used to just use local honey, but in the past few months switched to a blend of imported and local.

The only place I can find honey that is 100% Alberta is some Safeway stores. Some stores have Ontario/Argentinian/Guatemalan blends.

Or I just go to the Farmers Market and get the best honey there.

Strutz Strutz:

I remember as a kid my grandma used to get her honey from a lady down the road who had several hives in her orchard and jarred it herself. Grandma used to trade her jam or jelly that she made for her honey. It was so good!

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

We get honey from the in laws. My BiL has several hives on his land and the hive owners, who are neighbours and friends repay him in honey. He gets more than he can use. We only use a few pounds a year.

I remember the 'bartering' as I was a kid. We'd grow things in the garden that Mom would use to make jams, jellies and things like Zucchini bread ( ) and sell them at the Farmers Market. She'd trade other Farmers there for eggs that that couldn't be sold retail (double yolkers!) or buckets of honey that she used to bake things for the market. We always had a second fridge and freezer full of these kinds of things.

All I ask is for some pure honey to have in my lemon tea in the evening! I like simple things, and tea that has 3 ingredients right from nature is one of them.

[DrCaleb]

herbie herbie:

$1:

Now it "may contain syryp". Why? Was 'honey' not good enough?

Business.
Why add 40% water and a binding agent to margarine and then sell it to you as 40% less fat for $2 more?
Or half a candy bar for a quarter more because it's "diet" compared to a whole one...

Or, you could just use 'butter'.

[raydan]

I go the the farmer's market... the only place I'm sure I can get 100% local honey, local maple products, local beer and a bunch of other stuff.

[herbie]

$1:

Or, you could just use 'butter'.

We do. The kids are all growed up and gone, we use real butter, real honey from local beekeepers, fresh lamb from down the road and meat from the Co-op where they still have an actual butcher.
But I used to live with a woman who had kids and was always on diets... I remember how pissed off I got when that Becel-bub margarine ruined my popcorn. And my Mom was Depression era, so she fed us that hard white honey because anything unpasteurized was "bad for you"...

[DrCaleb]

herbie herbie:

$1:

Or, you could just use 'butter'.

We do. The kids are all growed up and gone, we use real butter, real honey from local beekeepers, fresh lamb from down the road and meat from the Co-op where they still have an actual butcher.

Very rare now. And I used to cut meat to pay for University! I have one local butcher, and he's trained in German sausage making! When I eat meat, it's from him!

herbie herbie:

And my Mom was Depression era, so she fed us that hard white honey because anything unpasteurized was "bad for you"...

I still remember my Dad talk about the 30's. "You kids never had to eat tripe soup, or bubble and squeak!"

He'd shit if he found out those were gastro treats nowadays, like his favourite Ox Tail Soup. But your Mom is right, the trend to unpasteurized cheese in the hands of amateurs is leading to a lot of the bacterial infections that pasteurization got rid of.

But not for honey. It seems to be immune to those bugs.

[herbie]

Gran: A raw potato was a 'treat', and if it was your birthday you got to put salt on it!

My father-in-law was Scot and one hell of a cook. One my parents went to hers for a dinner cock-a-leekee soup, bubble & squeak, leg of lamb. They sat unconfortably for tea and cheese afterwards and left early. THe wife & I also excused ourselves to meet up with some friends and as my Dad walked out the front door of the apartment building he cut a fart so loud you could've heard it down at the Royal Towers 2 blocks away. It was hilarious, you could see him sag in relief the minute he did!

Friends of mine are into beekeeping as a hobby. He's into cabinetry and has a whole woodshop in his garage. Showed me the new hives he was making last time I visited. Good honey, but they're just starting out and don't have a lot to sell. One local supermarket carries honey and beeswax items from a nearby keeper and in the summer I buy it from his stand at the Farmer's Market.
Something I noticed in the Okanagan this summer, those fruit stands that used to sell the processed fruit syrups now feature mostly local hot sauces and honey instead. And somosas!

[ShepherdsDog]

I had tropical wildflower honey when we were in Taiwan.....didn't like the flavour at all. At first we could only find honey in the traditional Chinese medicine shops, then they started carrying it in grocery chains. It was usually Canadian clover honey.