How to distinguish the quality of honey

2023-11-05

Because the honey on the market is uneven, and the unscrupulous traders have a variety of methods for counterfeiting honey, it is difficult to identify the quality of honey, and we can identify it through some tips and experience.

1. A glass of water to identify real and fake honey

Identification principle: Pure honey is rich in fructose, glucose, minerals, protein, pollen, gum, etc., after strong shaking, these substances will appear a lot of foam. Fake honey is mixed with a large amount of sugar paddles or artificial fructose, etc., with a single ingredient and will not produce a lot of foam after shaking.

Tools: a mineral water bottle or glass bottle, a glass of tap water or cool boiled water, an appropriate amount of honey.

Operation steps: first add honey to the bottle, and then add water, the ratio of water and honey is 3:1, the higher the ratio of honey, the more foam will be produced. Then shake the bottle vigorously for a while and let it stand.

Identification of phenomena:

Real honey produces a lot of foam, and the foam does not subside for a long time, the liquid becomes cloudy, and when the cap is opened, there is gas rushing out.

Fake honey does not foam, even if it does produce a little foam, it will fade quickly, and the liquid is very clear, and no gas rushes out when the cap is opened.

2. Look at the bubbles

This method is different from the "one cup of water method" above, no need to add water. When we buy honey, we can directly shake the honey bottle a few times, and what can produce a large number of fine bubbles is real honey, and what cannot produce bubbles is fake honey.

The principle is that real honey contains a protein called glucose oxidase, which will decompose unstable hydrogen peroxide, which is easy to decompose oxygen and produce bubbles when shaken. Fake honey contains little or no of this protein.

3. Smell the flowers

If you are buying honey from a beekeeper, you can ask to open the bottle cap and smell if the honey has a floral smell. Some beekeepers will feed sugar to the bees the night before shaking the honey, but the honey fed with sugar has no floral smell and will smell of sucrose.

4. Look at the crystallization

Crystallization is the characteristic of most honey, the reason for crystallization is because the glucose in honey is easy to crystallize, when the temperature is lower than 14 degrees below it will begin to crystallize slowly, note: there are a small number of varieties of honey that are not easy to crystallize.

Some fake honey will produce sediment, but instead of crystallization, it will precipitate white sugar. The crystals of real honey are soft and delicate, the crystals are very uniform, there is no sand grain feeling when pinched by hand, and it is easy to melt. The sediment of the fake honey is rough and does not melt. The crystals of real honey are pierced in the eye with a stick.