Sweetness can leave a bitter taste in the mouth. Researchers from the Centre for Science and Environment have alleged that the honey produced by major Indian brands is adulterated with sugar syrup. That is not all; there appears to be a discrepancy in the results of different tests geared towards the same purpose. The environment watchdog had selected 13 popular honey brands to assess the purity of the product. Curiously, while the samples of almost all the big brands tested at the Centre for Analysis and Learning in Livestock and Food in Gujarat were found to be ‘pure’, 10 of the same brands failed the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance test, which is conducted by a specialized laboratory in Germany and is used globally to check for the use of modified sugar syrups. It stands to reason that assessment standards vary. If the NMR test detected adulteration that the checks in Gujarat could not identify, ought not the Central government to adopt the more stringent assessment model for domestic testing since the matter concerns public health?

Making the waters murkier are revelations of the import and use of Chinese sugar syrups that are ‘designed’ to avoid detection in tests. The CSE has said that its investigators received a shipment of samples containing syrup from a Chinese company that sought to evade the honey testing protocols mandated by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India. In the wake of the recent border hostilities, the Union government tom-tommed its ban on a series of Chinese mobile apps as an economic ‘surgical strike’. Yet, it is evident that Chinese syrups continue to be imported by firms; traders even claim that Chinese companies have helped set up sugar syrup factories in India. It appears that the Centre’s economic surgical strike against China may have missed a few targets. The main worry, however, concerns regulatory oversight. The history of weak implementation of adulteration laws in India does not help either; Maggi was banned by the FSSAI in 2015 for allegedly selling lead-laced instant noodles before the government allowed the brand to return to the market. The battle against food fraud must be fought on two fronts. First, there is a case for raising public awareness so that citizens know that the products they are consuming are safe; second, institutional assessment protocols must be uniform to avoid conflicting results. There is also the additional imperative of assisting beekeeping communities — the maulis of the Sunderbans are an example — whose livelihoods have been decimated by the pandemic.