There are - perhaps surprisingly - nearly 50,000 beekeepers in the UK, maintaining around a quarter of a million hives: Linda (Mrs Bryant!) is one of them. It's hard work - very hard work - requiring commitment (both emotional and financial), patience and consideration for the bees: most apiarists make just enough from selling their produce to break even. The bees? It takes a dozen bees their entire lifetimes to make just a teaspoonful of honey, but the whole hive can yield between 20 and 100 pounds of honey a year.
Visit any supermarket and you'll see a variety of honeys for sale, with prices ranging from a couple of pounds a jar to as much as £100 for the top-of-the-range Manuka honey. But here's the thing: around 1,700 tons of genuine Manuka honey are produced annually in New Zealand, but, according to Crisis Report UK, ten thousand tons are sold around the world!
There is no way that a jar of genuine honey can be sold at a profit for a couple of pounds, yet every supermarket offers numerous brands around that price. When Crisis Report tested runny honey from the major supermarkets, they discovered that most contained psicose, a known chemical 'marker' for fake honey - especially if it's from China.
Genuine honey has long been prized for its therapeutic properties, but that is not the case for the syrup-diluted, blended cheap 'runny honey' offered in most shops. If you're just looking for something sweet to put in your porridge or on your toast and you're not worried about empty calories, well fine: but if you want the real health-giving food, read the label and be prepared to pay a little extra.
No comments:
Post a Comment