[Thad E Ginathom]

Whether or not you have to stand depends on where it stung you!

[prince_pervez]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Whether or not you have to stand depends on where it stung you!

I get the joke but, ironically (again) it stung me on my foot near the ankle (soft part). But I was able to walk but not sit properly on the ground. This is one pain where you cannot do anything about it. It is painfully slow to subside. Ok I hope you realise, we are way OT. Before we get stung by the moderators, lets lick the honey.

[maddy42]

Well if your complaining about food in india being contaminated then you should watch the movie Foodinc to know whats happening in US.

[Blue_V]

You do get honey in Coorg taken from wild bees. No one sprays it. Anyway if you go by the long route, the coffee plants are frequently sprayed with pesticides. Then the bees collect nectar from those flowers...........

It crystallizes a lot though.

[srishiva]

When the report came out first, I thought it was the usual contamination of food chain and was alarmed that Bees are collecting from contaminated plants/trees. However now I know that its the antibiotics that are given to Bees.

In Kodagu and Chikmagalur, I know that boxes are kept in the open/forest areas. I dont think they are sprayed with antibiotics.

When are they testing the antibiotic content in other food items? Meat?

[Gansan]

The quantity of honey advisable (on a daily basis) is one teaspoon for kids and two for adults. To pour it liberally on toast, as they show in the ad, is ridiculous! Remember, honey is a medicine and should be taken in moderation. We always keep a bottle at home, it is not consumed daily, so I will stick with Dabur. Don't buy the so called "natural honey" sold by "forest dwellers" (!) unless you are sure about it. It may just be jaggery! I used to frequently see these so called tribals sitting under roadside trees and selling honey while riding to my office at Bangalore! They will even keep bits of moist beehives nearby as sign of purity. That sight used to keep me chuckling the whole day.

All kinds of residues (pesticide/fertilizer/medicines) enter our body on a regular basis along with vegetables, fruits, milk, water and soft drinks. Honey is no exception, I suppose. It comes as a shock because of the notions of purity we entertained about it, perhaps.

I read in a report the pesticide content in tender coconuts - the purest drink we can imagine - was unacceptably high. Now, can you beat that?

[Daewood]

Originally Posted by pjbiju

Try to get what they call "cheruthen" in Malayalam (Ask your wife). They are supposed to be more medicinal than the normal honey. Cheruthen is produced by bees that are extremely small and they cannot sting you. But they are also quite rare to find and collect.
-Biju

The broken compound walls of our ancestral home had beehives of this "chiruthen" variety. It's a small town bordering trivandrum. My cousins used to be experts in collecting that honey. It's a little more thick and less tastier than normal honey. And those bees are slightly bigger than a fat mosquito.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Originally Posted by Gansan

The quantity of honey advisable (on a daily basis) is one teaspoon for kids and two for adults. To pour it liberally on toast, as they show in the ad, is ridiculous!

Have always regarded it as a food, so could not agree with that. Of course, it is a sugar, so it is necessary to consider the dietary aspects. I don't know the technical term, but I understand that it is a sugar that the body uses slowly, rather than the quick release of refined sugars. I'd certainly prefer mine without antibiotics, although it is fair to say, as someone did, that India is hardly the only place where stuff gets added to food.

By the way: there is nothing wrong with crystallised honey. In UK we have a choice. Crystallised is a lot easier for spreading, and, of course, has a different texture when eating. Even the "runny" honeys, in that climate, will start to crystallise eventually.

[Wolfheart]

Originally Posted by Thad E Ginathom

Have always regarded it as a food, so could not agree with that.

Me too. I've been using honey as an alternative to jam and maple syrup. I also add honey to my green tea and lemonade instead of sugar.

[nowwhat?]

Originally Posted by sgiitk

I always take pronouncements from CSE and CERC with a pinch of salt. Remember CSE campaigned (all the way to the SCI) against Diesel cars just before the Indica was launched. By their vary nature such organizations have to a bit sensational.

Sunita Narain and CSE are well known for their alarmist reports to grab media attention.

By the way, there has been a scam that has been running intermittently in my area for many years. A bunch of impoverished youths (Hindi-speaking North Indians from what I could gather) come. A few of them make a beeline for one of the trees and climb on top. The others will suddenly start exclaiming that they have found honey. They then get a honeycomb and offer to provide honey to anyone who is interested. They go around to all the nearby houses and offer honey.

Of course this honey is not cheap. A few years ago, one housewife in a nearby building got a container-full of this honey (a few liters) for Rs. 1,500. They had given her a sample earlier and it tasted real. When her husband came in the evening, she found out that the "honey" inside the container was a thick jaggery-water solution!

[rkg]

1. Honey is a food item not medicine
2. Honey is used as substrate in ayurvedic medicines to mask the bitterness the medicines
and also to act as antiseptic ( due high sugar , fructose content)
It is like syrup of allopathic medicines
3. Yoghurt is just like indian curd with little difference.

To make yoghurt two cultures are used (live only) one is streptococcus and the other is lactobacillus. Strepto is added to milk at higher temperature around 40 degree centigrade followed by lactobacillus at 37 degrees

Any yoghurt should contain live cultures esp if it is preserved at 4-6 degrees or even frozen also.

If it is to be preserved for longer then they may kill the bacteria after yoghrut is made to prevent excessive fermentation which results in sourness.

In curd it is lactobacillus alone which is used

With regard to pesticide content in Milk restrict to nandini milk in karnataka the chances will be less compared to private labels.

[alpha1]

Actually curd is process of making paneer and "chena". You can call the chena thingie ("phata doodh") as curd

Its got nothing to do with the dahi that we eat.
I guess its Indian English.

The proper english word for dahi is yogurt.

[rkg]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Actually curd is process of making paneer and "chena". You can call the chena thingie ("phata doodh") as curd

Its got nothing to do with the dahi that we eat.
I guess its Indian English.

The proper english word for dahi is yogurt.

Totally wrong

Dahi and curd are synonymous. Prepared by culturing milk with lactobacillus

Diluted curd/dahi is buttermilk. Even lassi is made of this by the addition of sugar/salt to curd/dahi

Panner and channa are same. Made by braking the milk with citric acid. The left over is called Whey and it is greenish in colour. Whey drinks are being made from this.
Channa/Panner contains both fat and protein.

It is the base for Rasagulla/sandesh etc

[alpha1]

Originally Posted by rkg

Totally wrong

Dahi and curd are synonymous. Prepared by culturing milk with lactobacillus

Diluted curd/dahi is buttermilk. Even lassi is made of this by the addition of sugar/salt to curd/dahi

Panner and channa are same. Made by braking the milk with citric acid. The left over is called Whey and it is greenish in colour. Whey drinks are being made from this.
Channa/Panner contains both fat and protein.

It is the base for Rasagulla/sandesh etc

As metioned by me:
Usage of curd to denote dahi is India English.
Which is wrong.

Proper word for dahi is yoghurt.
Why are we squabbling over this? We should ask the English ppl.
btw Answers.com - What is difference between yoghurt and curd

Curd is product of curdling which is what you have written in bold.

[rkg]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Which is wrong.
Actually curd is process of making paneer and "chena". You can call the chena thingie ("phata doodh") as curd

Above quote by you is wrong. Do not totally depend upon answers.com, wiki etc for every thing.

Phata doodh is not curd , but channa used as base for rasagulla. also called paneer.

Dahi and yoghurt are different as far as a dairy technologists are concerned. As i mentioned two different bacteria are used in Yoghurt and only one bacteria is used in Dahi.

Curd is made by culturing milk with bacteria

Channa/panner is obtained by breaking boiling milk with either citric acid or curd

I hope iam clear