A New Zealand company pled guilty to charges of adding artificial chemicals to their Manuka honey in order to charge a higher price for it.

New Zealand Food and Safety filed a lawsuit in 2016 against Evergreen Life Ltd after the company recalled 18 of its products. Everything recalled consisted of or contained Manuka honey, and the recall suggested the company had been adding dihydroxyacetone and methylglyoxal to their products.

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DHA and MGO

Both of these substances are crucial to the antimicrobial activity that is so highly prized in Manuka honey. Dihydroxyacetone (DHA) is found in the nectar of Manuka tree flowers, and it converts to methylglyoxal (MGO). The higher the levels of MGO are, the more potent the antimicrobial activity in the honey is. This translates to a more expensive product. While these chemicals naturally occur in Manuka honey, Evergreen Life Ltd has pled guilty to adding artificial DHA (often found in tanning lotions) to their products.

Supply and Demand

Manuka is a highly sought after medicinal product. But is there enough honey to meet the demand? Probably not.

In a 2014 article, the Independent reported that people in the U.K. consumed 1,800 tonnes of Manuka honey. That total is significantly less than the 10,000 tonnes consumed worldwide, but U.K. consumption was still greater than the reported amount of authentic Manuka honey produced: 1,700 tonnes. That math means that the majority of all Manuka honey sold is not genuine.

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The organization behind those numbers, the Unique Manuka Factor Honey Administration Factor (UMFHA), has since introduced a Unique Manuka Factor (UMF) certification for Manuka honey. The grading system has been called into question, as the UMFHA is a paid membership trade association. There is also the MGO developed by professor Thomas Henle and used primarily by New Zealand based company Manuka Health. The KFactor grading system has been developed by the Wedderspoon company. These are not independent rating systems, and until recently that didn’t even matter. The New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) only introduced the science-based definition of Manuka honey in 2018, leaving companies free to choose their own authentication methods prior to that decision.

Regulation and Reality

This is the service that government food and regulatory agencies are designed for. Often, the alternative health world has with stories of the USDA and FDA’s incompetence, but those agencies are responsible for food recalls and the reason we have labels on our food in the first place. The biggest problems with these agencies arise when they become bought and paid for, putting corporate profits and big business over the public, or when the agency is unable to keep up with the market. For instance, the U.S. regulating agencies still see no problems with Roundup – despite much evidence to the contrary.

Research is the reality of being a consumer in today’s world. We spend hours looking for the best possible product and hours looking into where it’s from and the history of the manufacturer. Yet today’s world has also gifted us that opportunity. You used to have to take their word for it.

Sources:

• Premium New Zealand honey producer admits adding chemicals: media – Reuters
• New Zealand brings first ‘fake mānuka honey’ prosecution – The Guardian
• Evergreen brand mānuka honey products – New Zealand Food Safety
• How to Find Real Manuka Honey (80% is fake) – Healthy Home Economist
• The Manuka Honey Scandal – Guardian
• FAQS – Wedderspoon
• Manuka Honey – Ministry of Primary Industries

The majority of chicken for purchase in the United States has been subjected to a chlorine cleaning, a simple yet problematic procedure currently banned by the European Union. Farming practices in the U.S. like overcrowding and lax welfare standards have prompted companies to wash poultry with chlorinated water to meet health and safety standards. The E.U. does not accept treated poultry, but American poultry producers hoping to sell their wares in a post-Brexit Britain may be stymied by a new study that found bacteria like salmonella and listeria remained active after the controversial chlorine wash.

False Positives

Microbiologists from the University of Southhampton discovered that the American chicken cleaning process does more to camouflage the bacteria than it does to neutralize it. The chlorine washing makes it impossible to culture the chicken in a lab, making poultry treated like this appear less likely to spread food poisoning. Professor William Keevil led the university team behind the study from Southhampton.

We therefore tested the strains of listeria and salmonella that we had chlorine-washed on nematodes [roundworms], which have a relatively complex digestive system…All of them died. Many companies and scientists have built their reputations promoting anti-microbial products. This research questions everything they’ve done.”

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Bigger Does Not Mean Better

Faulty food safety tests and American factory farming are a dangerous combination.

The majority of the British population is against introducing American poultry that’s been treated with chlorine. Poultry farmers in the U.K. concentrate their food safety efforts on the birds while they’re still alive, relying on smaller flock densities to avoid rampant infections. The conditions in U.S. poultry facilities allow bacteria to thrive. Instances of food poisoning may be ten times higher in the U.S. than in Europe. The U.S. has a much bigger system, but farmers choose sustainability for short-term gain.

If the U.K. accepts American chicken that has been treated with the chlorine wash at the end of its production cycle, the impact on public health could be serious. Kath Dalmeny, the chief executive of British food and farming pressure group Sustain, described the Southampton research as a wake-up call:

Those dead nematodes are telling us something. This research suggests US chlorine washing may give a false impression of food safety. Proper food safety relies on clean production methods with high animal welfare, resilience to disease, and full traceability and labeling – not just end-of-pipe chemical washes.”

Doubling Down

The U.S. has long been able to rely on its status as a world leader to find markets for our products. There is a distinct possibility that period is over, and that isn’t a bad thing. Factory farmed chicken might be cheaper from a money standpoint, but the world has only seen a portion of the actual bill in terms of our health, the environment, and human rights. In that respect, the chlorine wash is an apt metaphor. The chicken has the appearance of clean chicken, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find it’s all on the surface.

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Sources:

• Chicken safety fear as chlorine washing fails bacteria tests – The Guardian
• Will modern American farming methods soon dominate British agriculture? – New Food Magazine
• Too fat to stand and their flesh rots while they’re alive: The REAL reason America’s ‘Frankenchickens’ have to be washed with chlorine as US industrial farming practices are exposed ahead of possible post-Brexit trade deal – Daily Mail

Ah, bacteria, the original cockroach. No matter what you use to try and annihilate it, it keeps coming back, stronger than before. Strains of bacteria like listeria, campylobacter, and salmonella caused food poisoning affecting one in six people in the U.S. The bacteria resistant to the “antibiotic of last resort” has arrived in the U.S., and researchers in Canada have discovered a newly evolved, heat-loving strain of E. coli that survives temperatures high enough to cook meat medium-well. If harmful bacteria were to go into business, the stock would be climbing and the future would look terrific.

Dealing With the Usual Suspects

Chipotle has suffered business setbacks. Blue Bell Creameries are permanently closed. Most recently, General Mills has recalled a full lot of their Gold Medal flour. The common thread? E. coli, listeria, salmonella, and all of those pesky bacteria responsible for over four million pounds of food being recalled in the U.S. in 2015 and food poisoning affecting roughly 48 million people.

The methods for detecting bacteria and pathogens in our food have become more sophisticated, so it’s likely there have been many unrecorded outbreaks in the past. But then again, the number of cases attributed to the most well-known bacteria that cause food poisoning (like listeria, salmonella, or E. coli), have remained steady over the years, while campylobacter bacteria and rare Vibrio infections are on the rise. When increased detection and better food safety standards still do not result in a decline in pathogens, where does that leave us?

Soooo…Fire?

From food safety 101 we know that food is only considered safe when we heat it enough to kill off harmful bacteria. But what do you do when the bacteria has mutated to withstand those temperatures, like the strain of E. coli discovered by Canadian researchers?

Food safety literature recommends heating beef to 160 degrees, although they also note that 140 degrees is a sufficient temperature to kill harmful bacteria in less than a minute. But the new strain of E. coli does not die. In fact, it lived for over an hour at a temperature of  140 degrees. Right now, 16 genes with this mutation are present in about 2% of E. coli strains (good and bad), but with the other evolutionary strides bacteria have been making, who knows what will happen!

Fire’s Out. Soooo…Antibiotics?

People in the U.S. can now look forward to the newest shot fired in the bacteria vs. antibiotic war, now that bacteria has been found to be immune to colistin, a long-acknowledged “antibiotic of last resort”. Constant use of antibiotics has encouraged bacteria to evolve, to build up an immunity to these drugs.

An entire group of antibiotics – sulphonamides – is being phased out due to bacteria resistance. Gonorrhea is showing signs of resistance to last resort treatment in 10 different countries, and there are no new antibiotics in development to treat it.  Stories like these are becoming more and more common as our extensive use of antibiotics continues to breed stronger bacteria. We respond with new antibiotics and the next generation of the bacteria is more resistant than before. When it ends, do you really think we’re going to end up on top?

Can We Actually Control the Bacteria?

If your reaction to hearing all of this bad news about bacteria is to scream something along the lines of, “Kill it with fire!” you’re not alone. Solutions like antibiotics, antibacterial soaps, and hand sanitizers came with a price. They became part of the problem.

There are no easy answers here. Ideally, we will stop treating livestock with unneeded antibiotics. We will stop the indiscriminate use of antibiotics to treat infections and seek alternative treatments whenever possible. Maybe we will go so far as to change our diets to build immunity and encourage our natural, protective bacteria to thrive.

Are we past the point that these changes will be enough. Is our microbial world going to end up a cautionary tale a la Jurassic Park? Keep in mind that we can’t just seal off the island.

Related Reading:

• After Taking Antibiotics, This Is What You Need To Do To Restore Healthy Intestinal Flora
• Candida, Gut Flora, Allergies, and Disease
• The Fascinating Bacteria in our Gut, and How it Affects Our Whole Lives
• How to Detoxify From Chemotherapy and Repair the Body

Sources:

• Researcher’s Warn of New E. Coli Strain That Can ‘Survive Cooking’ – grubstreet.com
• Germ Resistant to Antibiotic of Last Resort Appears in U.S. – npr.org
• Antimicrobial Resistance – World Health Organization
• Trends in Foodbourne Illness in the United States, 2012 – cdc.gov
• How Food Recalls Really Work – eater.com