What does natural honey look like? How to check the naturalness of honey with a blotter. Find out if there are other impurities in honey

Hello, dear readers! If you frequent my blog, you know that I often use honey in my recipes. Today I want to talk to you about it. What types and varieties are there? How to check the quality of honey at home? Where can I buy good honey? Answers to these questions and others Interesting Facts, You will find in this article.

A little history

Mention of honey was found in Egyptian hieroglyphs. The pharaohs used it as a monetary equivalent and considered it the most valuable offering to their gods. Honey is mentioned in the Bible, and the Greeks considered it the food of the gods. In the eleventh century it was offered to German lords as ransom for peasants.

Today it is used as a remedy and simply tasty treat. This is a universal healing remedy that can improve human health at any age.

At the end of summer, beekeepers organize fairs where you can purchase a variety of beekeeping products. Every buyer may encounter a counterfeit of this useful product. To prevent this from happening, I propose to consider the most sophisticated methods of falsification.

There are several known methods of counterfeiting

Feeding bees with sugar - within acceptable limits (no more than 8 kg per season), feeding is necessary for bees to survive. This is compensation for the pumped out honey. Even in this form, sugar syrup passed through the proboscis is enriched with protein, but such a product contains almost no useful microelements.
Another way of falsification is to add sugar diluted in water with citric acid; flavorings can be added. This species is distinguished by a suspiciously white color.
Watermelon or melon juices can be added, which acquire viscous properties when evaporated. Used for hydrolysis citric acid, and the smell is added using artificial honey essence or natural honey. To do this, use varieties that have bright aromas(buckwheat, coriander or linden).
Sometimes potato or corn starch, ordinary chalk or wheat flour. These additives significantly increase the volume of the product. They can be determined by dropping a drop of iodine into honey dissolved in water. If the honey is of poor quality, blue streaks will appear.

For coloring, add tea, St. John's wort or turmeric. Additional dyes may precipitate when dissolved. Artificial honey has believable properties, it good taste and smell.

Sometimes falsification can only be detected in laboratory conditions. He contains simple carbohydrates, minerals, but no bioactive substances, dextrans and pollen.

How to choose the right one based on appearance

The natural product has various shades: from light to dark or brown. Dark ones are healthier (buckwheat, burdock), as they contain more minerals, iron, copper, manganese. Light – linden, cotton, acacia. It is very fragrant. Honey collected from different plants, is called polypheric.

Natural honey contains pollen particles and will crystallize over time. Fake, transparent, prone to separation and will always have a runny consistency.

Taste

The taste should be sweetly astringent. Buckwheat and sunflower have the brightest and most pronounced taste, while linden is very delicate. Real, bakes and dissolves in your mouth. If there is a fake, it does not dissolve and the taste of caramel or sugar syrup, it does not leave a pleasant burning sensation.

Effect on the skin

A good one is completely absorbed into the skin and rubs easily. The fake leaves a sticky residue and undissolved particles.

Paper check

The drop should not spread on the paper. The “fake” stain spreads on the paper. This indicates the presence of water in the contents.

By consistency

The natural one flows off the spoon continuously, like a thin thread, and is placed in layers into the pagoda. Poor quality, drips and leaves splashes. A drop of counterfeit immediately falls into the bulk.

Testing for sugar

A piece of bread is dipped in honey, in natural honey it will harden, in fake honey it will soften.

How to determine the presence of chalk?

To add density to honey diluted with water, chalk is added. It is colorless and odorless. You can detect it by dropping vinegar - a hiss appears.

Detecting counterfeit using metal

Identification of natural honey using a hot wire is based on its properties of not sticking to hot metal objects. The fake will remain on the stick.

By weight

High-quality, heavier than artificial. Liter jar present, weighs at least 1.4 kilograms.

Proper storage

It should be stored in a ceramic jar or small dark glass container. Can be used enamel dishes or stainless steel, and for crystallized dishes, dishes made of initialed paper are suitable. An iron container is not suitable, as it may oxidize with the formation of substances hazardous to health.

Wooden containers are not suitable for everyone. From oak - will add honey dark color, and coniferous varieties – bitterness.

Honey can adsorb foreign odors, so it should be kept away from strong-smelling substances. It also absorbs moisture, which makes it liquid, so the area needs to be dry.

Varieties of honey

Acacia. Light yellow in color, has decongestant properties and the ability to dilute bile. Bees collect it during the acacia flowering period - May, and pump it out in mid-July. This is one of the most valuable varieties. It contains a full range of vitamins and microelements. Basic properties:

useful for blood diseases;
increases hemoglobin levels;
improves sleep;
normalizes carbohydrate metabolism;
stimulates brain function;
used for skin diseases.

Is used for sports nutrition, How energy supplement, as well as for diabetic treatment. Acacia honey can be pale yellow or white, depending on the type of acacia tree from which it is collected. Natural honey is not bitter, it is liquid and viscous. For one day bee family collects 12 kg of this product.

Mountain– refers to polypheres (forbs). Collected in a clean mountain climate, it has healing properties. The color is varied, from light to brown. It has a spicy, fruity taste and is rich in microelements. Used to treat anemia and hypovitaminosis. Has antifungal properties. Used locally for wound healing. Helps with illnesses respiratory tract, oral cavity, heart and vascular system.

Buckwheat- considered the most useful. Refers to dark varieties. Has a pronounced aroma. It contains antibiotics and enzymes. The unique combination of beneficial substances has made it indispensable for infectious diseases.

Buckwheat honey has a bactericidal effect against staphylococcus and E. coli. Medicinal properties increase when combined with vitamin C. It has an expectorant and diaphoretic effect, therefore it is effective for colds and pulmonary diseases.

Clover– white or amber. It has a unique candy taste, transparent color and herbal aroma. Possesses healing effect for liver, heart, and gynecological diseases. It has a regenerating effect and is used to treat wounds.

Forbs– honey is obtained from flowering plants, trees and shrubs growing in the same area. It is collected throughout the summer. May have different colors and aroma of plants prevailing in the area. Golden brown color. Has a bactericidal effect. Used for various inflammatory diseases, insomnia and sclerosis.

Honey is beneficial dietary product. 100 grams contain 300 kilocalories, and sugar - 400. It is not recommended for people suffering from carbohydrate metabolism disorders and allergic reactions.

Where to buy honey

There are a lot now low quality honey, both on store shelves and in markets. The product is not cheap and it’s a shame when you run into a fake.

Naturally the most reliable way To avoid falsification, it is to get your own honey or buy it from relatives and friends. But you must admit, not everyone has their own apiary or friends in rural areas.

Therefore, to buy honey, I can suggest a trusted place - a store Ecotopia. I've been taking it there for a year now and I can say that it really is quality product By good prices. There are stores in St. Petersburg and Moscow. For other regions there is delivery by mail. I don't really know the shipping prices.

If you know of other ways to determine the quality of honey, I would be happy to review them. Please write comments and subscribe to my blog.

All the best! Dorofeev Pavel.

In this article we will talk about how to determine real honey from fake. Honey resellers are a frequent and ubiquitous phenomenon.

When faced with a reseller, you won’t even know, since they, as a rule, pretend to be the manufacturer. Resellers can “remake” honey to diversify their product and attract more buyers. However, along with them there are also unscrupulous manufacturers. In this article we will also talk not only about ways to distinguish natural honey, but also about which varieties are very difficult to find and which do not exist at all.

Let's first look at the “types” of fakes. The most “natural” of these may be real honey with various additives(for example, with the addition essential oil to get a “different variety”). Honey can also be artificial and made from products that are not nectars from flowers.

To make “linden,” beekeepers use starch, sucrose and molasses, and also use other means. Unfortunately, today honey can be faked so professionally that it will be extremely difficult to distinguish it. In particular, some “hobbyists” (because a real good beekeeper will not do this) prefer to feed the bees with sugar syrup, and then the latter process it along with the nectar. Only a laboratory can identify such a product as “poor quality”.

The surest way is to buy from beekeepers you know and trust. However, not everyone has these. But don’t despair, there are several signs that, knowing which, an ordinary buyer can suspect a low-quality product.

Please note: according to GOST 19792 2001 natural honey must be stored so that it is not exposed to direct Sun rays and the shelf life in a non-hermetically sealed container should be no more than 8 months (i.e., when selling last year’s honey, beekeepers or resellers violate these rules).

Visual signs of counterfeit

Let's look at what might alert you when choosing honey and, with varying probability, point to a “fake” product.

Please note: the crystallization process is natural. If the sweetness is stored for a long time and this process is not observed, it means that it contains potato molasses or has been thermally processed in the past. Of course, in this case, the purchase has already been made and it’s “too late to drink Borjomi,” but in the future you will know that you should not purchase from this beekeeper or company.

Determination methods

Manufacturers of “fake” products are honing their skills in disguising counterfeits better and better every year. Let's see what other methods can be used if it is not possible to identify natural honey “by eye”.

Method with glass, water and iodine. Here is the first and simple method - pour a little honey into a glass, and then add a small amount of water there. Stir. When honey dissolves, all additives will settle to the bottom. If you drop a few more drops of iodine into the glass and the mixture turns blue, this will indicate the presence of starch.
Spoon method. This method can only be used if the room is warm enough (about 20 degrees). Take a spoon and start rolling honey on it, spin quickly. If the product is natural, then it will behave like caramel - it will curl around the spoon and not flow down. Otherwise, the product may flow from the spoon, bubbles will appear, or you may see inclusions of a different color.
Blotting paper method. How to determine the naturalness of honey using paper - put a little honey on the paper and wait about 5 minutes. If there is no wet spot on the back of the paper, then the honey is of high quality and undiluted. This good way at the fair - you can take honey on a disposable spoon or stick “for testing”, and then put it on paper.
Fire method. This method is only suitable for already crystallized honey. Light a piece and watch it burn. If the product is natural, it will melt easily. A fake will reveal itself by crackling and hissing (foreign components will appear).
Bread method. This way you can check whether the sweetness is diluted with sugar syrup. Take a small piece of bread and dip it in honey. Wait about 10-15 minutes. Then take it out and look at it. A good and high-quality product will not soften the bread, but if sugar water is present, the bread will soften.

Advice: When making a purchase, give preference only thick honey. A product with a clear consistency may mean that the seller has warmed it up.

Non-existent varieties of honey

Some beekeepers or resellers are so imaginative that they begin to literally invent varieties of honey or distribute those that are incredibly rare and difficult to find at a regular fair. Let's see which "varieties" may also cause concern.

From royal jelly. It is incredibly difficult to make such honey and almost impossible in such quantities to then sell it. One queen cell contains about 200 grams of milk. It takes incredible effort to make this kind of honey. In most cases, a jar with a white product has a label with a loud name and incredibly useful properties, as well as a price tag with a “tidy” number.
From rosehip, poppy, corn, lupine, hazel. Despite the fact that the flowers of the corresponding plants do not have nectar, you can often find a rosehip product (honey mixed with rosehip decoction? But no one will say this).
Chamomile honey. This name should also alert you; there is no such variety, especially on sale.
May. In May, a professional and responsible beekeeper feeds honey to the bees, which after winter are just starting to grow their colony. It is impossible to assemble such a product for sale this month.
From strawberries, blackberries, blueberries. It is very difficult to make natural bee honey using nectar from these bushes for sale - they produce a very tiny amount of nectar, and, therefore, it is extremely difficult to make honey from it. It’s another matter if the bees are fed with the juice of berries, which they process as nectar, but this product is more Low quality and the sellers keep silent about the manufacturing method.
Pumpkin. It is possible to make a product from the nectar of the flowers of this plant, however, it can also be dangerous due to the fact that they are treated with pesticides to control pests.
From the silver sucker. In this case, even comments are unnecessary. There is such a variety, but there is so little of it that it’s not even worth talking about selling.

You should also be wary of the mention of wild honey and the seller’s too huge selection of “flower” varieties.

Remember: Always try and smell the product before purchasing. Do not hesitate to ask questions - when was the collection, where is the apiary located. You pay money (and sometimes a lot of it), so you have every right to find out everything.

Real honey has a floral aroma, sweet and pleasant (there are some varieties whose taste is quite original, but if you are planning to purchase such, then find out first on the Internet what exactly the taste and smell should be). When swallowed, it may sting the throat a little and have slight bitterness. See how counterfeits are identified at home and in the laboratory and how even well-promoted companies deceive consumers

People will not pass by a retail outlet that offers fresh, high-quality, very useful product. Fraudsters know this very well and therefore very often offer customers counterfeit goods.

This began a long time ago, since the sugar industry began to develop. The first honey fakes are regular sugar, mixed with water and some aromatic substances. Usually such fake honey is mixed with real honey to make it more difficult to detect.

Sometimes substances extremely harmful to human health were found in such impurities. Nowadays, technology has leapt forward.

Now molasses is used for counterfeits, invert sugar, sucrose, starch and various other fillers. Currently, counterfeits have reached such a level that they are difficult to detect even in laboratory conditions.

The state has taken upon itself to protect consumers from low-quality honey, but a lot of honey is bought from private individuals and therefore is not subject to any inspection. But impurities in honey, not to mention the fact that they reduce the benefits of this product, can cause direct harm to your health.

That is why you need to know that fakes are divided into:

1. Natural honey with added various additives, to increase mass, viscosity

2. Honey made from products of non-nectar origin

3. Artificial honey

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.

DETERMINING THE QUALITY OF HONEY

● By color

Each type of honey has its own color, unique to it. Flower honey is light yellow, linden honey is amber, ash honey is transparent, like water, buckwheat honey has different shades of brown. Pure honey without impurities is usually transparent, no matter what color it is.

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 if 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. If the composition turns blue, it means starch has been added. This is fake honey.

Artificial honey is a product that has similar organoleptic properties with natural, but completely devoid of its useful and healing properties. Bees have nothing to do with its production - the product is made by boiling sugar syrup with the addition of thickeners and dyes.

Artificial honey has very limited consumer properties- it can only be used as a sweetener, and in no case as a medicinal or cosmetic product. There are no vitamins, microelements, or enzymes beneficial to human health in artificial honey.

How and from what is artificial honey prepared?

The production of artificial sweetener is based on the inversion reaction (that is, breakdown to monosaccharides) of sucrose or glucose. Main ingredient artificial treat - regular sugar obtained from beets or sugar cane.

The recipe for preparing the base is simple:

Acid (citric or lactic) is added to sugar syrup (the sugar content must be at least 80%) in a proportion of 0.3% of the volume of syrup.
The syrup is then heated and boiled for 10–12 minutes, achieving sucrose inversion.
Then the product is filtered, and the acid is neutralized with a 50% soda solution.

If desired, prepare this artificial honey you can even do it at home.
This recipe is basic; the product obtained by cooking sugar syrup only vaguely resembles the natural one. Manufacturers use various tricks when adding various ingredients, improving the consistency, color, taste and smell of the product:

Artificial honey is made thicker using starch or corn syrup, flour or even ordinary chalk.
Taste and aroma are added to the product by mixing it with real honey or adding watermelon, melon or grape juice.
The rich color is the result of adding tea, saffron or St. John's wort decoction.

Natural or artificial? How to spot a fake

Artificial honey itself is a common sweetener, there is nothing dangerous in it. However, unscrupulous manufacturers and sellers often offer such a product to the buyer, passing it off as natural, at a correspondingly high price. In laboratory conditions, distinguishing an artificially made product from a natural one is as easy as shelling pears - first of all, it does not contain pollen - the main marker of natural honey (or it is present in very small quantities - if natural honey was added to the product). There are no enzymes in the product, but the content of oxymethylfurfural is quite high.

But what to do to an ordinary buyer who came to a store or market so as not to run into a fake? Is there a recipe to distinguish natural product from artificial at home?

There are several simple ways check honey before purchasing:

Pay attention to the consistency: you can give sugar syrup a taste and aroma similar to natural ones, but it is impossible to give a special consistency to the product. Real honey flows from a spoon in a continuous stream - like a ribbon, forming a small mound at the point of flow, and then spreading over the surface of the plate. It doesn't drip, doesn't splash, and you can even wrap it around a spoon. When there is very little left in the spoon, the stream is interrupted and the remainder springs back to the spoon.
Real honey has special property- when absorbed in the mouth, it causes a slight sore throat. A counterfeit product will never give such a specific sore sensation.
When dissolved in a glass with clean water a natural product does not produce any sediment, no iridescent film on the surface, no cloudy suspension - all these are signs of counterfeit.
If in the middle of winter you are offered to buy liquid honey, most likely this is an artificial product. Real honey should crystallize by the beginning of cold weather (the only exceptions may be acacia and heather varieties), liquid honey at the end of the season is either melted and has lost all its beneficial properties, or counterfeit.
An artificial product either has no taste at all, or has a taste of caramel or even burnt sugar.
Rub a little honey between your fingers - natural honey will be completely absorbed, artificial honey will form a lump.
There is no water in this real beekeeping product at all - if you dip a piece of bread in it and leave it for a few minutes, it will not get soggy. You can drop a little on a piece of paper and wait - back side the sheet should remain dry. The artificial one contains water and will definitely not withstand such a test.
It will help to determine whether it contains starch impurities next recipe: you need to prepare a solution of water and honey and add a little iodine to it. If the solution turns color Blue colour- in front of you is a product condensed with starch.
The following recipe will help identify chalk in the product: dissolve honey in water in a ratio of 1 to 2 and add a drop of vinegar essence. If the mixture sizzles and foams, the product contains chalk.
Most the right recipe To distinguish natural honey - buy it in honeycombs; it is simply impossible to fake them. Ask the seller if he has comb honey - scammers most likely will not have this.

Separately, it is worth mentioning honey, which is obtained by feeding sugar syrup to bees instead of pollen. Strictly speaking, such a product is not artificial - bees ferment syrup in the same way as pollen and nectar, and it is very difficult to determine it even in laboratory conditions. Of course, such honey is devoid of many useful properties. It can be distinguished by its very light shade - it can be almost white, and its taste and aroma are not expressed.

Some simple rules, which are important to know and follow when purchasing, will allow you to choose the right one linden honey and avoid unpleasant disappointments from counterfeits. The question: how to recognize linden honey, how to check linden honey and other similar ones very often confront buyers.

Definition of maturity

To begin with, it is necessary to dwell on such a concept as the maturity of this beekeeping product, because the bees work on it for about a week: during this process, water is evaporated, enriched with enzymes, and complex sugars are broken down into simple ones. It is during this time that the honey must infuse, after which the insects pack it with special wax caps, which ensures it long-term storage and having beneficial properties. If the pumping of “amber gold” began earlier, it will quickly turn sour. To determine ripeness, you need to heat the honey to about 20 degrees, then stir with a spoon: rolling the mass on it indicates ripeness.

Supplements

In some cases, in order to achieve the density of real “amber gold”, starch, chalk, molasses, flour and other unknown impurities are added to unripe honey. The best proof that these substances are present in the composition will be the dissolution of honey in water: the solution of the falsified beekeeping product will be cloudy, iridescent, and after some time a sediment will form at the bottom of the container.

To understand whether flour or starch has been added to honey, you just need to add a drop of iodine to a small amount of it diluted with water. A blue solution will indicate that the product contains flour or starch.

The hissing of vinegar essence in honey, also added to small quantity, will indicate that the composition contains chalk.

If in a 10% aqueous solution of this magical useful substance when lapis is added, a white precipitate suddenly appears - sugar has been added to it.

To check for the addition of sugar and water, you need to take well-absorbent paper, then drop honey on it. If it spreads over it, forming wet spots, and seeps through it, there are definitely impurities.

To determine the starch content, you need to put a little of the proposed product in a glass, then pour boiling water over it, cool and add a few drops of honey. A blue solution will indicate the presence of starch in the composition.

A simple chemical pencil can also help to identify the presence of impurities, which can be easily passed over a piece of paper on which the sold honey is applied.

Color

Each type of honey has its own unique color, which is unique to it. For example, floral is light yellow, linden is amber, buckwheat is all shades of brown, ash is transparent as water. When honey is free of impurities, it is generally clear regardless of color. Cloudiness and sediment, which can be easily detected by eye, indicate that the composition contains starch, sugar and other similar impurities. Careless beekeepers often feed bees sugar, and the substance produced by such insects has absolutely no beneficial properties; it has an unnatural white color.