Today I taught my service dog to detect corn syrup that has been added to honey.
Did you know that for years corn syrup has purposefully been added to honey? Not only that, but if a beekeeper takes too much honey from the hive during the spring harvest, leaving less for the infant bees, he then gives the bees corn syrup to live off in the winter.
I was even told by a local bee farmer that many honeys get exported from China, (honey directly from there is rejected by US customs), to other countries where the product is adulterated, (with water and/or corn syrup), and then relabeled to reflect the importing country. This news was infuriating and astonishing!
These honey facts hold significant importance to me and my family. My son is on the on the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD), a diet that regulates gut bacteria, and is known to be helpful for Irritable Bowel Disease, Autism, and ADHD. Pure honey is the ONLY allowed sweetener. He cannot ingest genetically modified corn syrup without dire results.
We are relying on the diet to keep him out of the hospital and he has also been able to avoid major medications using SCD. Knowing the content of our honey is vital.
I researched some practical ways to identify the difference between Pure and Adulterated Honey. These include:
Honey should stick to your spoon in a little glob. Honey that’s been mixed with corn syrup will flow much more easily.
If you add a dollop of honey to water, it will stay in a little lump. However, if it has corn syrup in it the product will spread out on the bottom of the cup.
Pure honey has no aftertaste that is often associated with adulterated honey.
Crystallizing is a natural process as pure honey ages. Staying runny might be convenient but will be suspect to adulteration. Any honey that separates is not pure.
When heating honey to make marshmallows and candy treats for the specific carbohydrate diet (SCD), the honey will boil quickly with no foam. Adulterated versions take longer to boil and might get foamy.
I have trained my dogs to detect food additives harmful to my son’s health and which are to be strictly avoided in the SCD. They have been previously trained to alert to corn starch and maltodextrin, commonly made from corn as well as 13 other starches. I hypothesized that training them to detect corn syrup in honey was not only possible but probable.
At the local grocer, I purchased both dark and light jars of Karo syrup and a Sprite because the second ingredient in Sprite is high fructose corn syrup. I threw in a few other items whose labeling showed corn syrup as a top ingredient.
We had several jars open of honey at our house to use as comparisons. Many jars were starting to crystalize, indicating they were pure honey, while three of the jars were a little bit runny, therefore suspect of being adulterated based on the tests I had researched.
I had my dogs, Stella and Captain, smell the corn syrup and told them to “alert” and gave them a treat. We repeated that exercise until I knew they understood I was adding a scent to their scent vocabulary. I followed the same process by presenting them with the crystalized honey I had and told them to give an “all clear” for that item. Once they understood these scents and commands, I mixed the crystallized honey with the corn syrup and asked them to check; they both automatically gave an “alert”. Hooray!
For two factor verification I conducted further tests. A dollop of each honey I had was placed in water to see if it spread out. The runny honeys did, and the crystalized honeys did not. To have a control sample, I added pure corn syrup to water and it too spread out. The dogs were asked to check the three types of water mixtures and each time they “alerted” to both the corn syrup and the runny honey but gave an “all clear” for the crystalized honey. Knowing that they were on the right track, I had the dogs then check the Sprite and got an automatic alert.
This sort of training is essential in our home and can be trained in your dog as well. Stella and Captain help keep our son safe from adulterated food that is much more common than you would think. I encourage you to do your due diligence when it comes to honey, buying from a local source, preferably visiting the farm where it is harvested to insure the purity. But for two factor verification, the use of a service dog certainly adds to your peace of mind.
For more about the SCD diet and Training your Service Dog, please visit the following:
https://www.facebook.com/servicedogsintraining/
https://www.facebook.com/miriam.richard.75/videos/1677687652365688/UzpfSTI3MTc5MzM1MzI0Nzg4OTo4MTczNjc1NTUzNTcxMzA/
BY Miriam Richard 2020