Probably every person has heard about the benefits of beekeeping products. Such natural gifts can heal the body, prevent a variety of diseases and pathologies, and even treat some of them. Medicines based on bee products can be purchased at any pharmacy or prepared at home. And honey is rightfully considered the most popular of them - tasty and very healthy treat. But, unfortunately, today it is very difficult to find really high-quality honey. Therefore, the topic of our conversation today will be fake honey and how to identify it. Let’s talk about how to distinguish fake honey from the real thing.
Counterfeit honey can be purchased anywhere – from resellers and producers. Moreover, the average consumer will not even be able to distinguish them from each other. Let's try to understand not only the differences between real honey, but also the variety of existing fakes.
What types of fakes are there?
The most “natural” fake is honey with various additives, for example, essential oil. This trick helps unscrupulous sellers pass off honey as a different variety.
Starch, molasses or sucrose and other components can also be used to make counterfeits. In some cases, honey is faked so professionally that it is difficult to find out on our own It's simply impossible. Thus, unscrupulous beekeepers feed bees with sugar syrup, which increases the productivity of insects. In this case, only a laboratory can help identify a fake.
Therefore, in order to get one hundred percent high-quality honey, it is better to buy it from beekeepers you trust.
How to distinguish natural honey from fake honey by eye?
Sometimes a fake is indicated by too low a price. If you suddenly have the opportunity to buy honey cheaper, think about the reasons for the reduced price. By saving, you can buy only part of the real honey, mixed with sugar syrup and colored with tea.
The liquid consistency of honey can also indicate a fake. This natural sweetness remains liquid for only a few months, then it gradually thickens. So in winter it is almost impossible to find liquid honey, if you come across exactly this, it may be diluted or heated.
Also, a counterfeit may be indicated by the presence in such a product of too much white. This phenomenon may indicate that the sweetness was diluted with sugar syrup.
Poor quality honey may look too dark and may have a caramel flavor. This phenomenon indicates that the sweetness has been heated or spread. So, for example, dark buckwheat honey can be melted and sold as fresh.
Please note that honey crystallization processes are a natural phenomenon. If such a sweet is stored for a long time, it may well be that potato molasses was mixed into it or heat treatment in past. Usually this feature becomes obvious after the purchase, but if you discover it, you can refrain from purchasing from this beekeeper in the future. It should be noted that in the fall you can still buy liquid honey - chestnut and white acacia honey.
Fermentation, stratification of honey, or the acquisition of an unsightly forked texture may also indicate a fake.
You should not rely on the presence of bee corpses, pieces of wax or grass in honey. They do not indicate the naturalness of the product, because the seller can add them to the product on purpose.
How to detect fake honey at home?
Every year, manufacturers of “fake” beekeeping products are inventing more and more new methods of camouflaging fakes. However, there are several methods that will help you find out how high-quality the honey is in front of you.
Mechanical study
Try rubbing honey between your fingers. Quality treat sticks well, it forms an adhesive film. If you get your hands on a fake, you may be left with a feeling of excessive moisture. Also, the counterfeit product can form a lump that can be rolled in your fingers.
When falling from a whisk or spoon, honey will not splash. Just drop a small drop onto a napkin - it should not spread. In this case, honey will stretch from the spoon like a thin thread, and the last drop will spring back and be pulled up.
A high-quality honey mixture will form a mound and only then spread.
Simple method with iodine and water (or vinegar)
Pour some honey into a glass and add some water. Mix well. If there are additives in the honey, they will settle to the bottom.
Drop a couple of drops of iodine into a glass and stir. If the mixture suddenly turns blue, it means there is starch in the honey.
You can also drop a little vinegar into the solution. If something suddenly hisses, it means there is chalk in the honey.
Some more chemical experiments
Prepare a five to ten percent solution of honey and combine it with medical alcohol in a ratio of 4:1. When a white precipitate appears, one can draw conclusions about the presence of molasses.
You can also add to the honey solution methyl alcohol– when a yellowish-white precipitate appears, one can draw conclusions about the presence of impurities in the honey.
Spoon method
This is a simple test method that can be done in a fairly warm room - with a temperature of at least twenty degrees. Take an ordinary spoon and wrap the honey around it, making quick rotational movements. A completely natural product will behave like caramel - it will wrap around a spoon and will not drip. If you have a fake in your hands, it may start to flow from the spoon, bubbles or inclusions of some other color may appear in it.
Paper method
To determine the naturalness of honey using paper, lay out a large number of honey onto a piece of paper and wait for five minutes. In the event that back side There is no wet spot on the leaf, the honey is really high quality and has not been diluted. You can easily resort to this method of checking at a fair - take a little honey on a stick and put it on a sheet of paper.
Fire method
This method of determining the quality of honey will help determine the authenticity of crystallized honey. Light a small piece and watch carefully how it burns. If you have one hundred percent high-quality honey in your hands, it will simply melt. If you come across a fake, it will crackle and hiss (this is how other foreign components will appear).
Bread method
This method allows you to find out whether there is sugar syrup in honey. Just take a small slice of bread and dip it in honey. Wait for ten to fifteen minutes, then remove and inspect the piece of bread. A truly high-quality product will not soften the bread, and if it contains sugar syrup, the bread will become soggy.
Advice from beekeepers
When choosing honey, give preference to thicker varieties. If the product has a transparent consistency, it may well be that it was heated by the seller.
What types of honey don't exist?
Many beekeepers, as well as resellers, invent varieties of honey or distribute those that are especially rare. Let's look at some particularly alarming options.
Honey from royal jelly. It is very difficult to obtain such honey and almost impossible in such a volume that it would be possible to sell it. One queen cell contains no more than two hundred grams of milk, and creating a dessert requires special efforts. But sellers of sweets with such a big name have a reason to put a particularly high price on it.
It is impossible to purchase honey from rosehip, corn, hazel or poppy. The flowers of these plants do not produce nectar. It is also impossible to obtain chamomile honey.
You should also be wary of honey made from strawberries, blackberries or blueberries. To obtain natural honey using nectar from these bushes, you need to spend a lot of time and effort, because they produce very little nectar. But unscrupulous beekeepers can feed bees juice from berries, and insects process it as nectar. The resulting honey is not as healthy as natural honey, but sellers do not tell about this.
Also, you should not buy honey from milk thistle, pumpkin and silver elf. Mentions of so-called “wild” honey or the predominance of “flower” varieties of honey from the seller may also cause concern.
Some more tips from a beekeeper
Be sure to try honey before purchasing and also smell it. Do not hesitate to ask clarifying questions about when the honey was collected and where the apiary is located. Bee products cost a lot of money, so you have the right to full information.
High-quality honey has a pleasant floral aroma, as well as a sweet and pleasant taste. There are varieties of beekeeping products that are characterized by quite original taste. If you are going to buy just these, find out beforehand what taste and aroma they should have.
But most often honey smells like honeycomb from a hive - wax, nectar and pollen, as well as sweetness and, of course, honey. A low-quality product may have a particularly strong odor, or sometimes no aroma at all.
When swallowed, honey may tingle the throat a little and also give a slight bitterness.
Be sure to inquire about the weight of the honey you buy - one liter of a high-quality beekeeping product weighs on average 1.4 kg.
Store the purchased treat in a dark or opaque glass or ceramic container. Cover the vessel tightly with a lid, because honey can absorb foreign odors. It is best that the storage temperature is between five and twenty degrees. Under no circumstances should you store honey in the sun.
1. The highest quality honey– this is honey in already sealed honeycombs. If the honeycombs are not sealed, then the honey is not mature and, accordingly, does not contain all useful substances.
2. If it is not possible to buy honey in combs, try to find unfiltered honey that contains pollen and beebread. Such honey will not be pure appearance, it will contain remains of pollen and beebread.
3. If you buy honey in a store, the very first thing you need to do is read the label, which sometimes states availability. various additives. Natural honey, of course, should not contain any additives.
4. Real honey is viscous and viscous, fake honey or honey that has been heated is liquid.
5. Real honey has a slightly floral scent. Fake honey is odorless or may have a slightly sour odor.
6. When heated, fake honey begins to bubble. Real honey caramelizes and does not produce foam.
Please note that most sell honey in plastic, and plastic releases harmful substances, as a result, intoxication of the body occurs.
7. Real honey never spoils.
8. Pay attention to which honey plants the honey was collected from; for ourselves, we try to buy honey collected from wild plants that have not been subjected to chemical treatment. Although there is no guarantee that this honey is environmentally friendly, since there are factors such as: highway, chemical trails, chemical emissions, etc.
9. The naturalness of honey can be checked using bread. Real honey is not absorbed into the bread.
The most suitable storage temperature for honey is 5-10 degrees, in a dry and ventilated room. When honey is heated to 37 degrees, volatile antimicrobial substances are lost. Up to 45 degrees – the invertase enzyme is destroyed. Up to 50 degrees – diastasis is destroyed. Sun rays they also lower medicinal properties honey
How we fell for counterfeit honey
Before writing about ways to test honey, I would like to tell you about my personal experience what a fake we got. We bought 3 liter jar honey There was honey on top, about 1/3 of a jar, and at the bottom there was sugar mixed with honey. And this was very disappointing, considering that we deliberately do not eat sugar.
Once the sugar layer started, it became noticeable in taste and texture. The honey taste practically disappeared immediately, the mass was simply sweet and had a faint taste of honey. The honey itself was already candied, so grains of sugar were disguised as crystallized honey.
We wouldn't notice the difference if we didn't eat real candied honey. This kind of honey has a completely different texture and taste of sugar, it’s difficult to explain its properties, but I’ll try: it’s brittle on the teeth, not as hard as regular sugar and the feeling from it is as if the sugar had not completely dissolved in the honey.
In general, the conclusion from this situation is this: if you buy honey in large quantities, then only from trusted beekeepers, or get your own bees and already be confident in the naturalness and benefits of the product.
Testing honey at home
I would like to note that the most accurate tests can only be carried out in laboratory conditions.
Viscosity. When determining the quality of honey, viscosity is important. Viscosity is checked using a spoon. The spoon is dipped into honey and turned around its axis; if the honey does not flow down, but wraps around the spoon, it means it is mature. In this case, the temperature must be at least 20 degrees so that the viscosity does not increase due to low temperatures.
Checking with your fingers. Put some honey on your finger, if it doesn't spread, then it's real honey.
Can be mixed with honey: sugar, potato syrup, corn syrup, water, honeydew honey, flour, chalk, sawdust, glucose, dextrose and other substances.
1 way to test honey. Distilled water is added to honey so that the honey becomes liquid. This liquid is then poured into a test tube. An impurity will appear in the sediment or on the surface.
Flammability Test. Take a dry match. Dip the tip directly into the honey. Light a match. If the honey is pure, the match will light easily. The flame will also burn from honey. However, if it contains water, for example, the match will not burn due to moisture.
Testing for starch content. Add distilled water to honey, stir and add a drop of iodine. If the liquid turns blue, it means the honey contains starch.
If you pour a little honey on paper and the paper becomes saturated with honey, then the honey contains starch or water.
Testing for chalk content. Add distilled water to honey, stir and add acetic acid. If chalk is present, a reaction will occur and the liquid will foam.
Water content test. Fill the glass with water. Add one tablespoon of honey. Adulterated or artificial honey dissolves in water. Pure honey will sink to the bottom.
Another way. Drop a little honey on a napkin; if it contains water, a wet spot will appear on the napkin.
Starch syrup. If cold-processed molasses has been added to honey, it will not crystallize and will have viscous consistency. You can also do a test with alcohol. You need to take 1 part honey, add 3 parts distilled water and add ¼ of the resulting mass of 96% alcohol. Shake. In the presence of starch syrup, a milky-white liquid is formed.
If molasses obtained by heating was used as an impurity, then it is not possible to determine its presence at home; for this purpose, an analysis is carried out using barium chloride.
Sugar syrup. To determine the presence of sugar molasses, you need to dilute the honey with distilled water to obtain a 10% solution and add a sample of silver nitrate. If molasses is present, a precipitate will form.
How to distinguish natural honey. How to identify quality honeyIs it possible to buy honey by hand? Only if you are sure what exactly you are buying. The most common honey adulterator is sugar syrup. Unripe honey is often diluted with the same syrup to give it the missing sweetness.
First, the honey must be mature. After all, bees work on nectar for about a week: they evaporate the water, enrich it with enzymes, and break down complex sugars into simple ones. During this time, the honey is infused. Finished product bees seal it with wax caps - this is the kind of honey that has all its beneficial properties and can be stored for a long time.
Very often, beekeepers pump out honey during honey collection, without waiting for it to ripen, due to a lack of honeycombs. The water content in such honey is sometimes twice the norm, it is little enriched with enzymes and sucrose, and quickly sours.
To determine the maturity of honey, it is heated to 20 degrees, stirring with a spoon. Then the spoon is taken out and started to rotate. Ripe honey wraps around her. It may become sugary over time, this is normal. If you want to return it to its previous state, heat it slightly in a water bath. But sometimes this provokes further souring.
Using simple tests you can determine whether honey is adulterated. Flour and starch are determined by adding a drop of iodine to a small amount of honey diluted with water. If the solution turns blue, honey with flour or starch. If when adding vinegar essence the solution will hiss - there is chalk in the honey. If in a 5-10% aqueous solution of honey, when adding a small amount of lapis, white precipitate- sugar was added.
How can you determine the quality of honey?
By color
Each type of honey has its own color, unique to it. Flower honey- light yellow, linden - amber, ash - transparent, like water, buckwheat has different shades Brown. Pure honey without impurities is usually transparent, no matter what color it is. Published by ruslife.org.ua
Honey, which contains additives (sugar, starch, other impurities), is cloudy, and if you look closely, you can find sediment in it.
By aroma
Real honey has a fragrant aroma. This smell is incomparable. Honey mixed with sugar has no aroma, and its taste is close to the taste of sweetened water.
By viscosity
Take honey for testing by placing it in a container thin stick. If this is real honey, then it follows the stick as a long continuous thread, and when this thread is broken, it will completely descend, forming a tower, a pagoda on the surface of the honey, which will then slowly disperse.
Fake honey will behave like glue: it will flow abundantly and drip down from the stick, forming splashes.
By consistency
In real honey it is thin and delicate. Honey is easily rubbed between your fingers and absorbed into the skin, which cannot be said about a fake. Adulterated honey has a rough texture; when rubbed, lumps remain on your fingers.
Before buying honey in reserve at the market, take the product you like from 2-3 regular sellers. To start, 100 grams each. Do the recommended quality tests at home and only then buy it for future use from the same sellers.
Check if water and sugar have been added to honey
To do this, drop honey on a sheet of low-grade paper that absorbs moisture well. If it spreads across the paper, forming wet spots, or even seeps through it, it is fake honey.
Determine whether honey contains starch. To do this, put a little honey in a glass, pour boiling water, stir and cool. After this, add a few drops of iodine there. If the composition turns blue, it means that starch has been added to the honey. This is fake honey.
Find out if there are other impurities in honey
To do this, take a hot wire (stainless steel) and dip it in honey. If a sticky foreign mass hangs on it, you have fake honey, but if the wire remains clean, the honey is natural or, in other words, full-fledged. Published by ruslife.org.ua
What should you pay attention to after purchasing honey?
Honey should not be stored in metal containers, since the acids contained in its composition can oxidize. This will lead to an increase in the content of heavy metals in it and a decrease in useful substances. Such honey can cause discomfort in the stomach and even lead to poisoning.
Honey is stored in glass, clay, porcelain, ceramic and wooden containers.
Honey contains 65-80% fructose and sucrose, it is rich in vitamin C, in addition, it contains almost all minerals. Therefore, consuming honey with warm water or when heating candied honey, do not bring the temperature to 60 degrees - this is the limit after which the structure of honey disintegrates, the color changes, the aroma disappears, and vitamin C, which can live in honey for many years, is destroyed by half or more.
How else can you spot a fake?
Add a little of what you bought under the guise of honey to a cup of weak, warm tea. If you were not deceived, the tea will darken, but no sediment will form at the bottom.
Over time, honey becomes cloudy and thickens - and this is a sure sign good quality. And not, as many people mistakenly believe, that the honey has gone bad.
If even after years your honey has not thickened, it means that it contains a large amount of fructose and, alas, does not have healing properties. Sometimes honey during storage is divided into two layers: it thickens only at the bottom, and remains liquid at the top. This indicates that it is unripe and should therefore be eaten as quickly as possible - unripe honey only lasts for a few months.
Careless beekeepers do not take bees out to collect nectar, but simply feed them sugar. Sugar honey- unnatural. There is nothing useful in it. This honey is unnaturally white. Published by ruslife.org.ua
Real honey contains no water. Honey with syrup has high humidity- this can be checked in the following way. Dip a piece of bread into honey, and after 8-10 minutes, take it out. High-quality honey will harden the bread. If, on the contrary, it has softened or completely spread out, then this is nothing more than sugar syrup.
But no one on the market will allow you to conduct such experiments, but they will let you try. Often honey is dripped onto a small piece of paper for tasting. This is quite enough to conduct another experiment. When going to the market to buy honey, take a chemical pencil with you. Smear the honey on a piece of paper with a pencil, you can smear it with your finger, and try writing something on the “honey” strip with a chemical pencil. If after a few seconds an inscription or streaks appear of blue color, you can confidently and loudly tell the seller (so that other customers can hear) that the product contains starch or flour. If you don't have a chemical pencil, a drop of iodine will do. Same blue tint The proposed honey will accurately detect the starch and flour in the product.
Which honey is better - mountain honey or, let's say, lowland honey?
Don't fall for the bait when they try to convince you that mountain honey better than that, which bees collect in our open spaces. Mountain honey has no special advantages over plain honey. The quality of honey and the concentration of nutrients in it depend only on the decency and knowledge of the beekeeper, as well as on the environmental situation in the area where honey is collected. Here, however, there is a difference between honey collected in a clean environment and what bees collected from flower beds industrial enterprise. But here too everything depends on the beekeeper. His conscience should not allow him to make money from “industrial” honey.
Sellers of useful products have several tricks
First, close your ears and don't listen to what they tell you. For a bunch of liars, of course, there may be one honest seller, but how do you know that the one standing in front of you is honest? Try honey not only from the top, but also from the bottom of the jar. Feel free to put a spoon into the jar and don’t listen to the sellers who start shouting: “Don’t spoil the product!”
Honey is an antiseptic, and a clean spoon in a jar cannot spoil it. It’s another matter if it’s not honey at the bottom.
Do not buy unchecked or rolled honey from the market. The fact that honey is best stored rolled up tin lid- myth.
Crystallization is a natural process of honey, which does not affect its quality and composition of nutrients. Don't be fooled by crystallized honey. Do not come the next day to the seller who promised you non-crystallized honey. They will bring the same thing, but warmed up. But you can’t heat honey. Those who prefer honey in liquid form should take this fact into account. Place the jar of honey in warm water. When the water cools down, change it. Gradually the honey will melt.
Real honey has the following characteristics:
High-quality honey does not roll off the spoon too quickly. Take a tablespoon of honey and turn the spoon several times in a quick circular motion. The honey will roll over it, almost without draining into the jar.
Dip a spoon into the container with honey. When pulling out the spoon, evaluate the nature of the swelling of the honey. A good one will form a ribbon, sit in a mound, and bubbles will form on its surface.
All types of honey have sweet taste, but some of the varieties have a specific taste. For example, tobacco, chestnut and willow varieties have a bitter taste, while heather is astringent. Any deviations in taste qualities honey is said to be of poor quality. Other flavor defects may be due to the presence of impurities. Excessive acidity may be associated with the onset of fermentation, the aroma of caramel is the result of heating, obvious bitterness is due to incorrect storage conditions of a low-quality product.
The color of honey depends solely on the variety. And here there can be all shades of brown and yellow. Do not be alarmed by pale yellow, slightly cloudy honey - this is normal for acacia honey.
And here's another:
When buying honey, do an experiment: scoop it up with a spoon, swirl it around and watch how it flows. If the honey is mature and of high quality, then it is viscous, thick and does not drip from the spoon, but is wound on it with a viscous ribbon. This state of honey is also noticeable when pouring it from one container to another - the stream of natural honey should be continuous and form folds like the bellows of an accordion. In other words, good honey It should be neither too liquid nor very thick. Another feature: natural honey must be completely homogeneous in both color and consistency. And some more subtleties regarding the color of honey. They say that the quality of honey with a reddish tint - spring and summer - is better, and autumn and winter - worse.
There are other ways to determine the quality of honey. In a weak cup warm tea add some honey. If it is not fake, then the solution of tea with honey will darken and there will be no sediment in it. And in general, make it a rule not to buy a lot of honey at once from unfamiliar merchants. Take 100-200 grams of honey and check its quality at home, and then decide whether to buy this honey or not.
Many honey lovers have accumulated in their arsenal many other ways to determine its quality. Here are some of them:
- if the honey is very white, then it is not natural, but sugar - some beekeepers feed bees with sugar;
- strong and well-crystallized honey is easily rubbed between your fingers and, like grains of ghee, should melt quickly;
- if the aroma of honey is dull and the taste of caramel is felt, then it is molten honey;
- hold a spoonful of honey on the fire and look at it: natural honey should not burn with a blue flame, it will gradually char;
- dip raw in honey egg- if it does not sink, the honey is good, undiluted;
- dissolve a small amount of honey in hot milk - if the milk curdles, it means the honey has been diluted with sugar syrup.
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Since the times of the ancient Slavs, honey has been considered one of the most useful gifts of nature. In addition to sweetness, it is used to prevent diseases and pathologies. And they have antibacterial and healing properties. However, beekeepers and unscrupulous producers do not sell natural product for those who do not understand bee nectar. Therefore, it is better to know how to distinguish natural honey from fake?
Fake honey has several types:
- Natural honey mixed with substances that increase its volume and density. Foreign ingredients include sugar syrup, chalk, starch, flour with added tea or flavorings.
- made from sugar or products containing sugar high content, then tint it.
- Honey from sugar. If bees consume sugar syrup, the resulting product will be of low quality. This composition is light in color and crystallizes very slowly.
- . Honeydew is secreted either by insects in the form of a sweet sticky liquid, or by certain trees (plum, cherry, ash, maple, spruce, fir and other conifers). Bees collect honeydew if there are no flowering plants in their habitat. Such a product cannot be called a fake, but before purchasing, ask the seller about the origin of the product.
- Melted honey, which is obtained by heating last year's honey to a temperature above 50 degrees Celsius. In this case, they are lost beneficial features. You can distinguish a melted product by its brownish tint and caramel flavor.
Unscrupulous sellers and beekeepers sell bee elixir from strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, rose hips, poppy, hazel, and chamomile. But there are no such varieties in nature, so avoid such nectar.
Natural honey: signs of a quality product
How to choose real honey based on appearance when purchasing? Pay attention to such signs of real honey as color, consistency, taste and smell.
Color
Depending on the variety, the color can range from dark brown. Transparent composition is a sign of quality. The presence of foam is unacceptable; this indicates an unripe product.
Consistency
The consistency of the product should be uniform. The presence of sediments and impurities indicates poor quality or unnatural origin. Young honey has a liquid consistency. Mature nectar is fluid because it contains less water. The maturation technology is as follows: the bees seal the collected nectar in the honeycombs only after the excess moisture has evaporated, which takes time. But manufacturers are trying to get and sell the goods faster, so they don’t wait for ripening. Due to excess water, the quality and shelf life of the product are low.
If there is no “gift of bees” in winter, then you have a low-quality product. The exception is chestnut honey, which will thicken only after a year and a half.
Taste
Of course, bee nectar tastes sweet, but with a bitterness that causes a slight soreness in the throat. Some varieties have specific or more tart taste. .
Smell
The natural product smells like the flowers from which it was produced by bees, while the fake product has no smell or smells like caramel.
Characteristics of honey depending on the variety.
| Variety | Color | Taste | Aroma |
| dark brown | very ticklish throat | the smell of flowers of the same name | |
| light shade | soft aftertaste | strong scent of linden blossoms | |
| dark color with red tint | bitter | the smell of blooming heather | |
| transparent | very sweet | subtle aroma of acacia | |
| brown | chestnut taste, a little bitter | sweetish-spicy | |
| amber | very sweet | has the aroma of the flowers from which it is collected | |
| light | tart taste with mustard aftertaste | faint aroma |
How to distinguish real honey from fake?
There are ways to determine the natural composition at home.
With bread
The method involves the following technology: dip a piece of bread in a sweet liquid and leave for five minutes. Natural composition will make the bread hard, and the fake will soften the bread pulp.
Chemical pencil
You need to apply a thin layer of the product to a sheet of paper and run a pencil over it. On the product natural origin there will be no traces left.
Vinegar
To experiment, take a small amount of “sweet amber” and add vinegar to it. If hissing occurs, then the composition contains chalk.
By water
The water method is very simple. Add a spoonful of bee treat to a glass of warm water and stir the solution. The natural product will not produce sediment.
A drop of iodine
By fire
Add honey to the paper surface and set the sheet on fire. If the product does not burn or turn brownish, then it is worth buying.
Pay attention to the containers in which honey is sold. in dishes made of glass, wood, porcelain. When placed in a metal container, oxidation and saturation with harmful substances occurs.
A liter of honey product weighs one and a half kilograms.
Using the listed rules and methods, you can determine the quality of honey with a high probability.
The healing properties of honey have been known since ancient times, and since then this bee product has been incredibly popular among the population.
Honey is widely used in the treatment of acute respiratory viral infections, colds, and coughs. In addition, the product is very useful for people who are overweight. In this case, it is recommended to use it with the addition of cinnamon, which will allow you to get rid of extra pounds in a short time.
Traditional medicine has a huge amount recipes based on this unique bee product, however, it must be said that only natural honey has healing properties.
Nowadays, more and more often, unscrupulous businessmen, in pursuit of profit, have begun to engage in falsification honey delicacy and pass off some incomprehensible substance as a real bee product. So how can you avoid falling for the bait of these would-be businessmen and acquire a truly genuine and quality honey?
How to check the quality of honey at home?
Many people are interested in the question: how to check honey for naturalness? Whether a product is natural or not can be determined according to several criteria. To begin with, it is recommended to purchase a small amount of bee product and check it yourself using all the methods available to you.
How to determine the quality of honey by external criteria?
An ordinary buyer can determine the quality and naturalness of a product by organoleptic indicators: color, smell, taste. When tasting honey, you should pay special attention to the following properties:
When determining the naturalness of a delicacy, you The following indicators should alert you:
- Complete absence of odor;
- you don’t have a feeling of sourness and sore throat;
- honey has a color uncharacteristic for this variety;
- liquid honey mass in the autumn-winter period.
High-quality bee product viscous, viscous and dense. The moisture content of natural honey is below 20%, that is, it corresponds to the norm. Take a ladle (or spoon), scoop up a treat, lift it higher and look at the falling stream. It should descend in a continuous ribbon, forming a slide on the surface. When pouring a large volume of honey mass, a characteristic creaking sound is heard. A delicacy with low viscosity does not form a slide, but a small funnel.
If you rotate a spoon with natural bee product from side to side, you will notice that honey with high humidity does not linger for a long time. tableware and flows down. While the viscous delicacy, on the contrary, wraps around a spoon.
If the bees were fed sugar syrup, then it is quite difficult to check whether the honey is real. A fake delicacy has all the hallmarks natural product and is characterized by low acidity, a high percentage of sucrose, as well as a lower content of macro- and microelements and pollen grains. So how can you tell whether honey is natural or fake?
There are the following differences between this product and sugar:
- At long-term storage the honey mass becomes gelatinous and thick, crystallization is often lard-like;
- This delicacy has a weak aroma, does not cause a burning sensation, is not sour and has a fresh sweet taste.
The organoleptic characteristics of a fake honey treat can be quite weak. Unscrupulous beekeepers practice joint pumping of frames with natural honey and the so-called sugar frames. At the same time, the appearance and taste of the surrogate improves, which makes it difficult to test honey at home. And yet, is it possible to accurately determine the quality of a sweet medicine at home? Of course, yes, you just need to know how to do it.
Some beekeepers add various powdered substances (starch, chalk, flour and even sand) to honey to increase the mass of the bee product and its viscosity. If you are interested in the question of how to determine the quality of honey at home in order to detect insoluble impurities, you can just dissolve the product.
To do this, you need to take warm water into a transparent container and put 2 tbsp there. l. bee product, mix thoroughly. After about an hour, all insoluble impurities (if any) will settle down.
Honey moisture content
Specific gravity of honey mixture determines its quality. How more water contained in the product, the less dry residue it contains, and therefore the less specific gravity. So how can you determine it yourself?
In fact, everything is very simple. You need to take a transparent container and weigh it. Then put some mark on the surface of the jar and pour water to the specified level. Weigh again. The resulting difference means the amount of water. Now pour the honey mass into the same jar (wiped dry) up to the mark and weigh the product. From the result obtained, you need to subtract the number of the first weighing and the remainder will give you the amount of honey, which should then be divided by the amount of water - this is the specific gravity of the honey treat.
Humidity up to 20% is considered normal, which corresponds to specific gravity 1.4 kg. If, as a result of the experiment, you get a lower value, it means that the product contains a large amount of water, which can cause fermentation.
How to test honey for naturalness at home using unconventional methods?
In addition to the above, there are also so-called unconventional methods of checking the quality and naturalness of bee products. The beekeeping literature does not say anything about such methods, so it is impossible to say with one hundred percent certainty that they are reliable. Nevertheless, you can try.
Of these non-traditional methods for determining quality honey products can be distinguished as follows:
How to test honey using additional substances?
The naturalness and quality of honey products can be determined using various substances available in almost every home.
How to test honey - real or not - using iodine?
Some unscrupulous beekeepers add starch and flour to honey to create the appearance of a crystallized product. The quality of such honey can be checked reaction to iodine.
You need to dissolve a little bee product in a small amount of water and add iodine (5 drops) to it. If the composition turns blue, it means the sample contains starch or flour.
Test using ammonia
Sometimes, in order to increase viscosity, beekeepers add it to honey. starch syrup. It can be detected by the residues of sulfuric acid used in the process of saccharification of starch. How, in this case, can one determine the quality of honey products?
Here the average person will come to the aid ammonia.
- Dissolve honey (1 part) in water (2 parts);
- take 2 ml of solution and add ammonia (8 drops) there.
If the mixture contains starch, it will acquire a brown tint, and a brown precipitate containing ammonium sulfate will appear at the bottom.
How to determine the presence of chalk in a product using vinegar?
Some so-called beekeepers add to the product powdered chalk. This is done to increase the weight and thickness of the honey treat. This mixture can cause serious harm to health.
The presence of chalk in honey mass can be determined using vinegar essence. A few drops of acid are added to the test sample. If a sizzling reaction occurs with the release of moisture, it means the treat contains chalk additives.
How to check the authenticity of honey using lapis?
There is also such a method of falsifying bee products as adding to it sugar syrup. To detect a fake, you can use a solution of silver nitrate (lapis).
Dissolve honey (1 tbsp) in ten tablespoons of water and add lapis. If the honey mixture contains sugar, a white silver chloride precipitate will fall to the bottom. IN quality product there will be no sediment.
Chemical pencil test
Check naturalness honey product it is possible using a chemical pencil. To do this, put a small amount of honey on a sheet of paper and draw a line. If a colored trace remains, it means that the product may contain various impurities or sugar syrup. In the same way, you can try to determine the moisture content of the honey treat.
However, this method of determining the quality of honey raises some doubts. In 1972, V. G. Chudakov performed a simple experiment. He examined 36 varieties of bee products, 13 of which were falsified. The chemical pencil test showed identical results on all 36 samples. From this we can conclude that a chemical pencil does not contribute in any way to identifying a fake.
There are still a large number of ways to check honey for quality. However, they are more difficult to use and cannot be done at home. If you have researched a sweet delicacy using the above methods and are convinced that this is real high-quality honey, you can safely go to the same store and purchase required quantity delicious medicine.
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