ID 4679 -
Miód
PL: Miód
EN: Honey
Pdf:
1.9. Honey (ID 1159, 1160, 1318, 4678, 4679)
The food that is the subject of the health claims is honey related to the following claimed effects: protection of cells and molecules from oxidative damage, defence against pathogens, and maintenance of blood cholesterol concentrations.
Honey is a sweet food made by honey bees (genus Apis, many subspecies); less common is honey made by non-stinging bees. Honey is usually made from the nectar (sugar-rich secretions) of flowers by a process of regurgitation, and can be monofloral, polyfloral, or blended; there are regional honeys, and classifications according to processing, colour and optical density. Honey can also be made from honeydew (sweet secretions from aphids and some scale insects).
According to Council Directive 2001/110/EC7 and the Codex Standard for honey (Codex Alimentarius, 1981), honey is defined as “the natural sweet substance produced by bees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and leave in honeycombs to ripen and mature”.
About 95 % of honey dry matter is composed of carbohydrates, mainly fructose and glucose but also around 25 different oligosaccharides. Different types of honey induce variable glycaemic responses, reflecting the differences in composition and botanical source. Honey contains small amounts of proteins, enzymes, amino acids, minerals and trace elements, vitamins, aroma compounds and
polyphenols. Compositional criteria include the sugar content, moisture content, water-insoluble solid content, electrical conductivity, free acids, diastase activity and hydroxymethyfurfural (HMF) content. Composition varies substantially depending on the floral source and geographical location (Bogdanov et al., 2008).
For ID 1160, fructooligosaccharides (FOS) and “antioxidant phytochemicals” present in honey were specified as “active” substances. FOS in honey differ in composition as well as in degree of polymerisation. FOS content in honey is variable and is dependent on the floral source of the honey. The references cited did not specify the composition or the content of these substances.
The Panel notes that according to the references provided the composition of honey is variable and depends on the floral origin, the geographic location, the season and the processing conditions, that honeys produced in different regions were mentioned, and that it was not possible to characterise the specific honey for which the claims are made.
The Panel considers that the food, honey, which is the subject of the health claims, is not sufficiently characterised in relation to the claimed effects considered in this section.
The Panel concludes that a cause and effect relationship cannot be established between the consumption of honey and the claimed effects considered in this section.
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