Make Friends With Your Local Beekeeper!

My local beekeeper!

Aside from being able to reduce if not eliminate seasonal allergies by consuming small amounts of local honey on a daily basis, there's another reason to stick with local honey - grocery store honey, may not be so pure after all...

"The Journal of Food Sciences study pegged honey as a top fake, representing 7% of food fraud cases. Last year, Food Safety News tests also found that 75% of store honey doesn’t contain pollen. People are still buying a bee-made product, but all the pollen has been screened out, says Andrew Schneider, a food safety journalist who wrote the reports for Food Safety News. A lack of pollen makes it tough to determine its geographic origin -- and also means regulators don't recognize the product as honey, he says. Why the misdirection? Separate Food Safety News tests found a third of the faux honey imports from Asia were contaminated with lead and antibiotics. For the real deal, Schneider suggests buying from a local beekeeper. A National Honey Board spokesman says the group disputes the Food Safety News findings, and says regulations do allow for pollen to be filtered out as part of the removal of particles such as bee parts and other organic debris."

I don't know about you, but I'm going to support the local bee union & buy only their honey!

Bee Healthy!
The Hoff

Source: http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/880/8-food-frauds-on-your-shopping-list/