Citation: Katsara, K.; Kenanakis, G.; Alissandrakis, E.; Papadakis, V.M. Honey Quality and Microplastic Migration from Food Packaging: A Potential Threat for Consumer Health? Microplastics 2022, 1, 406–427. https://doi.org/10.3390/ microplastics1030030 Academic Editor: Farhan R. Khan Received: 26 June 2022 Accepted: 5 August 2022 Published: 8 August 2022 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). Review Honey Quality and Microplastic Migration from Food Packaging: A Potential Threat for Consumer Health? Klytaimnistra Katsara 1,2 , George Kenanakis 2 , Eleftherios Alissandrakis 1,3 and Vassilis M. Papadakis 2,3,4, * 1 Department of Agriculture, Hellenic Mediterranean University, Estavromenos, 71410 Heraklion, Greece 2 Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser, Foundation for Research and Technology–Hellas, N. Plastira 100, 70013 Heraklion, Greece 3 Institute of Agri-Food and Life Sciences, Hellenic Mediterranean University Research Centre, 71410 Heraklion, Greece 4 Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology–Hellas, N. Plastira 100, 70013 Heraklion, Greece * Correspondence: vassilis_papadakis@imbb.forth.gr; Tel.: +30-2810391267 Abstract: In ancient Greece, people said that “honey is the Food of the Gods”, and they were right. They believed that honey fell from the sky, with the morning dew, on the flowers and leaves, and from this point, the bees collected it. Honey is one of the most nutritious food products, which can be found in most homes. A lot of honey products are stored in different types of packaging materials, including plastics. Plastic packaging has been studied for the migration of plasticizers, chemical compounds, and MPs and NPs in foodstuffs. Most of them have been achieved through food simulations, while some studies managed to detect and isolate MPs/NPs. Recent studies presented evidence for the presence of MPs/NPs in honey products but not directly connected to food packaging or to the different types of honey and their properties (viscosity, pH value, and moisture content) or their storing conditions (temperature, humidity, light, and time). Spectroscopic and analytical techniques like Raman, FTIR, HPLC, and GC-MS are in the foreground for MP/NP detection and identification, but a universal way of isolation, detection, characterization, and quantification has not yet been found. This leaves an open field for more work to be done to clarify the factors affecting the migration of plastic packaging material in honey. Keywords: microplastics; nanoplastics; honey; food packaging; microplastics migration; ATR; Raman; spectroscopy 1. Introduction Plastics deposition in the environment has been proven harmful to the ecosystem and human health [1,2]. MPs have been detected in seawater and drinking water [3–5], marine life [6,7], beverages like German beer [8], and in foodstuffs such as honey [9,10]. Many studies collected in a recent review paper have been published concerning the detection of possible food contaminants in fresh foods from their plastic packaging [11]. The use of plastics as food packaging materials is widespread due to their strong, durable, lightweight, versatile, and cost-effective nature. Polymeric materials such as LDPE, HDPE, PET, and PP have been widely used in food preservation and transportation [11]. However, many plastics used in food packaging, as mentioned above, wear out over time due to environmental conditions; that causes a problem. In recent years, many researchers all over the word have studied the migration of MPs from food packaging [12] into different foodstuffs such as cheese [13] and meat [14]. Honey is a highly appreciated natural food due to its essential properties for human health [15]. It consists mainly of sugars (predominantly the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, small amounts of the disaccharide sucrose and other oligosaccharides, and higher sugars) [16]; enzymes; vitamins; minerals; organic acids; essential oils; esters; pollens; Microplastics 2022, 1, 406–427. https://doi.org/10.3390/microplastics1030030 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/microplastics