10 Indian Honey Brands Fail Purity Test
Adulteration of honey is a global problem. CSE investigation found that 10 out of 13 honey brands fail the ‘purity test’.
Adulteration of honey is a global problem, including India, but now countries are devising regulations and new tests to check it. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) conducted an investigation to check the quality of various brands of Indian honey. It claimed that the Honey marketed by prominent brands failed the test of purity. The current regulations have around 18 parameters that honey must comply with. If all the 18 parameters are passed, only then the honey can be labelled as ‘pure honey.’CSE food researchers selected 13 brands of raw and processed honey, including Dabur, Patanjali, Baidyanath and Zandu. They first tested them on the tests that are required under National Food regulatory laws to be labelled as honey.
Most of the brands passed those tests. Then they were put to one special test, called Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). This test was done at a lab in Germany. Multiple samples of each brand were tested.You would be surprised to know, only three brands passed this test: Saffola, Markfed Sohna and Nature’s Nectar. The NMR test is not required by Indian law for honey that is being marketed locally but is needed for export. Dabur Honey in a statement denied that its honey was not adulterated with sugar syrup. The company furnished a July 20 report from a German company, Bruker. The report said there was no evidence of sugar syrup.
The CSE investigation also said that some Indian companies were importing synthetic sugar syrups from China to adulterate honey. But they were used in any of the Indian brands tested. Sunita Narain, Director General, CSE said, “We are consuming honey, more of it to fight the pandemic. But honey adulterated with sugar will not make us well.” Adulteration also destroyed the livelihoods of bee-keepers as it was unprofitable to make pure honey because sugar-syrup honey was often available at half the price.
