Australian honey, produced from domesticated European honey bees mostly foraging in native vegetation, is unique. Under the microscope, most Australian honey samples can be distinguished from honey produced in other countries.
That's the conclusion of our study, the first systematic examination of pollen contained within Australian honey.
We collaborated with two major honey retailers to survey the pollen content of a large number of unprocessed honey samples. We found that a unique mix of native flora gives Australian honey a distinctive pollen signature.
As fears grow about "counterfeit" or adulterated food, especially high-value foods like olive oil, coffee, saffron and honey, there's enormous benefit in preserving Australia's international reputation for high-quality products.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @04:39PM (5 children)
This is an opportunity to introduce Blockchain DRM into the food supply. If we can harness the vibrations of the bees we can use it to power our blockchain servers.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Sunday August 12 2018, @06:23PM (3 children)
That is until africanized honey bees decide to rush 50% of capacity and steal the honey chain for themselves
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday August 12 2018, @07:37PM
For some reason I read that as 'Unionized' honey bees and it made me almost snort my juice :)
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by driverless on Monday August 13 2018, @12:27AM (1 child)
If it's African bees, they'll just steal the honey outright. And the beehives. And the fencing and power lines running nearby [*].
Also, the headline is wrong, it should be:
Counterfeit honey, yeah, that's a massive real-world problem.
[*] This isn't just random racism, I've lived in Africa, I know how things work there.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 13 2018, @09:34AM
When you get the honey you produce manages to command a super-duper premium price (like $92 / 500g [beevitamins.com.au]) I think you may start having a problem too with counterfeit honey.
See also Mānuka honey [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:01PM
Already done; at least claimed. https://www.ibm.com/blockchain/solutions/food-trust [ibm.com]
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @05:09PM
And i thought it was the poison in the Australian honey, that tells them apart, you know cause everything there is poisonous and venomous.
(Score: 2) by archfeld on Sunday August 12 2018, @07:19PM (7 children)
I wasn't aware there was a problem with 'knock' off Australian honey. Damn'd dirty neckbeards are probably listening to their pirated music, while playing stolen video game roms and slurping down fake Australian honey. What is the world coming to ?
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 12 2018, @07:31PM (5 children)
Honey is *very* easy to mix around with other sugars and get a similar taste. It is almost chemically basically sugar with some 'extra'. In the states the big issue is companies adding HFC or corn syrup. As the taste is rather similar in the sweet levels but does not distract from the honey flavoring. Olive oil has similar issues with companies blending it down with corn or canola.
Most people can not tell the difference. It really is not much of a difference with honey. With olive oil you can usually tell the taste and how well it cooks (olive oil is a low heat oil). Once you have tried real olive oil you know the taste. Good luck finding it. I think pretty much all of the manufactures are doing it at this point. Until the FDA steps in, no one will care. They had to do that with milk and butter because lots of companies were cutting it with water or 'other'.
(Score: 4, Informative) by archfeld on Sunday August 12 2018, @07:43PM (3 children)
I guess I am just spoiled by the farmers' market. I get local honey, fresh milk, butter and eggs as well as local porcine and beef products. There doesn't seem to be as much cheese here in the Imperial valley as there was in Northern California though, and far far less in the way of brewed products than there was in the Bay Area, and Sacramento Valley.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday August 12 2018, @07:59PM
Well, maybe, maybe not.
(Score: 2) by legont on Sunday August 12 2018, @11:09PM (1 child)
Unfortunately so called honey is produced somewhere (probably China) and traded by cisterns in Singapore. It is extremely difficult to test. Your local honey maker most likely just adds say 10% of local honey (to defeat testing) to that commodity.
It's going on for a long time but lately similar ideas are introduced into other agricultural products.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 3, Informative) by archfeld on Monday August 13 2018, @01:23AM
Nah my local honey maker has their own hives and lives about 15 miles from here. I take the GF's kid out in their fields to shoot the .22's on the weekends. We also get lamb and chicken from them.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 2) by boltronics on Tuesday August 14 2018, @03:09AM
Indeed. Take a look at the Rotten episode Layers, Guns & Honey [netflix.com] on Netflix. It's amazing how much work goes into creating fakes and detecting them.
It's GNU/Linux dammit!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 12 2018, @08:43PM
I heard about the problem at some point ago, and again when this Netflix show covered it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_(TV_series) [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 13 2018, @01:00PM
One of the big reasons adulterating honey is feasible is because honey (despite being "natural" and supposedly so much better) actually resembles blends of much cheaper sugars with only a few trace elements. In fact, the vast majority of honey's sugar composition is often quite close to high fructose corn syrup standard blends (though don't tell the "natural foods" brigade this).
As for this pollen method, it's the most common and well-known approach, but it doesn't come close to covering all cases. I summarized a lot of relevant problems in my answer to a question about this stuff here [stackexchange.com]. Today you often really have to use a mass spectrometer if you want to detect honey adulteration... And even that doesn't work for determined adulterators. (Can they ever really be stopped??)