Oh honey.

Wow, we get freaking everything from China!

That makes me happy that we started getting our honey from the farmers market.  The Sacramento one is great - it's got eggs, honey, meat, fish, bread, other baked goods, coffee, fruits, veggies, plants, herbs, cheese, even olive oil and wine sometimes.  Although now that it's winter it's a little more sparse.  I haven't been to many other farmers markets to compare, but that seems like a really wide variety to me.  When I think of farmers market I think fruits and veggies and that's it.

Anyway, knowing this I'll definitely keep getting the farmers market honey.  Thanks for the info!  Also, honey laundering - hah, nice!

Oh my word.  That's so much honey being imported.  I have a bottle on my desk from Trader Joe's.  On the front it says product of USA (US Grade A Fancy).  But regardless of what's on the label?  Yikes.  I hate to waste, but maybe I'll let this last 1/4 bottle of honey go and pick some up at the farmer's market too....

I recently had a conversation with someone about labeling.  She mentioned hearing some legislation about requirements for having every place of origin on labels.  Have you guys heard about anything like that?  And would you trust it?  (Given the case of honey laundering...)

 I worked for a State Representative in my hometown Massachusetts and he composed a bill for food labeling and place of origin too. It didnt move in the House of Reps for years and years, guess there were too much controversy/work of the supplier. Just a thought.

According to this book I'm reading, the average hamburger patty contains meat from over 50 animals from many different locations. This is just one example of how food is becoming increasingly difficult to track and label.

Ah yeah, I've seen The End of Food by Paul Roberts on bookshelves and I've been meaning to get it from the library.  (Are you liking it so far?)  I can't believe that the average hamburger has meat from that many different animals.  What are some of them?  Besides beef....

It *is* beef. It's just processed in giant industrial facilities and it originates from as many as a thousand distinct cows, as confirmed by DNA testing. The average count was 55 I believe.

The same thing applies to fresh greens, cereal, and (I imagine) honey. By doing this, the industry achieves super low costs (the main benefit) while defeating labeling laws (a side benefit).

I finished the book. Good read, but not really offering credible solutions IMO. But it will definitely force you to re-examine some of your core assumptions, especially about the whole organic movement.

Oh, haha...for some reason I was reading it not as in 50 different cows, but as in 50 different types of animals.  I guess I was harkening back to a book I read in high school that had talked about rat tails in hot dogs.