Honey In India: A Cocktail Of Antibiotics?

I love honey. I used to gift honey, especially from Germany, to my close relations on my return from my travels abroad. Now I have stopped gifting honey and even stopped eating it. My friend Sunita Narain, an indefatigable public-spirited person, tells us that even health-conscious companies, in this case from Australia and Switzerland, “do not check antibiotics in products they export to our world.”

If you are a honey connoisseur then I am afraid the following would appear as a horror story. Sunita Narain continues: “(In India) when the Pollution Monitoring Laboratory of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) checked honey, it found cocktail of antibiotics—mostly banned and prohibited in food. It found everything from the commonly used Ampicillin, Enrofloxacin, Ciprofloxacin, Erythromycin to the strictly banned Chloramphenicol in honey made and packaged by the biggest and the most known.

“Any doctor will tell you these antibiotics in food are bad, because they not only have health impacts but also make disease-causing bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Over-exposure to antibiotics is not just leading to super-bugs in hospitals. We are also getting small doses of antibiotics through food. Because of this doctors want us to be careful with antibiotics. It is also because of this that food regulators say there should be no—or minimum and controlled— antibiotics in our food.

“This is where the equation between big businesses and food gets murky. CSE’s laboratory checked two foreign brands bought from our local store. We know Europe has banned Indian honey for having these antibiotics. They did this because they say they care about their health.

“Good. But then who cares about our health? Both brands we checked had high levels of antibiotics. The health-conscious companies, in this case from Australia and Switzerland, do not check antibiotics in products they export to our world. It is about double-standards and it stinks. But why should they care for our health, when our government does not? The same government, which makes strict standards for exported honey, does not care about what we use domestically. There are no standards for antibiotics in Indian honey.

“This is the age of big and powerful business taking over our kitchen, because we have complicit food regulators. The recently set up Food Safety and Standards Authority has been dead on entry. Do not be surprised. Be angry. This is not a business we should allow for takeover. It is about us. Our bodies. Our self.”… More here…