Honey | Anna Jeffrey: I'm Just Saying...

A few days back, I caught a headline about one of the largest food frauds in the history of the country. (See link at the bottom of this post to read about it.)

A headline like that just naturally catches my eye since one of my concerns in life has become the safety of the food we are forced to buy because none other is available to us.

And lo and behold, when I read further, the subject product is one of my favorites: HONEY!

Honey in honeycombs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A German company with offices in Chicago has been marketing all over the world honey that is imported from China and contains chemicals banned in the US. (Big surprise, huh?) Who knew honey was imported?

The company figured out how to avoid USDA red tape by routing it through other countries and bringing it into the US as a product of some different country. Also there’s honey that has been diluted with syrup or water, honey that is contaminated with various other chemicals and the list goes on. This product might not make it to our dinner tables, but it might show up in other manufactured foods that have honey as an ingredient, i.e., cereals, baking goods, etc.

A couple of people have gone to jail over this, a relief, I guess.

I’ve been worried for a while about honey bees dying off for some unknown reason. Despite the environmentalist groups proclaiming that bees are dying from various chemicals that are applied to plants, that isn’t the biggest reason the bees are disappearing. It has finally been concluded that the bees have been attacked by a virus and no one knows what to do about it.

Not good news. Honey is good for everything. And it tastes good. But even if you are not a honey-lover, you have to be concerned about the disappearance of the bees because without them, pollination necessary for growing plants that produce food becomes an issue.

For a while now, because I understand there’s a shortage, I’ve been clenching my jaw and paying $9.00 for a quart bottle of honey. And that is by no means the most expensive. Like everything we eat, the price of just keep going up.

I’ve taken comfort in the labels that boast “Product of the USA” and “U.S. Grade A 100% Pure Honey” and “Source Verified.” ….. But what do those labels mean, really? Marketing itself is so fraudulent, I can’t help but wonder what kind of gyrations someone has gone through to be able to make those claims. I’m sure all of the honey is combined in one big pot before it’s bottled, so is it possible that a bad batch gets combined with the good batches?

You won’t have any trouble convincing me that it is. What I mourn is that even if says it’s 100% pure and safe, I will never be able to consume honey again without wondering about it. All I can say is, if you buy honey, folks, check the label.

And now, on to books news.

OUR RED HOT ROMANCE IS LEAVING ME BLUE by Dixie Cash is now available as an audio book at www.audible.com, Amazon, and iTunes at a reasonable price. The narrator—her name is Holly Adams—does a great job. You can listen on your MP3 player, your tablet or your phone. Of course, you can still buy the print book at Amazon. Here’s the blurb:

“Ghost busting! Not the usual gig for the Domestic Equalizers, Debbie Sue Overstreet and Edwina Perkins-Martin. Their forte is cheating husbands and wives and significant others. “Don’t get mad, get even” is their motto.

That is, until they meet Justin Sadler. He’s trying to come to terms with the passing of his dearly beloved Rachel. Except that now he’s not sure she has passed. Either she’s trying to communicate with him from the other side or somebody is trying to drive him crazy. Who else to find the answer to an off-beat question than the offbeat detectives, The Domestic Equalizers?

Knowing little about ghostly activities, their solution is to recommend that Justin hire an out-of-town psychic. He skeptically agrees and the fun begins. No one expected the medium from El Paso to be young and beautiful and sweet as pecan pie. No one expected her to call up a few ghosts from Edwina’s past. But it all turns out in the end. Justin and the El Paso mentalist live happily ever after ad the Domestic Equalizers add the solution to another off-the-wall mystery to their resume.”

It’s funny, I don’t care who you are. 🙂