How to understand if honey is good. How to distinguish natural honey from fake honey when buying and at home

The article will tell you about all the features of natural and artificial honey.

Honey is the most useful product of nature, which has a lot of medicinal and nutritional properties for humans. However, only natural honey can have such a feature, and not sugar syrup, which unscrupulous sellers and beekeepers often pass off as a natural product.

If you want to buy such a delicacy at the fair, then you should first learn how to determine whether honey is natural in front of you. This is usually indicated by several signs.

How to distinguish natural honey from fake honey: signs

There are several signs that distinguish natural honey from fake.

• Appearance

The best honey will be very thick, so that when pouring from the jar, a slide will form and it will not be distributed immediately. This is all because it should contain no more than 17-20% of water, or you will already get a syrup, where there is only 1 water for 4 glasses of sugar.

If honey is diluted with water, it will be immediately noticeable by its weight. As a rule, a kilogram of honey can easily fit in a 0.8 liter jar, and if it is a liter one, then 1.5 kg of honey will go there. Honest sellers usually let you look at the consistency and give you a special stick or spoon. If the product is drawn with a thin thread, then it is really natural and you can safely buy it. And dripping from a spoon and immediately dissolving in the mass is a fake.

Moreover, usually fake honey is cloudy and has delamination or sediment at the bottom. The latter is due to the fact that molasses and semolina are added to it, which settles at the bottom, and the honey itself is only at the top. The natural product will always be transparent and homogeneous.

• Taste

Good honey will always slightly "tear" the throat, because it is tart, and the sourness will not be felt. If it is present, then this indicates that the product is either deteriorating or has not yet ripened. A drop of good honey can always be rubbed with your fingers, it is easily absorbed into the skin. If there are any additives inside, then it will roll. It is important to note that a quality product always has a good aroma, and it is specific, often even floral or pollen. But the fake one smells weak, and all because syrup is mixed into it.

• Hardness

The more useful substances in honey, the faster it hardens. However, in the summer it will look more like a syrup if it is fresh, and pumped out in the spring, the rapeseed variety will be like bars by August. It has a light yellow tint, and is crystallized. If you went to the market in the fall or winter, then look only at candied honey. At this time, he no longer happens to be different.

• Checking at home

It is better to first buy some honey for a sample and only then take the required amount. You can check it with bread. Lower it for 10 minutes and if it softens, then you were offered syrup, and in natural honey the bread will become hard. This is the easiest way to find out if honey is natural, but there are many others.

• The documents

If you wish, you can take honey to the laboratory for analysis. Excess water and impurities will be detected there. In this case, it will not be superfluous to ask the seller for the certificate and the passport of the apiary. If the product has passed the test, then there may be more sucrose in it by a maximum of 5%.

Be sure to make sure that all the stamps are present on the documents, and that a receipt for payment with the date is attached, as in the expert opinion.

How to check the quality of honey, for naturalness, sugar at home with iodine?

Artificial honey most often consists of:

• Parts of natural honey
• Sugar syrup
• Molasses
• Flavors
• Flavors
• Starch
• Thickeners
• Saccharin

IMPORTANT: A characteristic feature of natural honey is that it crystallizes within 2-3 months of storage. If this does not happen - artificial honey. You can buy natural honey only during the collection period, and if it is sold to you in winter, liquid and transparent, it is either counterfeit or heated, melted honey.

The easiest way to test the naturalness of a product is with medical iodine. It will help to identify the presence of starch or flour in honey, which are often added to a recipe. as a thickener.

How to make a test:

• A spoonful of honey should be dissolved in a glass of purified, not hot, boiled or distilled water.
• Add a few drops of iodine to the liquid and watch the chemical reaction in the glass.
• If the liquid turns blue, this indicates the presence of starch or flour in honey.
• The richer and darker the color of the liquid, the more additives were in the product.

How to check the quality of honey, for naturalness, sugar at home with a chemical pencil?

INTERESTING: A chemical pencil is a pencil with a special graphite that, when wet, writes like ink.

Determining the naturalness of a product with a chemical pencil is very simple. It should be soaked in honey and then try to move it on the skin, leaving a mark. If there are additives in the product, the pencil mark will be blue. This method is perfect for determining the naturalness of honey right on the market before buying.

How to check the quality of honey, for naturalness, sugar at home with ammonia?

It is very simple to check honey for naturalness with alcohol:

• Take 0.5 cups of pure water (distilled or purified boiled water - any without impurities).
• Stir 1 tablespoon in water. honey until completely dissolved, shake the liquid.
• Add ammonia to this liquid (just a few drops will be enough).
• Track the chemical reaction in the glass
• The brown color of the liquid will indicate that the product contains the "lion's share" of sugar and starch syrup.

How to check the quality of honey, naturalness, sugar at home by weighing?

There is another way to test the naturalness of a product. Natural honey is believed to be heavier in weight than sugar syrup due to its denser consistency. A 1 liter jar of honey should weigh 1 kg. 400 gr, and in artificial - less than 1 kg. 400 gr.

How to check the quality of honey, for naturalness, sugar at home using vinegar?

Edible vinegar can also help identify mixed substances in the honey. To do this, dissolve a spoonful of the product in a glass of water and add vinegar (1 tbsp) there. If a chemical reaction such as hissing and foam occurs, this is a sign of chalk in the food.

How to check the quality of honey, naturalness, sugar at home milk?

Hot milk is a faithful assistant in determining the naturalness of honey. Some manufacturers add burnt sugar to the product, which adds a caramel flavor and a beautiful dark color to the product. The curdled milk will help determine the presence of sugar. In natural honey, milk dissolves, in artificial honey it curdles.

What does natural honey look like? How to check for naturalness, recognize good natural liquid honey at home and when buying on the market?

The quality assurance of this product should begin as early as on the market at the moment you purchase it. First of all, you should pay attention to its color, and it differs depending on the variety (linden, buckwheat, acacia) from light gold to dark amber brown.

A sign of quality honey is its transparency. If the consistency is cloudy, there is sediment and there is no uniformity, this indicates the presence of impurities in the product. Do not be intimidated by natural "impurities" in the form of honeycombs, pollen and even wings - this is quite normal for a high-quality and tasty product.

IMPORTANT: If you notice bubbles in honey, this is a bad sign, because such bubbles indicate honey fermentation. Normally, this is not at all permissible, because a natural product can be stored for a very long time. There is also evidence of this: in the Egyptian pyramids and burials, pots of honey were found, which the graves put in to the mummies. This honey has been preserved in its original form until our time. This fact led to the conclusion that natural honey is a product that can be stored forever.

How to check, distinguish honey by its appearance, smell, viscosity when buying on the market? Signs of good, natural quality honey

Other features of natural honey:

• This natural and high-quality product has a dark tart, but pleasant taste.
• Natural honey can leave a slight sore throat.
• Good product flows easily
• There should be no sediment in the jar
• Even natural honey should not have a caramel aftertaste (as it indicates that it has been melted down).
• Natural honey is sweet but not cloying
• The natural product has a very bright and pleasant natural aroma.
• The consistency of a natural product is very delicate and viscous
• With a drop of honey on your fingers, you will notice how easily it is rubbed between your fingers and absorbed into the skin.

"Home laboratory" for determining the quality of the product

How to check for naturalness, recognize good natural candied honey at home and when buying on the market?

Candied honey is much more difficult to check than liquid honey. The fact is that only a real product is capable of crystallizing. However, there is one good way to bring out its naturalness. Put 1 tsp. on a paper towel and look for a trace of honey, a good product will have a damp and wet stain. The sugar product does not "flow".

Counterfeit honey and methods of its recognition

How to recognize fake honey:

• Bright amber sheen and crystal clarity
• Product that can foam
• Honey without aroma and taste
• Unnatural white color of the product
• Honey has two layers: liquid at the top and thick at the bottom.
• Caramel, bitter, or sour taste
• The presence of grains (determined by rubbing between the fingers).

IMPORTANT: Put honey in a spoon or on a special honey stick, see how it will drain. Artificial honey splashes, natural honey flows in a thin thread.

Video: "How to define natural honey?"

Not everyone knows how to check honey for naturalness. We decided to devote the presented article to this particular topic.

general information

Unfortunately, in our times, individual entrepreneurs and large companies often pass off a cheap fake for a quality product. And the one who does not know how to check honey for naturalness runs the risk of purchasing not only tasteless, but also hazardous to health product. Indeed, in appearance it is rather difficult to guess from what ingredients and in what conditions this or that product is made. That is why experts recommend that you first study all the methods of checking honey, and only then go shopping for it. Although it should be noted that self-assessment of quality is not always correct. Thus, if you need a more complete and objective verification, we recommend that you take a sample of the product to the laboratory, where it will be subjected to all the necessary "tests".

"Honey" state

How to check honey for naturalness yourself? This is quite easy to do. Surely each of you has heard such an expression as "candied honey". Indeed, the vast majority of varieties of such a product, within a few weeks after collection, significantly change their appearance, or rather color and consistency. This process is called saccharification or crystallization. By the way, beekeepers often use such a term as "shrunken honey".

So, how to check real honey for naturalness? By its consistency, such a product becomes viscous and contains small or large sugar crystals inside. It should be especially noted that this crystallization does not affect the properties of honey. After all, the bee product was useful and remains.

When is honey candied?

To determine the quality of honey, you should know that it is mostly candied about 30-60 days after the actual collection (around October). However, there are some deviations from this norm. For example, mustard honey in an open container can thicken in 4-5 days, but white acacia honey retains its liquid consistency until late spring. Moreover, if it is hermetically closed, then such a state can last much longer.

Stone honey

Only experienced specialists know how to check the quality of honey right on the market or in a store. And if you see a frozen bee product, then you should not immediately complain about a fake. After all, few people know, but there is also the so-called stone honey. It is a very rare variety collected by wild bees. As a rule, they settle in cracks of rocks and rocks. In this regard, such a product contains very little moisture and is so strong that it can only be chipped off. By the way, stone honey is often stored not in a container, but in a bag or cloth.

So, if you need to know how to test honey for naturalness, you should first of all pay attention to its crystallization. After all, a candied product is quite difficult to counterfeit. Thus, when purchasing honey in the winter season, it is better to give your preference to crystallized rather than liquid varieties. So you will protect yourself from the fact that you will acquire fake honey or brought out of a sugar-coated state with the help of heating, which is extremely detrimental to its beneficial properties. The "shrunken" honey purchased in the summer is last year or even older.

Distinguishing varieties of honey

How to determine if natural honey is in front of you, or is it a fake? To answer this question, you must learn to distinguish between the varieties of this product. Indeed, very often negligent sellers give out less popular and cheaper honey for more bought and expensive. In this regard, it would be nice to have an idea of ​​how exactly the varieties of this product differ.

The variety of this or that honey depends, first of all, on what kind of plant was pollinated by the bees before its production. Thus, it can vary in aroma, color and taste. It should be especially noted that this is a very difficult matter. After all, there is no pure honey collected from only one type of plant, since insects cannot be ordered to fly here or there. In addition, the taste and color of this product often depends on the area where the nectar was collected. However, one or another color range for each type of honey can still be described. Thus, we will consider only a few types of this product that are most often found on the shelves.

Types of honey and its color

In this section of the article, we will tell you how acacia, forest, clover, linden, meadow, raspberry and buckwheat honey looks like. How to check these varieties for naturalness and not be mistaken when choosing, we will tell you a little further.

• Acacia... Fresh honey is transparent. However, when candied, it can turn white and quite closely resemble snow.
• Buckwheat... The color of such a product turns out to be dark yellow or dark brown, and sometimes even with a noticeable reddish tint. Its taste is full-bodied and may have a slight bitterness.
• Clover... Honey made from clover nectar has a special aroma. Its color can range from light amber to rich amber.
• Forest... The color of such honey is light yellow, light brown, and even slightly reddish.
• Lime... This is the most useful honey used for colds. The color of such a product most often resembles light amber. Although sometimes it can be transparent, yellowish or even greenish.
• Lugovoi... Such honey almost always has light colors (from yellow to brownish).
• Crimson... Despite the fact that raspberries are red, their flowers are white. In this regard, honey based on such nectar is obtained mainly in light shades.

How to distinguish between ripe honey and unripe honey?

We will tell you how to check the quality of honey right now. The fact is that after the production of such a product, insects seal it in honeycombs using wax caps. However, they do this not immediately, but after some time. This is due to the fact that they allow excess moisture to evaporate, and also supply honey with special substances that kill harmful microorganisms and bacteria, thereby preventing it from deteriorating. This process is called honey ripening. But in a marketplace where entrepreneurs are looking for more and faster benefits, many unscrupulous beekeepers begin to empty the hives long before the product is completely "cooked". But what's wrong with unripe honey? The fact is that such a product contains too much moisture. It also starts to deteriorate quickly.

Thus, in order to determine whether honey is ripe or not, one should pay attention to its density and viscosity. The mature product is quite thick. At the same time, it flows down very beautifully: with elastic threads or wide ribbons. If the honey is immature, then when you rotate a full spoon, it will quickly flow down or even drip.

In addition, the readiness of such a product can be determined by weight. So, 1 liter of honey should weigh at least 1.4 kg. If this value is much less, then most likely it contains a lot of water.

Natural honey: how to check for maturity?

Ripe honey can be distinguished from unripe honey using the following methods:

Honey content

Before buying fresh honey, experts recommend examining it carefully. A natural bee product must contain various particles of wax, pollen, combs, and sometimes even bee wings. If nothing of the kind is observed in honey, then there is a high probability that it is a fake. It is better to refuse such a product, since using it will not only be harmful, but in some cases even dangerous.

How to check the naturalness of honey with iodine, vinegar and ammonia?

This is perhaps the most popular and easiest way to test the naturalness of honey. Indeed, with the help of it, in this product it is possible to detect not only the presence of such a component as starch, but also the presence of molasses and even chalk.

So, if you suspect that there is starch in the honey you bought, then it is quite easy to detect it. To do this, add a few drops of iodine to a dessert spoon of the product. If, after such a test, the honey becomes bluish or bluish, then this means that there is still starch in it. By the way, a natural bee product should not contain such a substance. As a rule, it is added to make it appear thicker.

You can check honey for chalk using vinegar essence. For this, a dessert spoon of the product must be diluted in half a glass of water. Next, you need to drop vinegar into the solution. If after that the water "boils", then chalk is present in the honey.

In order to check for the presence of molasses in such a product, you need to resort to the following test. It is necessary to add a couple of drops of ammonia to a 50% solution of honey. If after that the water turns brown, and a brownish powder precipitates at the bottom of the bowl, then this means that the honey is diluted with molasses.

Granulated sugar: is there or not?

How to test honey for sugar? This question is of interest to many. Indeed, very often negligent entrepreneurs dilute honey with burnt sugar, or they feed them bees instead of releasing them on the field.

So, you can check the presence of sugar in honey in the following ways:

• Dip the crumb of bread in honey and leave for 10 minutes. Next, take out the product and put it on a saucer. If a piece of bread softens, then perhaps sugar syrup was added to the honey, and if it hardens, then it is of high quality.
• Brew weak tea in a glass cup, put 1-2 dessert spoons of honey in it, stir, and then see if the sediment appears at the bottom or not. If so, sugar has been added to this honey. If the tea just darkened, but the precipitate did not fall, then the product is natural.
• Smell honey before buying. If granulated sugar has been added to it, then it will not have a pronounced aroma.
• Inspect honey before buying it directly in the container. If it is cloudy and has a sediment, then most likely starch, sugar, or something else has been added to it. After all, real honey is usually transparent.

It can be interesting to look at familiar things from a different, sometimes bizarre angle. We usually don't think about it, but many everyday products are brands promoted by mankind with valuable properties inherent in each of them. For example, bread is perceived as a kind of noble product created by hard human labor, which, even in difficult times, can saturate a person, satisfy his hunger. Milk, and always with the characteristic “village”, gives strength and health to our main hope in life - to children who are resting outside the city with their grandparents. And what is honey associated with? Perhaps honey is a healing mysterious formula of fields and its main connoisseurs and keepers - bees.
Unfortunately, in our times, an aura of mystery and secrecy is inherent not only in honey, but also in any product. It is very difficult to guess from what and in what conditions what they sell. There are several relatively simple ways to test honey for some parameters, but not all of them. Only a laboratory can give the most complete assessment. But something can be identified at home without worrying about purchasing additional chemicals. But first you need to figure out how honey might look like.

Two honey states

The overwhelming majority of honey varieties change their appearance within a few months after harvesting: consistency and color. This process is called crystallization (sugaring). Beekeepers use the term shrunken honey. In consistency, honey becomes more like a viscous lard with large or small sugar crystals inside. Crystallization does not affect the beneficial properties of honey: they are completely preserved. Basically, honey is candied 1-2 months after harvest, around October. But there are deviations from this, for example, mustard honey in an open container thickens in 4-5 days, and honey from a white stock can stand until spring. If the honey is hermetically sealed, it stays liquid longer.

Stone honey is a rather rare type of honey that is collected by wild bees that settle in the crevices of rocks and rocks. This honey contains very little moisture and is so strong that it has to be chipped off. Therefore, it is often stored without containers, simply wrapped in something.

Candied honey is more difficult to counterfeit because it is not easy to mimic this condition in appearance. When buying honey in winter, it is better not to take liquid honey - the probability is too high that the honey is fake or that it has been removed from the crystallized state by heating, which has a detrimental effect on the beneficial properties of the product. In summer, honey that has shrunk can be suspected of being last year's or even older.

Learning to distinguish varieties

Sellers often pass off a less popular variety for a more purchased one. Therefore, it would be nice to have an idea of ​​how to distinguish one honey from another. Honey varieties differ depending on the type of plant, the pollen from which predominates in the product. They can be distinguished by color, aroma and taste. This is a very difficult matter. There is no pure honey collected from only one type of plants, because you cannot tell bees to “don't go there, go here” and you cannot force bees to pollinate only one specific field. In addition, the color and even taste of honey depends on the area, the season of harvesting nectar. To remember the subtlest shades of taste and to distinguish the predominance of one variety over another is an even more difficult task. Nevertheless, it is possible to describe a very wide range of colors for each variety. MirSovetov will consider only a few varieties that can be found on the shelves.
Acacia... Freshly picked honey is transparent. When sugared, it is white, reminiscent of snow.
Buckwheat... The color of honey made from the nectar of buckwheat flowers turns out to be dark yellow, often a noticeable reddish tint, sometimes dark brown.
Clover... Color from amber light to rich amber.
Forest... The color varies from faint yellow to light brown, reddish.
Lime... The color is most often from white to amber, can be transparent. Yellowish and greenish tints are also acceptable.
Lugovoi... Color of light tones from yellow to brown.
Crimson... Although raspberries are red, their flowers are white, so the honey is light in color.

Methods for determining unripe honey

The collected honey is sealed by bees in hundreds of squares with wax caps. But they do not do this right away, but allow excess moisture to evaporate, along the way the workers supply honey with special substances that, by killing bacteria and microorganisms, do not allow honey to deteriorate. It turns out that the already collected and almost finished product is brought to an ideal state by the bees. This process is called honey ripening. In a marketplace where everyone wants to reap the benefits faster and more, many unscrupulous beekeepers empty their hives long before the bees think they are ready. This allows them, to the detriment of the quality of the product, to start selling it earlier than others, and the bees, left completely without honey, instinctively begin to harvest it more actively. Why is unripe honey bad? The main thing is that it contains too much moisture. And the point here is not even that you overpay for ordinary water, even worse, that the quality of the product suffers. Such honey is not stored for a long time, it quickly begins to ferment and changes its taste and healing qualities. The main thing that indicates the immaturity of honey is an excess of water in the product. This is MirSovetov and proposes to determine using the methods below.

Good honey can be stored for a very long time if kept in an inert environment that does not interact with the product. It is better not to use an iron container that is not covered with enamel, it reacts with its contents. Instead of plastic for storage, it is better to use ceramic or wooden utensils. In the old days, beekeepers stored honey in linden wood barrels, properly oiled with wax. In them, honey did not spoil for several hundred years. Honey was revered by the ancient Greeks and Egyptians as the food of the gods. In the tombs of the Egyptian pharaohs, pots of honey were found, which has retained its food qualities to this day.

By density and viscosity... Ripe honey is quite thick, flows down very nicely: in whole wide ribbons or elastic threads. To check the density, at a temperature of about 20 degrees, the following procedure is carried out. Scoop up a tablespoon of honey, and then begin to rotate it, holding it horizontally. Ripe honey, finding itself, in turn, now on the spoon, then under it, when the spoon is turned upside down, only has time to start stretching, hanging down from it, the viscous ribbon, being at the bottom, winds around the spoon when turning. As a result, the spoon from all sides will be under the layers of honey, will be wrapped by them. If you stop rotating the spoon, the honey will lazily drain from it, without instantly merging with the honey in the jar, it will creep, leaving a slide on the surface. If the honey is immature, then when rotating it will flow down, without lingering, it will look more like glue. As a result, the trickles are thin, do not stretch, often break off, perhaps even drip. And the surface of honey is quickly leveled.
By weight and volume... Honey contains many particles, heavier than water. 1 liter of honey should weigh at least 1.4 kg, in extreme cases, you can risk buying a product weighing at least 1.2 kg. per liter. If the weight is less, then most likely the honey contains too much water, which makes it so light. When weighing in a dish, do not forget that the container itself, especially if it is glass or iron, has a significant weight. Therefore, pre-weigh the empty container, and the resulting weight must be subtracted from the result.
Paper Wet Test... Place some honey on a piece of recycled paper such as a newspaper. If a drop begins to spread, the paper around it gets wet, then this indicates an excessive content of water in the honey or the honey is unnatural. Real honey will not wet the newspaper, but the drop will be elastic.
By water absorption... If a piece of soft bread is dipped into honey, it will not get wet, it may even become harder, because honey is very hygroscopic and absorbs moisture and odors from the environment well, practically dehydrating everything around. If the bread is wet, then the product is spoiled.
Carbonated honey... Take a close look at the surface of the honey. If you see a weak movement of bubbles floating up from the inside, foam on the surface, it means that the honey has fermented due to moisture, a lack of protective substances due to its immaturity. Fermentation is also indicated by the sour smell and alcoholic taste of honey. Such honey is spoiled and without heat treatment, which will devalue all the useful properties of honey, it is not suitable for food.
Two layers... If you are going to purchase already sugared honey and find that it has evenly stratified into two layers of different density, then you should know that most often this is caused by the immaturity of the honey. If you are not sure about the quality, then it is better not to take such honey.

Methods for determining other additives

To prevent the buyer from noticing obvious signs of a spoiled product, sellers sometimes go to various tricks. Something that has never been in it is added to honey. This gives the honey a good natural look, masking its inherently poor condition. You can try to identify some of the tricks of the sellers by the following methods.
Determination of foreign sediment... If you put a tablespoon of honey in a glass of warm water, then it should completely dissolve, sometimes making the water slightly cloudy. To be sure, you can heat the water to 50 degrees to help the honey particles melt and mix in the water. If you find that after dissolving in water, a precipitate appeared that fell to the bottom or floated, then this indicates the presence of impurities in the honey.
Determination of chalk additive... The presence of chalk is determined using an acid such as acetic acid. When chalk interacts with acetic acid, a reaction occurs with an intense release of carbon dioxide, you can hear hissing. It looks like boiling in water. For the test, it is better to take vinegar essence, and not acid diluted with water. The reaction may not be noticeable if there is too little chalk or acid has not gotten to it. For reliability, it is better to stir a little honey in water, wait until the chalk precipitates, carefully drain the water, leaving the chalk at the bottom, getting a sufficient concentration of chalk for the experiment.
Determination of starch additive... You can reveal the addition of starch if you drop a little iodine into the honey. When iodine interacts with starch, a chemical reaction occurs, and the iodine changes color to blue. The more intense the color, the more starch the product contains. There is no starch in natural honey, and a drop of iodine will remain unchanged in color. For the reliability of the dough, it is better to dilute a little honey with water in a ratio of 1/2. Bring this solution to a boil and add a little iodine there. If there was flour in the honey instead of starch, then the result will be exactly the same.
Determination of starch syrup... It is detected when it interacts with ammonia. The latter reacts with sulfuric acid, which is used in the molasses production process and remains in very small quantities in this food product. Ammonia is added dropwise to an aqueous 50% solution of honey. If the solution changes color to brown and a precipitate of the same color forms, then the honey has been "flavored" with molasses.

Identifying artificial honey

Organoleptic test... Simply put, you have to taste the honey. Natural honey should have a pleasant taste, a little tart, it should completely melt in the mouth, leaving no sediment, solid particles, or strong crystals on the tongue. There can be nothing in natural honey that does not dissolve in the mouth. You can also feel slight irritation of the mucous membranes of the throat and nose, burning, tingling - this is also a good sign of natural honey. If you feel the taste of caramel, then, most likely, this is warmed honey. Such a product, due to heat treatment, loses all its useful properties. It is heated in order to present the already crystallized honey as just harvested.
By heterogeneity... If you look closely, natural honey will not be very homogeneous: you can distinguish wax and pollen in it in the form of small particles evenly distributed in the thick of honey. Sometimes (with poor filtration of honey) insect wings and other natural material can be found. If there are no particles at all, then the honey is originally unnatural, but made from molasses, vegetable juices and other substitute products. This cocktail is not harmful. But there is nothing from honey at all. Artificial honey does not crystallize during storage.

Soft falsification

Among all natural varieties of honey, honeydew is distinguished due to its slightly different nature. Honey honey is of animal origin (it is collected from the sugary secretions of other insects), as well as vegetable (it is made from the sticky secretions of plants and trees, which often fall to the ground, where bees pick them up). This honey appears in the combs if there is not enough nectar in the departure zone or there is none at all. The taste of such honey is bitter, its color is from greenish to dark, sometimes it is brown or even black. It is one of the most viscous varieties of honey, although if it contains a proportion of floral varieties, it may be less dense and lighter in color. The disadvantages of honeydew honey include its weak antibacterial properties and sometimes bad taste. The origin and short shelf life of this variety also does not make it popular, although it has its own unique set of beneficial trace elements.

Australian scientists in Queensland have revealed the ability to count in bees, but only up to 4. They made their way out of the hive through a dark tunnel, where they placed bright markers that are easily visible to honey plants. One of them was constantly filled with nectar. When the bees got used to it, the treat was removed. However, despite the fact that the scientists changed the shape, the distance between them and the location in the tube of all markers, bees continued to show an increased interest in the one of them, which previously had nectar. But if the nectar was further than the 4th marker, then the bees do not pay attention to the mark freed from nectar.

Identification of honeydew honey... 96% ethyl alcohol is added to an aqueous 50% solution of honey. It is not recommended to take another concentration of alcohol, otherwise the reaction may not occur. For one part of the honey solution, add 10 parts of alcohol. For the reaction to proceed, the mixture must be shaken several times. If the solution became very cloudy and white turbidity appeared, the flower honey was diluted with paddy. If flakes of sediment have fallen out, then there may be no flower honey at all. In pure flower honeys, the appearance of turbidity is possible, but it will be weakly expressed. Thus, it is impossible to test varieties of honey containing, like honeydew, a large amount of nitrogenous substances. These include buckwheat and heather honey.
Another "sort" of honey, which, unlike honeydew honey, is unnatural, they also try not to buy - this is sugar honey. Such honey appears in combs if the beekeeper feeds his honey plants with sugar syrup. This makes it possible to quickly fill the hives with a low-quality product, which in its performance is much closer to ordinary sugar than to honey, and is sold at the price of the latter. At first glance, this honey can be classified as natural, but experts clearly classify it as counterfeit products.
Revealing sugar honey... It can be distinguished without further experimentation. Sugar honey is suspiciously white. If you try it, it looks more like sweetened water, the taste is relatively bland and empty, it lacks the astringency characteristic of this product. The aroma is also weakened. Fresh honey is watery, and lying honey has a gelatinous consistency, weakly crystallizes. At home, you can test sugar honey with milk. If you add a little sugar honey to hot cow's milk, it curdles.

Of course, the considered methods do not allow revealing all falsifications. After all, there is also the threat of honey infection with bee diseases and poisoning with "drunken" honey, for which nectar is collected from trees poisonous to humans. Identification of these threats is possible only in laboratory conditions. But MirSovetov hopes that this article helped to define at least some benchmark for high-quality honey.

Details Updated: 31 January 2017 Views: 78421

Counterfeit honey is often found on the market, no matter where you bought it - in a supermarket, a small store, or at a fair, therefore quality control remains a very hot topic. Considering that its composition varies greatly depending on a number of conditions:

• Collection region
• The predominance of one or another melliferous plant.
• The breed of bees that collected it.
• Maturity at the time of pumping.

it turns out that each batch has its own unique composition of honey. As a consequence, the determination of quality is very problematic even in laboratory conditions. As an example, we can cite the case with the diastase number, which until recently served as the main parameter adopted for determining naturalness, and today more and more scientists and beekeepers say that the value of the diastase number often does not tell us about the real quality of the product.

How to check honey at home.

Natural 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. If the aroma is not caught, then a test can be carried out:

• put 50 g of honey in the dish, close the lid, put the dish in a water bath and heat it at a temperature of about 45 * C for 10 minutes. Then you open the lid and measure the smell. The absence of a honey smell is a sign of falsification.

See how you can check the quality at home, as well as when buying in a store or on the market, without using additional drugs. Knowing the shown properties and features, you will significantly reduce the possibility of acquiring a fake.

In some countries (Australia, Canada, New Zealand), the naturalness of honey is determined by its density, which can be determined by accurate weighing:

• Fill the container with 1L of water, make a mark. Then pour out the water, dry the container and fill it with honey up to the mark you made. Then, to the nearest gramme, weigh the container with honey. Next, subtract the weight of the empty container and you get the weight of 1 liter of honey. Now divide the weight of honey by the weight of water with a volume of 1 liter (1000g) and compare - in Russia, the minimum density level is adopted - 1.41 g / cm * at a moisture content of 21%

If honey is heated to 50 degrees, then it will lose most of its beneficial properties. Warming up above 50 degrees is a problem for packaging companies. The honey is warmed up for the convenience of pouring into cans and giving it an attractive presentation.

Signs of quality honey:

• High-quality honey, unlike fake honey, is easily rubbed between the fingers and absorbed into the skin.
• Real honey should drain as in the photo: it should form a hill on the surface, and if you scoop it up with a tablespoon and quickly turn it around the axis, then ripe honey will curl onto the spoon, and not drain from it if you scroll the spoon , then honey should be wrapped around it.
• Each type of honey has its own color. But high-quality liquid honey is usually transparent, no matter what color it is. It begins to grow cloudy only in the process of crystallization.
• If you look closely, in natural honey you can distinguish wax and pollen in the form of small particles, evenly distributed in its midst. Sometimes (with poor filtration) wings or other parts of insects can be found.
• It is not a disadvantage such a phenomenon as a layer of white crystals on the surface of honey in the form of a "foam", it is easy to remove it by stirring.
• Most species retain their liquid consistency only in the first months after harvest. Crystallization depends on the ratio of fructose and glucose in the product. First of all, glucose crystallizes, the solubility of which is 5 times lower than that of fructose. Therefore, types of honey in which glucose predominates crystallize faster. And in varieties where fructose significantly predominates over glucose, honey can remain liquid for even more than a year, but this is extremely rare. Crystallization is completely natural and does not affect composition or naturalness.
• High-quality honey should not show signs of fermentation, foaming, gas evolution on the surface and sour smell.

Honey should not be stored in metal containers, as the acids contained in its composition can react with metal. This will lead to an increase in the content of heavy metals.

Check out the recipe for checking the quality of honey at home from the Society for the Protection of Consumer Rights of Beekeeping Products "Apigard":

• Dissolve honey in water (if honey is natural, the solution should be transparent)
• filter the resulting solution (the presence of a residue on the filter indicates an unnatural product)
• add iodine to the honey solution (any color change other than yellowing will show the presence of non-bee impurities).
• heat the vessel with the honey under investigation in a water bath at a temperature of 40 ° C for 1 hour (if the honey does not exfoliate, this is a counterfeit product).

During laboratory quality control, many characteristics are checked, such as its appearance and smell, the content of sugars (glucose and fructose) in the product and their percentage, sucrose, various impurities, it turns out whether the product contains poisonous and hazardous to human health substances. In the process of laboratory research, it is possible to determine not only the quality, but also the region declared by the beekeeper where it was collected - by the presence of residues of various types of pollen in the honey. This method is very common in Europe and America. For a number of countries, special maps have been compiled, which indicate in which region, what type of pollen and in what percentage of the composition of honey is found.

Pollen analysis of taiga honey made in the apiary of the Starchevsky family.

The current state of honey quality control.

At our "Online Honey Fair" you can choose and buy quality honey directly from beekeepers from different regions.

You can check the quality of honey using various methods at home. Of course, the laboratory investigates honey more thoroughly, but it is also expensive. To date, a cheaper alternative has appeared - a test kit "Honey" designed to assess naturalness and detect its possible falsification by some controlled indicators. Research can be carried out independently, right on the spot. You can find the kit on this website - www.christmas-plus.ru

You know other good ways to check or do not agree with those above, please write about it in the comments below.

Laboratories dealing with the quality control of honey.

Center "APIEKS" (website www.apiex.ru) - conducts tests with subsequent certification of the following types of products:

• - Natural honey (honeycomb and centrifuged)
• - Natural honey with bee products and other fillers
• - Flower pollen (pollen)
• - Propolis
• - Royal jelly
• - Dried perga
• - Bee queen
• - Bee families
• - Foamy drink "Mead"
• - Beeswax
• - Beeswax extraction
• - Foundation

Express-laboratory for honey research (website www.christmas-plus.ru) - designed for an accelerated assessment of the quality of the main indicators and their compliance with veterinary and sanitary requirements. Research is of the nature of express control and can be performed directly at the facility, without the delivery of samples to a stationary laboratory. Express laboratory is a set of reagents, solutions, materials, accessories for determining the quality.

Honey certification is designed to protect the consumer from low-quality products and counterfeiting by violating the technology or mixing other products. Another laboratory that checks the quality of honey, with the subsequent issuance of the relevant documents (site belotest.ru).

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Recently I noticed that there are jars of honey on the shelves of ordinary chain stores. Somehow this fact surprised me, I always believed that the owners of apiaries should sell it.

We have been buying from friends and relatives for many years. Of course, its authenticity is beyond doubt. But not everyone has familiar beekeepers and many go to the market for this product.

And there is a huge number of different varieties, containers, aromas and talkative sellers. They will convince you and prove that it is their product of the highest quality and best, and we, kind and naive souls, tend to believe them. But, unfortunately, there are cases of deception when, instead of natural nectar, customers are shoved with a counterfeit.

So how to check honey for naturalness at home, we will figure it out now. After all, it is quite expensive, but we know about its benefits and therefore are ready to buy this storehouse of vitamins over and over again.

Now consider a situation where you have already bought honey and are proudly placing it on your dining table at home. What methods will help you understand that a product is compliant and useful?

Well, of course, the first thing is to consider the external characteristics of the product.

So, the color should be uniform. The mass can be in shades from white to dark brown. If there are no particles of honeycombs or bees in it, then you should not be frightened right away, perhaps the beekeepers have filtered it well.

We check for a smell: a pleasant aroma should come out. If there is no smell at all, this should alert.

Determine the consistency. Liquid honey flows down from the spoon in a trickle and easily wraps around it. The counterfeit will drip down.

It is possible to understand whether it is natural or not by using white bread. Spread a spoonful of the product on a piece, leave it to lie down for a while, maybe even thirty minutes. In the event that the surface of the piece hardens, then you bought a jar of real honey. And, if you have a counterfeit, then your bread will soften and fall apart on a saucer, which means that it contains water, sugar molasses.

Here are situations: a person ate honey for twenty years and felt great, and then suddenly - an allergy. Dear ones, then the reaction may not be caused by the product itself, but by impurities added to this eaten mass.

If the beekeeper introduced an additive with impurities, then you can find out about this as follows: pour a little nectar into a glass of water at room temperature and stir until it is completely dissolved.

When the product is of good quality, it will not produce sediment and turbidity.

It is also possible to determine naturalness using acid and iodine or a mechanical pencil. I'll tell you more about this in more detail, but now I want to talk about the mistakes that buyers make after purchasing this useful product.

You cannot store honey in metal containers, because oxidation occurs and heavy metals are formed that are harmful to the body. Better to use a ceramic or glass bottle. Although in the market you will see that it is sold in a plastic container. The main thing is to make sure that this plastic is food grade.

They say that liquid honey in October or November is already a sign of poor quality of the product, a real product at this time should already be candied, but this does not apply to all varieties, for example, chestnut, with acacia or sweet clover, can remain liquid for several years. But in the Urals such honey can not be found for the whole season, so we look at the realities. The May product remains the most liquid.

If the seller has all the honey on the market, but the majority has it sugared, then it is possible that the beekeeper warmed it up beforehand.

It is heated no more than forty-five degrees, if the heating temperature is higher, then it becomes harmful and can become a poison in general, protein that we do not need is formed in it.

We use iodine and vinegar

Assistants in determining the quality of honey will be funds that either already have at home, or will appear, because they are readily available and cost a penny.

For example, you can identify starch, flour, chalk with a drop of iodine and vinegar.

Starch is determined by iodine. When it is in the product, then honey water will give color, turn blue.

You can determine the impurity of chalk by the following actions: we drop a little vinegar into honey water (a spoonful of the product is taken into a glass). If there is chalk, then the mixture will hiss.

When you have a can of a quality product, its appearance will remain its pleasant brownish tint and nothing will happen when it interacts with acid.

Checking for sugar content

It happens that bees are fed with sugar or sugar syrup. As a result, of course, honey will be obtained, but its structure will be severely disturbed, so I will give two ways to identify the presence of sugar.

The presence of sugar can be determined with wood alcohol, which is available in pharmacies. A few drops of alcohol are added to the honey solution and watch the reaction. If flakes and sediment are released, then there is sugar.

There is an old-fashioned method of testing for sugar with the help of fire. Take a spoonful of nectra on a piece of paper and set fire to the paper.

If you have natural honey in your hands, then it will begin to melt, but if there is an admixture of sugar in it, then the mixture will start to burn.

Defining honey on the market

Now consider the option when you purchase this product on the market.

There, the viscosity of honey acts as a sign of naturalness, in the case when the seller gives the opportunity to hook it with a spoon.

Then we look at the container where the product is stored. Everywhere there should be air space and, turning the container upside down, two bubbles will go to the bottom: first a large one, then a small one.

The quality of honey is checked with water at room temperature. Take two tablespoons of nectar for the same amount of water and stir, if the water becomes colored, it means that a dye has been added.

Also, a honeycomb pattern should form at the bottom of the plate, this phenomenon is called "genetic memory". This indicator makes it clear that the honey is of the highest quality.

Well, one more option for checking for naturalness. Put a spoonful of honey on a napkin and wait a while, when the product is not of quality, a wet spot forms around the droplet.

Of course, almost all of these methods are handicraft, and if the seller wants to deceive the buyer, then he will find a way to do it. But at least these options for checking the naturalness of nectar will allow you to be sure of the correct choice and the effectiveness of the funds spent.

I suggest watching a video on how to determine the high condition of honey.

Thank you for your attention. And, of course, it is better to find friends who breed bees in order to be confident in the product.

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