Oxidized honey poisoning?

[Gravity]

My gal heads the kitchen at a small café. Recently, they’ve had some trouble with some of the employees leaving a metal spoon in the (huge) honey container. When one of the bosses heard about it, she freaked out, saying that honey accelerated oxidization of metal, and leaving a spoon in the honey will ruin the spoon and poison the honey. :eek:
I’ve never heard anything like this, but she wants to make sure before she tells the boss to calm down.
I’ve tried a web search, and turned up nada. You have to admit, it’s a pretty specialized point.
Anybody have any idea what this woman is referring to? She wants to throw away a 30 lb. bucket of honey over one spoon being in it overnight!

Thanks bunches,

K.

[Shiva]

Um, if the spoon was oxidizing you’d see rust on it’s surface. Bet you didn’t. Stainless steel doesn’t oxidize very easily.

Even if you did leave a rusty spoon in honey the worst that would happen is rusty tasting honey, not poison.

[Squink]

The nastiest oxidizer in honey is a keto ( =o ) group. It’s got a SMALL amount of free readical character that, in the presence of metals, might allow it to react with CO2 and fix carbon from the atmospehere, but it’s not going to poison people or eat holes in metal.

[Gravity]

My thanks to both of you. It sounds silly, doesn’t it? Sometimes I wonder where folks get their ideas. I would never in a million years thought of this one.

[Sue_Duhnym]

The only type of poisoning I’ve ever heard of with regards to honey is botulism, IIRC.

That is, you shouldn’t give honey to children under 12 months of age, because it contains a small amout of it, possibly.

Here’s a link on it if you’re interested:

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/food-aliment/english/publications/iyh/honey_and_infantile_botulism.html

[The_Devil_s_Grandmother]

Wow, I’ve been a mead maker (an amateur, but a devoted amateur) for nearly a decade and I’ve never heard of this.

I cannot imagine what she is talking about, pasteurized honey (and I can’t imagine that a restaurant is dealing with un-pasteurized honey) is pretty darn clean.

If this were true why can I buy honey in metal cans at the grocery store?

[Usurer]

As a former beekeeper, I’ve never heard anything like that wild tale of oxidized honey poisoning anyone. In fact, honey has antibacterial qualities (that is, you could put it on a wound to aid healing) and, in fact, NEVER gets stale or rots (assuming the moisture content is low enough). Egyptologists have taken 2,000 year old honey from tombs in Egypt which was still perfectly edible. Just my two cents…

[Duck_Duck_Goose]

Okay, I think this is probably the train of thought. Add up all these bits and pieces and you might get “a metal spoon will poison the honey”.

First, steel flatware didn’t used to be “stainless”. Even today, cheap “stainless steel” flatware will rust if you put it away wet.
http://www.jindalstainless.com/history.html

In 1913, when steel researchers were experimenting with different types and qualities of alloys, Harry Brearley, in Scheffield, England, discovered stainless steel. While experimenting with increasing levels of chromium, he found out that at over 12 percent chromium, the steel gained an exceptional resistance to acid corrosion. It was his work that found the foundation for the development of a range of steel grades particularly resistant to corrosion.
By the late 1920’s, two types of stainless steel had been found to be most versatile and useful; martensitic stainless steel (chromium content of 13-18 percent) and austenitic stainless steel (18 percent chromium and 8 percent nickel). Today, stainless steel is a generic term given for a group of corrosion resistant steels containing a minimum of 10.5 percent of chromium, which creates a passive, self renewing film of chromium oxide around the steel at the atomic level, thereby impeding the iron from rusting.

So it wasn’t until the 1930’s that we saw truly “stainless” steel. That’s my mother’s generation, not so very far away, culturally speaking.

Then, there are the official honey handling standards.
http://www.macnet.org/org/ogm/OGMstds2001.htm

e. All surfaces honey contacts should be stainless steel or
coated with beeswax.

      f. Painted surfaces must be painted with a food and beverage
         approved paint and coated with beeswax. Honey may not contact
         galvanized metal or metal with surfaces that oxidize.

k. Honey barrels must be of a known origin, washed, and stored
inside. If not new, they should have previously been used in
food service. It is preferred they be coated with beeswax.
Oxidized barrels are prohibited.

Not everybody understands what “oxidized” and “galvanized” mean. These instructions could very easily translate as “don’t use metal containers for honey” and then into “don’t use metal spoons in honey”.

Honey is naturally acidic. All health food buffs know this.
http://www.nhb.org/foodtech/tgloss.html

Low pH - acidic environment

Honey contains formic acid. http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/kings/honey.html

Everybody knows that acid eats holes in things.

Sometimes a metal spoon will darken applesauce, because it is rather acid. This recipe has honey in it.
http://www.scdiet.org/7archives/scd004_1.html

Pare, core and cut apples into bite - size pieces. Put them in a large heavy pot. Add lemon juice and water. Mix well. Bring to boil, cover, and simmer gently until apples are soft. Remove from heat. Add cinnamon and honey. Mix well with wooden spoon (metal may darken the sauce).

Do not use a metal spoon to make sourdough bread, because it has acid in it.
http://www.landfield.com/faqs/food/sourdough/recipes/part2/

AMISH FRIENDSHIP BREAD INSTRUCTIONS
Jeannie

   Keep at room temperature	Use a glass container.	Do not use
   a metal spoon (use a wooden one)	

And finally, honey dippers are always made out of wood. “There must be some reason why they’re never made out of metal, right? You’re probably not supposed to leave a metal spoon in honey, because it has acid in it and it’ll corrode the spoon and poison the honey.”

[CalMeacham]

A Weird note to all this: Apparently there IS a circumstance in which honey ca be poisnous. It has nothing to do with metal spoons, though.

In a article in Archaeology magazine a few years back entitled “Mad Honey”, folklorist Adrienne F. Mayor wrote that under the appropriate conditions honey can be toxic. (Volume 48, number 6, pp. 32-40. Nov/Dec 1995) Apparently the bees can gather their nectar from flowers that can produce poisonous honey. This was reporte by Xenophon in “The Anabasis” – Greek soldiers camping near Colchis on the Black Sa in 401 B.C. got honey from the local beehives, then reacted as if intoxicated nd collapsed by the thousands. Fortunately, they ecovered. Pliny later wrote abut this “Mad honey” as well.

Modern cases have been reported, as well, from around the wrld. In 1891 German scientist P.C. Plugge reported fnding a toxin in honey from Trebizond. It’s now calledacetylandromedol and t can result from the bees fequenting oleander. Mayor suggests tha maybe the Delphic oracle drank mead made from such drug-piked honey.

[bare]

All Honey is poisonous and should be carefully sealed and sent to our Safe Honey Depository. Look in your local phone book for our address or feel free to drop us a line at the e-mail address noted in our profile below!