The Bees have it

We heard in the last few weeks how Bee populations are in decline, and the growth of mobile phones may be the cause. Also there has been a virus wiping out large numbers of bees (Varroa) and they can suffer from colony collapse disorder. So Bees haven't been having a good time recently.

Now the food standards agency have persuaded Ofcom to ban advertising for honey, claiming that its contributing to obesity. Honey has been included with Marmite, cheese and olive oil as junk foods. It will still be legal to to advertise chicken mcnuggets, diet cola, white bread and oven chips. Its good to hear that junk foods will be banned from advertising to kids, but honey is widely seen as a health food, as is olive oil. Honey mustn't be given to infants (1), but processed food including sugar is far more dangerous. Weve been eating honey for millenia, but modern sugars are relatively new to our systems. White sugar is an industrially processed chemical not found in nature, and can be addictive. The sugar lobby is powerful however and this means they use their money to advertise and persuade people that its pure and healthy, so I was surprised to find that bones can be used to filter and whiten it (2). Its easy to forget how much our modern diet has changed from that of our ancestors, try living without any processed food and see if it makes a difference.

further reading
1. http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodhealthinformation/a/honeyhealth.htm
2. www.vnv.org.au/Products.htm