I finally had time to respond to an old topic...

On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Mark Coldiron wrote:

> I've noticed that when I eat a spoonful of honey with a stainless
> steel spoon, I can really taste the metal.  I tried several
> different brands of stainless steel spoons and the taste was always
> very strong.  Thinking that most honey processing equipment and
> storage tanks are made of stainless steel, I thought I must be
> imagining things.  So, I tried a plastic spoon.  No metallic taste!!

As Eddy Lear responded (at the time), the metallic taste is probably
coming from your tongue contacting the spoon, not from the stainless
steel leaching contaminates into the honey.

> Now I know this must sound dumb to a lot of you, but why use
> stainless steel if it leaves a metallic taste?  What's wrong with
> plastic tanks, troughs, etc...?  The cost sure would be a lot less.
> An extractor could have a plastic drum just like most modern washing
> machines do - couldn't it?

I'd advise caution in recommending plastic containers for honey
storage.  There is evidence linking a chemical found in certain
plastics (Bisphenol A) to altered growth and early puberty in lab
mice:

    http://www.ncsu.edu/ncsu/univ_relations/news_services/press_releases/99_10/305.htm

    Kembra L. Howdeshell, Kristina A. Thayer, and Frederick S. vom
    Saal. 1999. Plastic Bisphenol A speeds growth and puberty.  Nature
    Volume 401 Number 6755 Page 763 - 764 (1999)

I've also seen claims linking synthetic estrogens found in plastics
and pesticides to (among other things) the increased rate of breast
cancer in women, and decreased sperm viability and motility in men.
Here's one reference:

    Sharpe, R.M. and Shakkebaek. 1993. Are oestrogens involved in
    falling sperm counts and disorders of the male reproductive tract?
    Lancet 341:1392-1395.

...although other studies did not support all of the above study's
findings:

    Fisch, H. and Goluboff. 1996. Geographic variations in sperm
    counts: A potential cause of bias in studies of semen
    quality. Fertility and Sterility 65:1044-1046.

BTW, I found the references to most of the above studies here:

    http://www.som.tulane.edu/ecme/eehome/

The bottom line: don't assume that plastic containers don't leach
residue just because you can't detect any such residue with your taste
buds!  Plastic is less expensive than stainless steel, but stainless
steel is a known quantity, and as far as contamination/reactivity is
concerned, it's about as pure as one can get.  (As Eddy Lear also
commented, stainless is the top of the range for food quality.)

> I've also noticed that many cooking pots and utensils are made of
> aluminum.

Be careful here; the world of cookware is full of complexities.  ;)

Although aluminum is a good heat conductor, like unseasoned cast iron,
it is also reactive, and will leach into foods.  Since aluminum is
also relatively inexpensive (cheaper than stainless steel, and easier
to work with), it's used to make cookware designed to be sold at the
lowest price possible.  Such cookware is next to worthless: the
aluminum is inevitably very thin, which creates "hot spots" and uneven
heat distribution in general.  Even worse, since the aluminum leaches
into foods, it exposes the people who use it to higher levels of
aluminum.  Although humans need certain amounts of aluminum, aluminum
is toxic at higher levels, and has been associated with (among other
things) extreme nervousness, speech disturbances, and anemia.  There
is also some new evidence that high levels of aluminum are associated
with Alzheimer's disease.

Fun, eh?

However, many lines of expensive, high-end, "high-performance"
cookware is made from aluminum.  Such high-end cookware uses much
thicker layers of aluminum, and any exposed aluminum is hard-anodized
(meaning, the aluminum is treated to make it non-reactive).  On many
lines, the interior surface is a thin layer of stainless steel, which
is about as close to completely non-reactive as one can get.
(High-end cookware generally has a minimum of stainless steel, because
stainless steel is actually a poor heat conductor, which leads to hot
spots and uneven heat distribution, just like thin aluminum.)

IMHO: I wouldn't use plastic or aluminum containers for extracting or
storing honey until more data has been gathered on the abilities of
said materials to leach into and contaminate honey.  Honey enjoys a
"natural" and "good-for-you" reputation in the minds of most people; a
few stories about contaminated honey would do a lot of damage to that
reputation.

James Ralston
Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Amateur beekeeper (and amateur chef)