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From:
James Fischer <[log in to unmask]>
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Date:
Sat, 6 Dec 2003 23:14:45 -0500
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Bill Truesdell said:

> I do not know how you can separate the sucrose in cane
> sugar syrup from the sucrose in nectar

I do.

> since sucrose is sucrose.

Not exactly.  The carbons, hydrogens, and oxygens that
make up the glucose and fructose that are joined to
form sucrose have slightly different isotopes depending
upon their source.

There are likely detectable difference at even lower
levels, but as it is Saturday night, I'll stop after
pointing out that groups of three quarks are rumored
to be held together with quark screws.  :)

> So if any sugar syrup "honey" ends up in a super it would be
> undetectable as an added sugar

There would be several ways to detect this.

The easy test would be a carbon-13 test, which would detect
the cane sugar.  To my knowledge, "processing" by the bees
would not change the carbons.

Sugar Cane is a "C4" plant, while most all nectar plants are "C3"
plants.  This means very different ratios of carbon isotopes.

That said, these tests cannot even detect low-level (5% or so)
overt adulteration, so they are not going to detect low-level
amounts of "pseudo-honey" made from "fed sugar".

If you are really interested in this subject, you can read
this http://www.beeculture.com/beeculture/SugarReprint.pdf


                jim (There is a big difference between
                 "Being Stoned" and "Getting Stoned")

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