Dick Allen said:

> A couple of years ago there was concern about analog honey.
> Has anyone seen, heard, or read more on this?


Not to worry - science trudged on since the initial "scare" over the
"honey analog".  One can now detect as little as 1% invert sugars
or HFCS in honey using a technique called "infrared spectroscopy".

There have been a number of different papers on the technique, and
one can find at least the abstracts of many of these papers using google,
searching for:

    +infrared +spectroscopy +honey

(And yeah, ya got your "near-infrared", your "mid-infrared", and your
occasional use of "fast Fourier transforms".  Don't sweat the details.
Same exact game.  Different toys.)

Of course, one must ask if these techniques are being used
in port-of-entry testing.  I dunno.  I'm not sure if the capital equipment
required would have any other application for food commodities.


The company is "Dhampur Invertos Ltd." of India.
They are still around, but they now call the product "golden syrup".
http://www.sugarindia.com/golden.htm

Their web site is an absolute hoot.  It looks like the owner's
8-year-old son designed it using EVERY crayon in his box.
A classic example of how some web pages can actually hurt
your eyes, introducing both visual and cognitive whiplash.

Some of the claims made are also noteworthy:

"It has an inimitable honey-like sweet taste..."

    (So, let me get this straight... the taste is "inimitable", but
    it is also "honey-like".
    But wait - either it does NOT taste like honey, and would thus
    have an "inimitable" taste, or it DOES taste like honey, and
    would thereby clearly be "imitable"... by honey.)

"This appetizing syrup is prepared using superior quality sugar under
controlled process conditions reroute a biotechnological pathway."

     (Quick!  Re-route the biotechnological pathway!
      There's a accident at the Interstate 95 onramp!)

"...and the syrup is micro-filtered to ensure the highest level of purity..."

     (Wow, I had no idea that with simple filtration, one could
      "ensure purity".  Alert the media!  I smell a Nobel Prize!)

"We do not call our Sweet-n-SweetTM Golden Syrup 'organic' but
yes-it is close-to-organic!"

      (If they COULD call it "organic", we can be sure they would.)

Some references can still be found to the old name for the
product - "honey analog".
http://www.khoj.com/Science_and_Technology/Agriculture/Sugarcane/


I have used the empty plastic shells of obsolete/dead computer displays as swarm
traps, so I should call my honey "DIGITAL Honey".
Much more modern than "Analog Honey".   :)


                        jim