Dear Everyone,

Thank you for the invitation to join this discussion group.  I haven't read
the archives yet but I learnt something from reading today's
correspondence.  I'd
like to add something to the debate about honey.  Here is the abstract of
our paper on honey in the British Journal of Nutrition.  Is there a word
limit in our correspondence?

Synopsis:
In pre-industrial times, honey was the main source of concentrated sweetness in
the diets of many peoples.  There are no precise figures for per capita
consumption during most periods in history because honey was part of either
a
hunter/gatherer or subsistence economy.  Until now, historians and food
writers have proposed that it was a scarce commodity available only to a
wealthy few. We do know, however, that in a cash economy honey was sold in
large units
(gallons and even barrels) and it was present in such abundance that mead
was a common alcoholic drink made from honey.  A reappraisal of the
evidence in the Stone-Age, Antiquity, the Middle Ages and early Modern
times suggests that
ordinary people ate much larger quantities of honey than has previously been
acknowledged.  Intakes at various times during history may well have rivalled
our current consumption of refined sugar.  There are implications therefore
for the role of sugar in modern diets.  Refined sugar may not have
displaced more nutrient rich items from our present day diets but only the
nutritionally
comparable food, honey.

Below is the text about modern hunter-gatherer diets.

Modern hunter-gatherers
Unfortunately, quantitative studies of hunter-gatherer diets are scarce. We
know that for the Hazda of Tanzania 'meat plus honey' constitute 20% of food
eaten by weight (Woodburn 1963). The remainder of the diet is of vegetable
origin and so in energy terms 'meat plus honey' will contribute much more
than 20%. The Mbuti pygmies of the Congo obtain as much as 80% of their
dietary energy from honey during the honey season (Crane 1983), but this
lasts for only two months of the year (Turnbull 1963).

The Veddas or Wild Men of Sri Lanka esteem honey so highly that they
regularly risk their lives to obtain it  (Crane 1983). The local bees often
nest in crevices on rock faces and these men will lower themselves into the
ravine suspended by only a bamboo ladder. The Veddas sometimes fill a
hollow tree trunk with honey and then place flesh in it as a means of
preserving the meat for times of scarcity. This is certainly suggestive of
plentiful supplies of honey.

In the New World, the Guayaki Indians of Paraguay have honey as the very
basis of their diet and culture (Crane 1975). Vellard reports that, 'one
group of fifteen people had seven large vessels holding at least forty
litres altogether.' Unfortunately we do not know how long this was to last
them nor how many people were to partake of it.

Many Australian Aboriginal tribes regard the honey of the native bee as
'the supreme delicacy' (Low 1989). In the rest of the world it is usually
the males of a tribe who hunt for honey, but amongst some Australian
Aborigines this task
falls to the women. One method they employ involves capturing a bee and
attaching a small feather to its body, so that on release it can be more
easily
seen and followed all the way back to the nest. On removing the contents,
Australian Aborigines eat everything - honey, wax, dead bees and brood
(which provides protein) - with relish.

In 1972-3 Meehan lived for a year with the native Anbarra people of
Northern Australia (Meehan 1982). Over four one-month periods, chosen to be
representative of the different tropical seasons, she recorded the weights
of foods consumed. The results indicate an average intake of 2 kg honey per
person
per year. However, Meehan points out that the wet season that year was
unusually
long and this may have diminished honey foraging activity.  In addition,
this group of Anbarra had supplies of store food (providing 35-58% of
dietary energy) including refined sugar, which may have reduced the
incentive to go about the tricky and time-consuming activity of tracking
down bees' nests.

The bees of the New World are stingless but may bite or burn with caustic
liquids anyone who threatens the nest. Yet neither this, nor the stings of
Old World bees deter a hunter-gatherer in pursuit of honey. The amount of
honey available from one region to the next will vary greatly depending on
the extent
to which the environment suits bee activity. The evidence suggests that the
amount eaten by 'Stone-Age' people was limited only by how much was
available in their surroundings.

The Bushmen of South Africa lay claim to no personal possessions of any
type, except that is, for bees' nests (Free 1982). Perhaps it was to reduce
the likelihood of such a nest being robbed that a man first carried it, in
its hollow log, back from the forest to a place near his dwelling. Perhaps
that year was favourable for his bees, which in their excess numbers
swarmed, coming finally to rest in a clay pot their owner had discarded in
the grass, thus unknowingly inventing the first man-made hive.


Best wishes  Jennie


Assoc. Professor Jennie Brand Miller
Human Nutrition Unit, Dept. of Biochemistry G08
University of Sydney, 2006, Australia
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