Tesco pulls honey off shelves amid purity concerns

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I shall even eschew smoked salmon/scrambled eggs for Christmas breakfast

good on you - the whole process of intensively rearing salmon in sea lochs for human consumption, as well as being terribly damaging to the environment is damaging to wild fish stocks - both salmon and sea trout as well as sandeel stocks that they harvest (no quotas) to produce the food pellets to feed farmed salmon. Farmed salmon in general is a poor alternative to wild salmon - colourless, flabby and full of fat. Let's not mention packed full of chemicals, antibiotics and colourings to make them look 'wild'.
I think salmon is a pretty overrated fish, the farmed type especially - not much better than tucking into a macdonalds IMHO. but if I had to, I would only eat wild salmon - and as salmon stocks are on a knife edge at the moment, in no small part due to polluters like Welsh Water and other uti;ity companies I don't eat it at all

 

[The Poot]

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news...l-fishing-support-uk-struggling-seabirds.html

Has this ban been overturned by Europe or by Starmer giving away our fishing rights?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Flahavan's?

Usually Pimhill but buywholefoods when they include them in their VIP free offer

 

[Erichalfbee]

good on you - the whole process of intensively rearing salmon in sea lochs for human consumption, as well as being terribly damaging to the environment is damaging to wild fish stocks

Horrible what these farms are doing. I’ll have to send Stan out fishing.

 

[Erichalfbee]

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news...l-fishing-support-uk-struggling-seabirds.html

Has this ban been overturned by Europe or by Starmer giving away our fishing rights?

No the ban is still in place in our waters but where do the Danish trawlers fish?

 

[Penninetrader]

What I don't understand about you JBM is that given your charitable endeavours in Africa you advocate for a climate policy designed to suppress peoples of the third world.

The third world is in line to be pillaged once more, aided and abetted by their own leaders greed, so no different than here in the so called first world. They are going for equality, all poor and servitude. I have taken some small steps to alert those I converse with in Africa of their plans and methods.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Horrible what these farms are doing. I’ll have to send Stan out fishing.

salmon are protected now, I always preferred Sewin anyway

 

[Erichalfbee]

salmon are protected now, I always preferred Sewin anyway

So you have to release rod caught salmon?
Is Sewin a trout?

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

So you have to release rod caught salmon?

yes

Is Sewin a trout?

yes, basically it's a brown trout that due to feeding competition has drifted further and further downstream until it hits the estuary. some stay there and become 'slob' trout and some migrate round our coasts before eventually making their way back up the river of their birth to spawn. Unlike salmon that seldom (but not never) return to the sea after spawning, recover then do the trip again, sewin return to the spawning grounds multiple times.,

 

[Erichalfbee]

yes

yes, basically it's a brown trout that due to feeding competition has drifted further and further downstream until it hits the estuary. some stay there and become 'slob' trout and some migrate round our coasts before eventually making their way back up the river of their birth to spawn. Unlike salmon that seldom (but not never) return to the sea after spawning, recover then do the trip again, sewin return to the spawning grounds multiple times.,

When we lived just outside Kendal I used to walk up the road with the dogs and watch the salmon leap the weir at Barley Bridge in Staveley. Absolutely wonderful sight

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

When we lived just outside Kendal I used to walk up the road with the dogs and watch the salmon leap the weir at Barley Bridge in Staveley. Absolutely wonderful sight

The river Aman just a few hundred yards away and has always held a healthy stock of salmon and sewin we have a the riverside walk which follows the river almost from its source to where it meets the Llwchwr (loughor) and due to its steep gradient, has quite a few weirs.
I remember years ago having an autumn riverside meeting with the chair of the Carmarthenshire rivers trust (I was chair of the Fishermen's Federation at the time) and we stopped to chat near one of the weirs. After five minutes Gethin said 'you seem rather distracted' (he had his back to the river) 'I'm sorry Geth' I said 'but whilst you have been telling me of the parlous state of most Carmarthenshire rivers, I've just counted over a dozen salmon passing the weir - one of them looked to weigh well over twenty pounds!!'

 

[Ian Morton]

I like the analogy, but to be fair, there are differences between the two.

Chinese-US honey fraud was discovered in the early part of this century; the illegality was that either imports were labelled as sugar syrup (thus avoiding US anti-dumping law) or that Chinese honey was mis-represented as originating in countries such as Poland, the Phillipines or Mongolia, or that the honeys contained the prohibited AFB antibiotics Chloramphenicol or Tetracycline.

This report is an easy read of US Gov. cases prosecuted in that period, and though the scale of crimininalty is shocking, it is probably a drop in the ocean in comparison with other food or manufacturing fraud.

The desire at that time to mis-represent Chinese honey looks to have been driven by an earlier US Gov. decision (in 2001) to triple import tariffs of Chinese honey in response to artifically low prices of that product (you can guess why prices may have been low). The duties were 221% of declared value!

The Honey Launderers (get a cuppa & a cosy chair) tells the human side of the story: honey tasting of sauerkraut, devious emails, shady chats over pizza, an unmarked Chevy Impala and enough dishonest excitements and fake documents to make a reasonable movie.

On the other hand, the issue of Chinese honey entering the EU & UK is not that it enters the food chain illegally (even though it may adulterated), but that our historic label regulations allow it to arrive incognito, under the vague tiny-print phrase 'Produce of EU and non-EU countries'. At last, those regs. will be tightened, but no doubt fraudsters will work hard to remain ahead in the game.

Thanks again Eric for your apparently bottomless store of useful information. That is a fascinating and sobering story. What with the horsemeat scandal (and many others no doubt) a picture emerges of a thoroughly corrupt international trade in food products. And if any sceptic asks me how I know that commercial honey is adulterated, this is not the apochryphal story, it's a case study. Bang to rights.

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

good on you - the whole process of intensively rearing salmon in sea lochs for human consumption, as well as being terribly damaging to the environment is damaging to wild fish stocks - both salmon and sea trout as well as sandeel stocks that they harvest (no quotas) to produce the food pellets to feed farmed salmon. Farmed salmon in general is a poor alternative to wild salmon - colourless, flabby and full of fat. Let's not mention packed full of chemicals, antibiotics and colourings to make them look 'wild'.
I think salmon is a pretty overrated fish, the farmed type especially - not much better than tucking into a macdonalds IMHO. but if I had to, I would only eat wild salmon - and as salmon stocks are on a knife edge at the moment, in no small part due to polluters like Welsh Water and other uti;ity companies I don't eat it at all

Welsh water are a complete joke of a company.
My grandfather owned the fishing rights on a good mile stretch of the Alyn. I often caught good sized brown trout, as well as a few rainbow, lots of flattie's & big eels also, now there's not a fish in there as there's one of there works constantly dumping into the river.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Welsh water are a complete joke of a company.

They are, and have done more damage to Welsh rivers than good since the 1960s if not longer. Unfortunately they also have Environment Agency Wales (now rebadged as Natural Resources Wales) in their pocket.
Good to see you posting John, hope your trip to thr hospital was nothing too serious

 

[Penninetrader]

Brings to mind that had we had a political class of all colors who's first order of business being the improvement of our environment we would now be in a very good place. I wonder how much good we could have achieved if just 2 of the projects of control had never taken place, it would amount to £70b add in the ongoing cost of servicing that debt it adds up to a criminal rather than political class running our countries. They have none of interest at heart.

 

[alancooper]

Could we please stop this stupid argument that's going nowhere and just making people angry. Of course one side's correct and the other side's bonkers but neither can convince the other in this sort of forum.

Well said. My broad understanding of the climate change issue is that **** sapiens is responsible for the increase in atmospheric Carbon concentration in the atmosphere since Victorian times and for consequent climate change. The beekeeping forum is not a place for narrow debate on the complex system processes involved or providing answers.

 

[roche]

The beekeeing forum has always been a place of debate covering a wide range of topics. It would be a far poorer place without it...I might not agree with all the points of view, but it is far more interesting to hear them aired.

 

[Penninetrader]

Well said. My broad understanding of the climate change issue is that **** sapiens is responsible for the increase in atmospheric Carbon concentration in the atmosphere since Victorian times and for consequent climate change. The beekeeping forum is not a place for narrow debate on the complex system processes involved or providing answers.

Well on that we utterly disagree, the latest volcanic eruptions a case in point. What caused co2 increases prior to industrialisation. We are currently in a cooling phase and at .o4 % of atmosphere I will less than worry. You will find that serious pushback on the current narrative is gaining momentum. Could not come soon enough.

 

[alancooper]

Enjoy.

 

[JamezF]

at .o4 % of atmosphere I will less than worry

You can't just look at the number and say "Oh, that's very small so it won't matter" without considering the broader context. For example, you might look at a pile of compost containing two parts per billion (0.0000002%) of aminopyralid and say "Oh, that's a tiny amount! My tomatoes and potatoes will be fine growing in that." It will still kill them though, along with many other vegetables.

James