Abstract: Honey is a natural sweetener and dietary supplement with a wide range of medicinal effects. Compared with developed European countries and the United States, China needs to make more efforts to elucidate the mechanisms for food poisoning following honey consumption and the toxic components of honey. In this article, we summarize cases of food poisoning associated with honey consumption with respect to clinical symptoms and causes namely plant-derived toxins as well as their toxicity in order to provide a basis for studying plant-derived toxic components in honey and for improving honey safety standards.

Key words: honey, plant-derived toxin, food safety