1) Brief History
2) Definition
3) Overview
4) World Honey Production and the Danger of our Foods
5) Ingredients and expected functions
6) How to buy good honey
1) Brief History:The Honey has been known as an excellent medicine curing many diseases and been recognized as a panacea.
Ebers Papyrus is the oldest voluminous Egyptian medical archives written on papyrus circa BC1550 (It is said that this papyrus was just a copy of other archives written ca. BC3400). It tells various ways to use honey as a medicine and how to make honey-based medicine.
Hippocrates (BC460-375) of ancient Greece is now called as The Father of Medicine.He taught people honey as a laxative.
And a philosopher Aristotle (BC384-322), the teacher of Alexander the Great, was telling honey for wound just as a salve.
Sir.John Hill (1716-1775), English author and botanist, practised as a "quwack doctor" though he had a degree from University of Edinburgh wrote a book about efficacy of honey. He says that peoples stupidly go far away to get a miracle medicine forgetting divine providence and getting only severe side effects. You should look around your garden and you will find far much better medicine that God gives us. Honey is it.
Thus people of all over the world have been eating and useing honey for their well being.
But up untill a paper in 1989 from Britain's The Royal Society of Medicine released saying honey is to prevent stomach cancer and cure stomach ulcer and flu or good for diarrhea, constipation etc., the honey have not been well recognized by medical world.
In 1995 Codex 21st General Meeting decided standardization of the honey and finally in 2001 international standard for the honey has been established.
2) Definition
Natural sweet substance that Apis Mellifera (Western honey bee) collects, dehydrates and stores in the honey comb for maturity. There are Blossom Honey, Nectar Honey and Honeydew Honey.
It consits from about 80% of Saccharides (Glucose 40%, Fructose 35% and Cane Sugar 5%) and 20% of moisture and contains lot of Vitamins, Organic Acids, Enzymes, Minerals and of course a bit of pollens.... .It is said to contain more than 180 ingredients!!
Codex alimentarius standard (International Standard) says
Minimum Saccharide is 60g/100g and maximum moisture is 20%. HMF (HydroxyMethylFurfural) is max 40mg/kg (except for tropical honey with max. 80mg.kg) etc...
(Remarks: HMF is an organic compound derived from dehydration of certain sugars. HMF has been identified in a wide variety of heat-processed foods such as milk, fruit juices, spirits and honey. HMF is practically not present in fresh food but it is naturally generated in sugar-containing food during heat treatments like drying or cooking. and also slowly generated during storage. Acid conditions favour generation of HMF. Fresh honey contains less than 15mg/kg.- depending on ph-value and temperature and age. HMF is a natural component in heated food but usually present in low concentrations. The daily intake of HMF may underlie high variations due to individual consumption patterns. It has been estimated that in a western diet, in the order of magnitude of 5-10mg of HMF are ingested per day from food --extracted from Wikipedia.org)
3) Overview
Honey can last forever because of its high osmotic pressure preventing propagation of bacteria together with ingredients with strong sterilizing power. Thus still edible honey was found in Egyptian Pyramids. We have been eating or using it as medicine for more than 5000 years. Furtrher more we have been drinking it as Mead which is honey fermented liquor commonly called as Honey Wine in Europe which is one of the oldest alcoholic beverage like wine from grapes. It has been so common especially in the northern Europe where no grapes are grown.
Though it would last forever, it is recommended to consume it by about 5 years in order to enjoy the fresh flavour but even after 5 years you can use it as sugar alternative for cooking.. You can store it just in the ambient temperature avoiding direct sun light. In the temperature range of 5-14 DC it becomes solid by the crystallization of glucose coring on the pollen. This is just natural and a proof of genuineness and nothing to do with deterioration process. In order to turn it back to liquid state again, dissolve it in mild hot water (not on direct heat) preferably under 40 DC in order not to kill precious enzymes in it.
Depending upon a flower of the source, there are colour variation from transparent clear, golden or yellowish to darker or blackish one due to its difference of level of concentration of minerals contained.. Generally speaking the darker the colour, higher the medical effect..
Buckwheat honey is the darkest in colour with unique flavour and can expect all benefits of the honey. Chestnut is said to be also dark together with Manuka honey from New Zealand.
Even a same source, for example buckwheat, flavour and taste are different depending upon the producing area and its weather and the way to make it.... Same name brand but thousand of flavours and qualities in it...That's the honey and the wonder of the universe.
4) World Honey Production and the Danger of our Foods
In 1990's world production was about 1.2-1.3 million tons. Roughly China 200,000 tons, ex Soviet Union 200,000 tons, USA 100,000 tons, followed by Mexico, Brasil, Argentina and Turky...
In 2010 it increased to total 1.54 million M/T. (FAO statistic)
China 398,000M/T (26%),
EU 203,660M/T (13%),
Africa 179,400M/T (12%), Ethyopia 45,300M/T
USA 79,800M/T (5.2%),
Ohers 679,140M/T Turky 81,115M/T (5.3%), Ukraine 70,800M/T (4.6%), Argentina 59,000M/T due to bad weather but average of
2005 - 2010 was 110,000M/T and ranked 2nd biggest country,.
Danger of our foods;
There are many negative issues for the decline of the production such as world-wide deterioration of the environmnet, change of climate etc.
In 1994 French beekeepers were the first to experience huge number of sudden deaths of their bees which they called "Mad Bee Disease" and later it is named as CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). Bees, the pollinators, are disappearing at an alarming rate and many of our staple foods could vanish along with them says Mat Thomas. About 90% of world food supply is derived from just 100 crop species and 71 of them are pollinated by honeybees. Native pollinators such as bumblebees, bats and humming birds are also misteriously vanishing.
And it is believed that new class of agri-insecticides called "Neonicotinoids" are the main cause and are used on more than 140 crops. Death of the pollinators like honeybees also means the end of the crops which are relying upon the insects for pollination.
Neonicotinoids are a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically similar to nicotine. The development of this class of insecticides began with work in the 1990s by Bayer. The neonicotinoids show reduced toxicity compared to previously used organophosphate and carbamate insecticides but contain poisonous neuro toxin that damages insects' brains, impairing their ability to communicate and navigate before killing. Their poisons together with other insecticides work synergistic interaction and multiplies their lethal toxicity. The neonicotinoid imidacloprid is currently the most widely used insecticide in the world.
In the late 2000s some kinds of neonicotinoids began to come under increasing scrutiny over potential environmental impacts. The use of neonicotinoids was linked in a range of studies to a number of adverse ecological effects, including honey-bee colony collapse disorder (CCD) and loss of birds due to reduction in insect populations. Increased scrutiny eventually led to restrictions and bans on the use of different neonicotinoids in several countries. US EPA gave Bayer's neonicotides concocted "Clothianidin" a Conditional Registration (report of the manufacturer on the impact to the ecology is requiered within one year from the release) in 2003 without doing adequit tests about impact on pollinators and Clothianidin has been sold and used more than 10 years and still said no report submitted. It is said that agrochemical industry earns $38 billions/year and the big 6 (BASF, Bayer, Dow, Dupont, Monsanto and Syngenta) shares more than 2/3 of its earning.