The apiary feeds bees on white sugar to sell honey, but the majority

From October 20th, the Ministry of Health announced the official implementation of GB14963-2011 National Food Safety Standard - Honey. However, the reporter's investigation found that most of the sales in supermarkets and some honey stores in Jinan are still “old products” and there is a big gap between the requirements of the “new national standard”.

The packaging is very beautiful

"The new national standard did not pay attention to it. I always look for the price to buy honey." On the morning of the 24th, Mr. Cao Hengchang, a citizen shopping at a large supermarket, said that although he often buys honey, he does not know what the national standard and Baume degrees are. Meaning, they have to buy by feeling, and generally choose the expensive or new, which may be more secure.

According to the “New National Standard” of honey, honey should be a natural substance. After being processed by a chemical process, it can only be called a “honey product” and cannot be called “honey”. 100 grams of honey should contain at least 60 grams of fructose and glucose. The sugar content of eucalyptus honey, citrus honey, aster honey, litchi honey, and wild osmanthus honey is less than or equal to 10g/100g, and other honey requires less than or equal to 5g/100g.

The reporter visited several large-scale supermarkets and found out that the packaging of honey is relatively exquisite, but most of them do not specify the specific composition and content, let alone sucrose content. There is still a lot of honey on the outer packaging is difficult to see the product standard number, quality grade, only some of the larger brands will be marked more detailed.

"These should all be produced in accordance with the latest national standards?" When a reporter asked if he knew that the new honey standard was being implemented, many supermarket workers were not clear. On supermarket shelves, most of the honey products are still implemented in GB18796-2005 standard, and many brands that implement the new standard of honey are not yet on shelves.

A shopping guide told reporters that, in addition to the national standard, the manufacturer's mark on the purity of honey is also very vague, and often mislead consumers. Although some indicate the purity of honey is 100%, but for his many years of work experience, the purity of the 100% honey on the market is not much, most of the purity of 60%, 70%.

It is difficult to distinguish whether honey is adulterated

"Now most of the honey sold in supermarkets and specialty stores has a high sucrose content." A staff member of the Shandong Provincial Bee Association told the reporter that even if some bee farms sell honey beside the highway, there are also The phenomenon of bees feeding sugar.

Beekeeper Liu Haizuo of Jinan Haizu Bee Garden told the reporter that the old national standard requires the content of honey itself to be greater than 90%, but the new national standard redefines honey and requires honey to be a natural substance. This is actually implemented in the mass production process of manufacturers. It is difficult to achieve. “The real beekeepers are living very hard. They have to move around with their tents all year round. As far as manufacturers are concerned, they rarely have their own specialized bee farms. The honey sources are mostly bought from the beekeepers.”

Liu Haizuo told reporters that nowadays honey manufacturers rarely have a concentration meter in the process of acquiring honey. This easily leads to a decrease in the glucose and fructose values ​​of honey.

Although it is possible to easily identify the quality of honey by taste and color, Liu Haizuo said that whether honey is adulterated is difficult for even honey experts to discern. At present, it can only be determined through professional organizations.

New standards may cause confusion

“The industry has a lot of controversy over the new honey standard. Many people think that the new national standard has great restrictions on real honey, but they have given a green light to fake honey.” On the 24th, Song Xinfang, director of the National People's Congress and director of the Institute of Honey Research in Dongying City, Shandong Province, accepted the proposal. When interviewed, the reporter believed that the new national standard for honey was controversial in terms of content and promulgation procedures, and there were many opposing voices.

Song Xinyi believes that there are some problems in the new national standard for honey. It is not scientific to use the honey sensory index as a standard indicator of food safety, and it is easy to cause confusion in implementation. Due to the large number of honey varieties, it is impossible to enforce uniformity in color, taste, and state, and this difference will not cause food safety problems. The new national standard for honey is not necessary to use physical and chemical indicators as food safety indicators, and it also causes unnecessary troubles and obstacles to the normal production and operation of enterprises.

In addition, the new national standard of honey has increased the index of the osmophilic yeast in the microbial limit compared with the old standard. Since natural honey contains osmophilic yeast, there is currently no evidence that the osmophilic yeast may harm the human body. This indicator has no significance in food safety. However, the provisions of the veterinary drug residue index and its limits that are generally concerned are very unclear, and they are very flexible for the supervision of law enforcement agencies and enterprises, and are prone to excessive or severe problems.

For this reason, Song Xinyi specifically proposed his own proposal to the national health department. He believes that the honey GB14963-2011 national food safety standards should be suspended and revised, so as not to bring confusion to the entire industry. During the process of revision and formulation, the response and appeal of the bee product industry organizations, enterprises, and experts should be fully heard, the indicators of the new national standard of honey unrelated to food safety should be eliminated, and the indicators and limits of veterinary drug residues in honey should be clearly defined so as to be practical and practical. Operability.