Few ideas on way to test honey purity and origin.
In theory there should be a average amount of Bee DNA in a jar of
honey unless it is diluted. Bee specific Primers and the utilization
of Real Time PCR could be used here once the average amount of DNA in
an undiluted sample is figured out all samples would be compared to
this.
As for origin: I'm sure a similar approach PCR can be used. Every
area has a common flora by using Primers specific one could detect
what flora a bee is using to make honey from this one could predict
what region the honey is coming from. This idea of common is similar
to what is being done now (melissopalynology) but they are looking for
the pollen grain. DNA should still be there even if they pollen is
removed.
On Nov 16, 12:51 pm, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Simon Quellen Field
>
> <sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:
> > The more I read, the more I find I don't know about the subject.
> > But as Cathal points out, much of what I find is hearsay, including
> > whatever is in Wikipedia without a reference.
> > I find from experience in cooking that honey still tastes like honey to me
> > after being baked into cakes, cookies, or baklava, where there are many
> > other flavors masking any subtleties such as what type of flower the bees
> > may have visited.
>
> You cook the honey when you're ready to consume it though... I could
> compare pasteurisation and your baking akin to leaving a bag of frozen
> veggies out when you come home from the market vs. leaving them frozen
> and defrosting only when ready to cook and consume.
>
> Honey is biochemically built to be hardy and resistant to degradation,
> WITHOUT heat treatment by man. I argue that heat treatment is for
> etiquette (making filtering bug bits faster), standardization of
> clarity and non-spore microbe levels.
>
> > I don't eat honey by itself (or rock candy, table sugar, or other things
> > that
> > are basically pure glucose and fructose). This is part of why I am sure I
> > could not tell by taste what kind of honey I was eating, making me a bad
> > test subject for someone trying to prove one honey was better than another.
> > Given that wine experts have been found to have a 50% chance of correctly
> > identifying whether they were drinking red wine or white in blind tests, and
> > that only 20% of people could identify which of five cola drinks was Pepsi,
> > I still think a double blind taste test between pasteurized and plain honey
> > is what we will need to settle that debate.
>
> I train my tastes to like what is proven to be good... I hated
> broccoli when I was a kid, then I learned it had a bunch of really
> good stuff in it, and I eat it and other bitter leafy vegetables as a
> result of more knowledge of their benefit.
>
> > Enzymes are one thing people have mentioned as being important.
> > It is unlikely that they are claiming to taste the enzymes (but I don't
> > know),
> > so presumably it is the effects of the enzymes that are the issue. But if
> > the
> > enzymes are active in the honey, presumably they will be reacting with the
> > honey, and aged honey would be preferred to fresh by those people. If not,
> > then pasteurization to denature the enzymes would be of benefit, to prevent
> > enzyme spoilage of the honey.
>
> Like I said enzymes are there in the first place to prevent spoilage.
> Maybe the have human effects too, maybe their function changes after
> heat processing and they become harmful/allergenic to humans?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > Denaturing the enzymes at the point where they have done their work, but
> > before they have done too much work might also be of benefit to those who
> > can taste an enzyme derived difference.
> > Peroxides are another touted benefit of honey. Given how difficult it is to
> > keep
> > hydrogen peroxide from being degraded in a dark bottle, it might be
> > interesting
> > to test commercial honey to see how much peroxide is left after the jar full
> > of
> > organisms that produce peroxidases has been sitting on a supermarket shelf
> > for a few weeks in bright lights. If a minute at 69 Celsius is bad for
> > peroxides,
> > then what would we expect of a few weeks at 29 Celsius in a clear glass jar?
> > Honey is not magic. It is sugar water with some adulterants, and the
> > properties of
> > those adulterants after normal processing have not been identified, let
> > alone
> > compared to that after a minute at 69 Celsius.
>
> Peroxide in honey is produced by the enzyme glucose oxidase which
> could be heat labile.
> Top bullet (via wikipedia honey page, peroxide section):http://bio.waikato.ac.nz/honey/special.shtml
>
> > The definition of honey as sugar water with pollen in it is merely a legal
> > one, made
> > because pollen is something that has been used to track the source of honey,
> > and
> > as we have seen, is a bad proxy for sourcing. We track lot numbers and
> > chains of
> > custody for other items of commerce where we care about the source. But what
> > we
> > care about in honey is not the source, but the safety, and so we are using a
> > proxy
> > on top of a proxy. It is better to actually measure the things we care
> > about. Test for
> > dangerous levels of contaminants, and for taste.
>
> Lots of people say that local pollen boosts your immune system,
> probably has some sort of "background subtraction" effect
>
> See the article I've attached
> 2009/2010 - Contribution of honey in nutrition and human health: a review
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > -----
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>
> > On Wed, Nov 16, 2011 at 8:16 AM, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
>
> >> Speaking as a parent to a ~10 week old baby, it would be dangerous to
> >> assume that a baby's digestive system moves at a constant rate. Babies
> >> at this age can go for up to two days without passing stool, plenty of
> >> time for botulinum to survive and grow in some portion of the intestinal
> >> tract.
>
> >> That said, my prior statement was based on hearsay, rather than research
> >> I've personally read. It could equally be a matter of preparation and
> >> storage of infant formula, as you suggest. Chalk up another obvious
> >> reason to go with breastmilk.
>
> >> On 16/11/11 15:24, leaking pen wrote:
> >> > That makes no sense. Actual live clostridium infections involved
> >> > tainted foods where the bacteria has already been active and growing
> >> > for a couple of hours. a few spores in honey not activated until its
> >> > been watered down enough in the stomach? Its going to already be on
> >> > its way to the intestines, and out the body before more than 5, 6
> >> > generations tops, I would think.
>
> >> > Doing some hunting, I see a single journal of pediatrics article which
> >> > states that a large percentage of babies with type b infant botulism
> >> > were fed honey. According to my mom, it was THE THING back then to
> >> > mix honey with baby food or formula. I would be interested to see what
> >> > percentage of infants IN GENERAL were fed honey...
>
> >> --
> >>www.indiebiotech.com
> >> twitter.com/onetruecathal
> >> joindiaspora.com/u/cathalgarvey
> >> PGP Public Key:http://bit.ly/CathalGKey
>
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> --
> Nathan McCorkle
> Rochester Institute of Technology
> College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics
>
> contribution of honey in nutrition and human health.pdf
> 111KViewDownload
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