Honey has long been considered one of the healthiest and most delicious foods. The difficulty of collecting honey is determined by the need to maintain an apiary of hives with bees. The variety of honey is determined by the presence of more than 25% nectar from one plant. Currently, there are over 70 types of honey.
Assurances from sellers about one hundred percent purity of a particular type of honey are just a marketing ploy, since bees collect nectar from all nearby plants. The resulting mixtures do not mean the product is of poor quality. Such statements are aimed at increasing the final cost of the honey product.
How to check the naturalness of honey
In addition, unscrupulous sellers, wanting to save on a quality product, add additional components to honey, increasing the final volume. The most common additions are sugar and sugar syrup. Thanks to them, it is possible to improve the taste of unripe honey. In addition to sugar, the manufacturer may add starch, beet or starch molasses, sucrose or chalk. Consuming low-quality, diluted honey can cause harm to health instead of the expected therapeutic effect.
How to test honey with water
How to check the purity of honey? The accuracy of the statement about the purity of a honey treat can be obtained by submitting a small amount of it for analysis to a chemical laboratory. You can avoid such a complex, time-consuming and expensive procedure by conducting a series of small and simple experiments at home. In the following article you can learn how to test honey using water.
How to test honey with water? Using water is the cheapest and easiest way to determine naturalness. Testing honey for naturalness with water involves filling the glass halfway with water. Next, dissolve 1 tablespoon of the analyzed sample in water. Real honey will quickly dissolve without any residue, forming a cloudy solution.
Note! Rapeseed honey is not suitable for such an experiment. When trying to dissolve in water, it remains homogeneous.
When dissolved in water, the counterfeit product forms a sediment at the bottom of the glass.
Testing with water and plate
There is a belief that honey has a “genetic” memory of honeycombs. You can check the quality of honey in this way using a ceramic plate. You need to pour a small amount of honey into a flat bowl or saucer. After this, create a water layer on top. When making circular movements with water, you should get honeycomb-like indentations. The observation of such structures indicates the authenticity of the origin of the product.
Testing with water and plate
Checking the naturalness of honey
In addition, you can find out the presence of foreign impurities by carrying out a reaction with iodine. Iodine allows you to detect the presence of starch or flour in honey. You need to dissolve 1 tablespoon of the test product sample in a small volume of water. After this, add a few drops of iodine. By thoroughly stirring the resulting solution, you can determine the presence of a fake by the appearance of a dark brown color. Natural honey will hardly change color, unlike fake honey.
Dilution of honey can be detected by placing a drop on a sheet of paper or newspaper. The spread natural bee product will not leave any traces after wiping. While the fake one, diluted with water, will leave behind a wet spot or seep through the paper layer.
Checking the naturalness of honey
Adding sugar to honey is one of the most common scams. You can determine the sugar content using fire. After scooping up some honey, you need to set the edge on fire with a match or lighter. Real honey will begin to slowly melt, while the fake sugary product will begin to burn. In addition, a fake honey product will smell like a characteristic caramel aroma.
You can check for cleanliness using a metal wire or a thin stainless steel rod. After dipping into bee product, real honey will leave the metal clean. Fake quality will remain on the rod as a sticky mass.
The addition of starch syrup reduces the performance of honey. This honey becomes more viscous and has a distinct molasses smell, since it has a reduced content of reduced sugars. In the process of technological influence on molasses, sulfuric acid is formed in the adulterated product. It can be detected in the residue by exposure to ammonia. Add 5-10 drops of concentrated ammonia to the aqueous solution of honey. The appearance of a brown precipitate and a change in the color of the solution indicate falsification of the honey product by adding starch syrup. The same color change occurs when low-quality honey reacts with 96º alcohol.
Testing with tea
The presence of impurities can be detected using a longer method. To do this, you need to brew tea and add 1-2 teaspoons of the analyzed honey to it. After 60 minutes, you need to carefully inspect the bottom of the container. The presence of a suspicious sediment indicates a questionable quality of the product.
An original method is to test bee products with a piece of bread. By dipping bread in honey for 10 minutes, you can determine the quality of the product. In real honey, the bread will definitely harden, while in fake honey it will soften.
In addition to diluting honey with water, adding flour or sugar, unscrupulous producers often add chalk to bee products. Chalk can hide the poor quality of the original product and add excess weight to the final product. You can determine whether honey is adulterated using chalk chips by reacting the product with table vinegar. When reacting with acetic acid, carbon dioxide is released. To do this, dissolve 1 tablespoon of the sample being analyzed in water and add a small amount of vinegar essence. The formation of foam on the surface of the solution, as well as hissing, is evidence of poor quality. There is no change in the pure product.
In addition to making changes to the composition of the finished product, beekeepers can feed the bees sugar. The lack of medicinal properties of such “sugar” honey reduces the taste and medicinal value of the product. You can identify the discrepancy by adding honey to hot cow's milk. If the raw material is counterfeited, it will smell like burnt sugar and the milk will curdle. The natural product will completely dissolve.
Checking the naturalness of honey with vinegar
The quality of honey can be determined based on the external characteristics of the product being sold. Particular attention should be paid to the color, aroma and texture of the bee product.
There should be no layered structure in the container. Uniform density and color range are the first signs of naturalness. The consistency of honey should be viscous, without excess hardness. The presence of wateriness in the final product is unacceptable. Honey, which resembles kefir in consistency, can hardly be called natural.
After heating the honey to 20º, you need to stir it with a spoon. When pulling out the spoon, you need to pay attention to the behavior of the honey when making rotational movements. If the honey product does not flow down in a stream, but is wound onto a spoon, we can say that the composition is natural. When holding the spoon, the real bee product should form a slide, with bubbles forming on the surface. Otherwise, too rapid drainage and unstable consistency indicate a change in the original composition.
Natural honey tends to crystallize, acquiring a harder consistency. For different varieties, the process takes different periods. For example, sunflower honey crystallizes within the first 3-4 weeks. Acacia remains in liquid form throughout the year. The characteristic aroma will also help in determining the quality of honey. Fragrant, rich real honey is not easy to confuse with fake honey.
Important! It is impossible to determine the nature of origin of acacia honey by smell, since the natural product does not have any aroma.
Tart taste is one of the criteria for the natural origin of honey. High quality products are easily able to dissolve in the mouth and slightly tingle the throat during swallowing. The presence of a cloying taste indicates the addition of sugar to the composition.
Immaturity or dilution of honey can be detected by weighing the product purchased.
Important! One liter of natural honey weighs between 1.4-1.5 kg. If a lighter weight is detected, this indicates the presence of an unripe or diluted honey product.
To summarize, we can say that honey is a healthy and popular product, it should be carefully checked for the possibility of counterfeiting. Consuming a counterfeit product can negatively affect your health. Adding sugar, syrup, chalk or starch reduces the beneficial properties.
It is recommended that before purchasing a large amount of honey, purchase a small portion to check for impurities. A definite answer about the presence of additives can be obtained after analysis in a chemical laboratory. However, at home you can carry out a number of simple experiments that reveal the true composition of the honey product.
Over the past two months, I have written a lot about honey: its production, its properties, how to choose high-quality honey. In the final article of the series, the expert and I decided to dispel the most common myths about honey.
Myth one
Honey and sugar are the same thing.
Myth two
Honey should be taken as a medicine: on an empty stomach and one spoon before each meal.
Honey is primarily a food product. The fact that symbiotic bacteria from the honey bee's crop give honey bactericidal properties does not make it a cure for all diseases. Honey, like any natural product with a good composition, helps strengthen the immune system and can alleviate the symptoms of throat diseases or colds. Honey is best absorbed when you suck it - and it slowly melts in your mouth. You can determine the amount of honey you need per day by calculating the portion based on the nutritional value of the product, or intuitively.
Myth three
Natural honey should be thick. Liquid honey that does not crystallize for a long time is counterfeit.
The crystallization of natural honey, the time it takes for the honey to completely thicken, and its final consistency depend on the composition of the nectar. Nectar for weakly crystallizing honey (for example, white acacia) should contain about 30% fructose - and it is the fructose in the composition that prevents such honey from thickening quickly.
Myth four
The higher the diastase number of honey, the healthier it is.
Myth fifth
Honey from southern bees is healthier than from northern ones, and honey from an apiary is worse than wild honey.
The division of bees into northern or southern exists, but is determined only by the geographical location of the apiary. Southern bees are slightly larger in size; they are adapted to fly in meadows and mountains. Northern bees are smaller. The terms “wild bees” or “bees from an apiary” do not exist in beekeeping - they were invented by marketers. There is one type of bee that collects nectar and produces honey - the honey bee, or apis mellifera. If you move an apiary from south to north, after a while the bees will adapt to the new natural conditions. In this case, by adaptation, experts mean a change in the size of the bee, the length of the proboscis, endurance, etc. A bee cannot change its appearance and begin to produce honey with different properties. The benefits of honey also do not depend only on the geography of collection or only on anatomical (adaptive) features within the species. No less important are the health of the apiary, the honey supply and control studies of honey.
Myth six
Dark honey is healthier than light honey.
The color of honey depends on the composition of the nectar, which in turn depends on the honey plant, the geography of collection, the intensity of honey collection and the weather. To a large extent, the color of honey depends on the plants from which the bee collects nectar. The color of honey does not affect its benefits at all, nor does its consistency, taste and aroma. Honey is either natural and high quality, or it is not. The composition of good honey is approximately the same, with the exception of phytoncides (after all, flowers are different), pollen grains and everything that each specific honey plant brings to honey (for example, fructose in acacia nectar). Phytoncides in honey, as well as the bactericidal properties of the product, have so far been poorly studied. It has only been proven that they exist. Perhaps someday scientists will be inflamed with a passion for honey and give the world a complete picture. For example, they will say that yellow honey is healthier than brown honey, spicy honey is better than fragrant honey, and sweet clover honey is better than buckwheat. True, this will be difficult to do, since even in monofloral honey, in which the nectar of one plant predominates, forbs account for about a fifth of the product - this means that the same apiary in the same field annually collects slightly different honey. So choose honey according to taste, color and aroma and eat the one you like best.
Myth seventh
Honey should not be heated because when heated it releases toxins and becomes poisonous.
When heated, natural honey cannot release poisons and toxins, because it does not initially contain them. If we are talking about honey with the addition of artificial fillers that turn the product into a counterfeit, anything can happen to such a product. It is important to separate the concepts of “nutritional value of honey” and “bactericidal properties of honey”. Natural honey, when heated for a long time, for example, in the oven as part of baked goods, does not lose its nutritional value, but it instantly says goodbye to its bactericidal properties. So feel free to add honey to your porridge or hot tea if you want to add some sweetness. If you are interested in the beneficial properties of honey, eat it with a spoon. Speaking of spoons...
Myth eight
Honey should not be eaten with a metal spoon.
When in contact with certain metals, honey oxidizes, but there are different metals - and all those products that we use in everyday life cannot oxidize honey, since they are intended for use for food purposes. The same applies to beekeeping equipment. Honey extractors, wire and honey spatulas are made of metal, but only those that can interact with food, like cutlery. All beekeeping equipment has passports that state that the device is suitable for honey production.
What is dangerous for honey is pumping out an unripe product or whipping it, saturating it with oxygen (do not confuse it with creaming) - in such situations, honey will indeed have high acidity.
If you ever tried to transfer 30 kilograms of honey from storage containers into smaller jars, you would understand that not a single normal wooden spoon that is not varnished will withstand the load.
Myth nine
Honey should be stored only in opaque containers. It should not be stored in plastic or refrigerator.
The main rule for storing honey is maintaining the temperature regime (not higher than +20 degrees Celsius). The sun's rays can be dangerous for honey because their direct impact on the jar will heat it up. Agree, if you violate the temperature regime, then there is no difference whether honey is stored in a transparent jar or in an opaque one. Food-grade plastic, as well as glass, fully meets the requirements of GOST and the Customs Regulations of the Customs Union. Food-grade plastic is inert and does not release any poisons or toxins into honey. Read more about this in the article
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All-Russian competition of research and creative projects
"I AM AN RESEARCHER"
Does honey have a memory?
Preschool educational institution "Zvezdochka"
Lensk
In Rus', from time immemorial, they have been breeding bees. The most important thing is honey, which a person successfully uses to treat the health of the body.
In our family, honey is not only a favorite treat for children, but also the main cure for all diseases. Grandmother eats a tablespoon of honey every day on an empty stomach in order to “maintain normal blood vessels and metabolism.” And if someone has a fever or a cough, then honey becomes an integral part of many folk recipes: from simple tea with honey to boiled milk with honey and onions.
But only natural honey brings benefits!
Today, on the market and in stores, there are many fakes: our parents say that it is easy to make a mistake and buy burnt honey, diluted, with various impurities: chalk, starch, sugar syrup, various molasses.
Therefore, we decided to study what the characteristics of natural honey are and how to distinguish it from fakes.
2. Methods for determining impurities in honey.
We found in the literature methods for checking the quality of honey that do not require special equipment or practical skills.
2.1. Determination of mechanical impurities
- Determination of chalk impurity
- Determination of flour and starch impurities
- Determination of starch syrup impurity
- Determination of sugar syrup impurity
- Determination of gelatin impurity
Genetic memory of honey
The most interesting, simple and sure way to determine quality honey is using cold water. Pour a tablespoon of honey into a plate. Pour the same amount of cold water. Make a rotational movement with the plate, a honeycomb pattern will appear on the surface of the honey. This is the genetic memory of honey - to take its usual form. If there is no such pattern, then the honey contains impurities.
Conclusions:
The goal of this work was to find the simplest and most accurate way to determine impurities in honey.
We believe that the best way to test honey is the latter.
- USED BOOKS
- Chepurnoy I.P. Express methods for assessing the quality of honey / Chepurnoy I.P. // Beekeeping. - 2000. - No. 3.
- Ponomarev A. Honey quality control in world beekeeping / A. Ponomarev // Beekeeping. - 2006. - No. 7. - P. 60 - 63
- Ismailova S. Encyclopedia for children. Volume 2. Biology, M., “Avanta+”, 1995
- Vinogradova T.V.; Zaitsev G.P. Bees and human health; Publishing house: M; Rosselkhozizdat, 1966
Honey is considered one of the most unique products, because it contains a huge amount of substances and vitamins beneficial to the human body. It is known that such a healthy sweet helps strengthen the immune system, helps with colds, and improves the condition of hair and nails.
Bee honey also has antifungal, antiviral and antibacterial effects, so it is included in many medicines and cosmetics.
Does honey have genetic memory?
Honey can easily be called a “storehouse” of vitamins. It contains: retinol, thiamine, B vitamins and others. It is believed that the genetic memory of honey allows us to determine its quality. Whether this is true or a myth is discussed in this article.
Genetic memory of honey: what is it?
Does this kind of memorization exist? Or is this just another myth invented by sellers to attract attention and sell their goods at a high price?
If we turn to scientific terminology, then genetic memory is experience or memories that were previously laid down by other carriers. In humans, this manifests itself in a set of behavioral reactions, namely:
- reflexes;
- instincts;
- various kinds of genetic programs.
As a rule, this term is applied specifically to humanity. But more and more often, especially from producers, you can hear such a concept as the genetic memory of honey. Moreover, according to their opinion, this applies mainly to a natural product.
Importantknow! Modern scientists have proven that RNA and DNA are carriers of genetic memory. Ribonucleic acid is a macromolecule found in all living organisms and is responsible for such aspects as coding, reading, as well as the regulation and expression of hereditary genes. But DNA or deoxyribonucleic acid ensures the storage and transmission of the genetic program.
It has also been proven that the manifestation of genetic memory is possible only with suppressed consciousness. For example, infants are endowed with the memory of their ancestors. Thus, if we rely on the above information, then honey can have a genetic memory only if this substance has consciousness, as well as RNA and DNA.
Therefore, we can safely say that the first myth regarding the presence of genetic memory in natural sweetness has been completely destroyed.
Note! Despite the existence of well-founded evidence, there are a huge number of people in the world who are still convinced that honey has biological memory.
Does honey have genetic memory: how to check
Honey in water takes the form of a honeycomb even if you add a few drops of it. Many supporters of the theory of the existence of genetic memory in this useful sweetness argue that it is precisely this test that clearly confirms that honey’s memory is not a myth, but the truth. It does not take the form of a honeycomb by chance, but reproduces information received earlier when it was in the apiary.
Additional Information! Many honey sellers use this “trick” to check the quality and naturalness of the product. After all, if honey was in the honeycomb, then in the water it “remembers” this.
So, according to the above theory, honey reproduces its location throughout the season. But everyone knows that it is produced by bees from nectar and pollen of flowering plants. Therefore, you can find different types on the market, namely:
- buckwheat;
- chestnut;
- lime;
- acacia;
- walnut;
- May and others.
Honey can also be honeydew, flower or mixed, which differ in color and structure.
To get 1 kilogram of such a natural product you need about one and a half million micro drops of nectar, which is found on more than 10 million flowers. Therefore, very often some beekeepers feed their “workers” with additional sugar. Honey created in this way is considered unnatural. But at the same time, just like natural, it is produced by bees and stored in hives, in the same honeycombs.
Honey resembles honeycomb cells
Therefore, we can safely say that the second myth is also destroyed.
Benard cells: what are they?
Good to know! It is no coincidence that honey takes the form of a honeycomb predominantly in cold water. In the appearance of the pattern, not only this natural sweetness plays a primary role, but also temperature.
This phenomenon was proven in 1900 by a French physicist known as Jean Bernard Leon Foucault, but not with honey. This scientist conducted an experiment and proved that with a temperature gradient, the structure of a viscous liquid is ordered in the form of cylindrical shafts or hexagons. But such ordering is possible only with uniform heating of the test substance from below.
Bénard cells
Benard cells can form honey and vegetable oil equally. Since, based on the experiments carried out, it has been proven that a honeycomb pattern is formed with many viscous substances.
So, myth number three is also broken.
What is the crystal lattice of honey
From the chemistry course at school, everyone knows about the existence of three states in which all substances can exist - liquid, solid and gaseous.
Note! Honey in combs is viscous, but liquid. Therefore, this product cannot have characteristics, for example, of substances that are present in the other two states. That is, honey cannot have a crystalline structure, which is characteristic only of solids.
Honey does not have a crystal lattice
The exception is candied honey, but this is honey that has changed its state due to the influence of certain external factors (storage conditions) or due to its variety (composition). Crystallization of honey occurs when the glucose contained in its composition settles in the form of crystals. For example, buckwheat and sunflower crystallize over time. But clover and acacia honeys thicken very slowly; these varieties are considered liquid.
Thus, the last myth regarding the existence of a crystal lattice in honey is destroyed.
Despite the fact that determining the quality of honey by genetic memory is a myth, it is always possible to identify a fake. It is better to purchase the product from trusted suppliers, then it will retain all the vitamins and minerals.
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