Bob Harrison wrote:

> Water is water and the fact that Jim suggests that the remaining 18.5 %
> water after ultra filtration may not be the original water will not carry
> much weight when looked at carefully in my opinion.

In fact water is not just water.  Today isotope ratio analysis is starting to
have immense impacts in all facets of  food industries.  Here in New Zealand
it has been successfully used to determine that water was added unlawfully to
wine.  The added water has a different (and detectable) range of isotopes
(can't remember which ones they looked at) to the water that is found in wine
from natural (grape sourced) means.

The same ratio analysis is likely to show any added water to honey compared
with the water that arrives as part of the nectar.  A small top up of water
from say 16% to 20% may be difficult to detect but if the honey is bulked up
substantially and then reduced, as suggested with UF,  the remaining added
water (and its measureable isotopes) would be greater than the 4% of the
above example, thereby increasing the likelihood of detection.

Regards
Peter Bray
_________________________________________________________
Airborne Honey Ltd., Pennington St, PO Box 28, Leeston,
New Zealand Fax 64-3-324-3236,  Phone 64-3-324-3569
http://www.airborne.co.nz  [log in to unmask]

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