[ExI] Honey fraud

[spike at rainier66.com]

...> On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat
Cc: Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com>
Subject: [ExI] Honey fraud

Posting here because I think Spike will have opinions on this.  I also
wonder how and if AIs might help with the main problem: getting detectors
that can do the job to where they are needed.  (More sophisticated analysis
doesn't matter if that analysis requires specialized anything that's too
expensive, immobile, or unwieldy to get to the fake honey in the first
place.)

https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/the-sticky-problem-of-detecting-fake
-honey/4023882.article
_______________________________________________



Thanks Adrian!

They start out with the comment "Nobody knows how much of the honey we buy
is pure or unadulterated, as detecting fraud remains surprisingly
difficult."

That sentence is fighting itself, for fraud is bad, but impure adulterated
honey is good: it reduces (or possibly eliminates) having to rob and plunder
perfectly innocent bees.

And of course it is hard to detect: unscrupulous agents take pure honey from
the bees, that life-giving storage medium for nutrition, then substitute
corn syrup to keep the bees alive over the winter.  Unethical!  Immoral I
say!  The bees worked so damn hard for that honey, so we humans aughta keep
our damn paws out of it, and give OURSELVES the corn syrup, perhaps in a
honey bear plastic bottle if it makes us feel better (I damn well AUGHTA
make us feel WORSE for taking that honey.)

Bee honey isn't really more healthy either.  Nutritionally honey and corn
syrup are practically indistinguishable to our digestive system, but
apparently there are subtle differences to the bees' digestion and
nutritional needs.  The substitution of corn syrup to feed bees is thought
to have contributed to the ruinous varroa mites in the 1970s, causing damage
to the industry which is with us to this day.  That bees' nutritional needs
differ from our own should come as no surprise: feeding royal jelly to a bee
larva turns her into a queen.  Feed royal jelly to a human devourer, no
visible benefit at all.

I had an idea however.  I work with scouts and we have some new families who
are observant Jains, very strict vegans.  Honey is an animal product (note
that I have no heartburn at all with humans devouring animals and animal
products, only honey.)  Well OK then.  Scouts go on camping trips, and
camping trips demand smores, which are made with graham crackers, which are
made with... honey.  We don't want our Jain scouts left out, so I went in
search of honey-free graham crackers, only to find that pretty much ALL
graham crackers list honey in the ingredients, not just Honeymaid.  Damn.

Then I discovered... chocolate covered graham-cracker-like confections that
are the functional equivalent of graham crackers, and well hell, you put
chocolate on them anyway when you make smores, so why not start with some on
there already?  I have yet to hear a scout complain that his smores have too
much chocolate.  I have heard scout leaders complain that scouts devoured
too much chocolate and now they are bouncing around like hyperactive
hummingbirds, but the scouts don't mind it.

Because of family obligations, I have missed the last three scout campouts,
so I am suffering smore withdrawal.  Fortunately I have some honey-less
chocolate graham crackers (although not a Jain, you know I am a hard-ass
honey abstainer) and I have some marshmallows and some chocolate bars left
over from last time, along with a webber grill and some sticks.  Smore time!

I do urge you to think of honey as artificial corn syrup/molasses/food
coloring, for those three ingredients are "natural" once you recognize that
humans are natural and everything we do is "natural" in the sense that we
evolved from natural forces.  Hell artificial intelligence, nuclear bombs
and covid-19 are natural, if viewed that perfectly natural way. 

Adrian, thanks for reinforcing my attitude.  Eat corn syrup, alla yas!  It
comes from corn.

spike