How to determine the real honey from a fake. How to distinguish a quality product from an artificial one. Bring impurities to clean water!

Honey is very useful for colds, it boosts immunity and normalizes metabolism. Especially this product is necessary for children, it helps them to resist diseases and improves brain activity. But all this applies only to natural honey. And recently there have been a lot of fakes on the market that are difficult to identify at a glance. Those who care about their health should know how to distinguish real honey from fake.

These 10 beneficial health benefits will convince you to take it every day. Prevents cancer and heart disease. It contains flavonoids and antioxidants that reduce the risk of certain types of cancer and heart disease. Reduces ulcers and disorders of the gastrointestinal tract.

It contains powerful enzymes that help relieve stomach ulcers and bacterial gastroenteritis. It is antibacterial and antifungal. Bees produce an enzyme that produces hydrogen peroxide, which must be present in our immune system to eliminate toxins, parasites, bacteria, viruses, and yeast.

When buying in the market, you can come across not only a product diluted with sugar syrup, but also a frank counterfeit. Unscrupulous manufacturers can add molasses, gelatin, starch and even sawdust to increase the volume.

You can fake honey even at the production stage. Beekeepers feed bees with sugar syrup, and they produce a product that contains almost no beneficial substances. This is just a sweet treat. You need to know how to distinguish real honey from a fake, so as not to harm your health. To get more profit, some unscrupulous farmers pull out their honeycombs very early. Honey still does not have time to ripen and remains useless.

Increases athletic performance. Taking honey increases the glycogen content, which improves performance and recovery time. Reduces irritation from cough and throat. Honey contains a combination of simple sugars that have nothing to do with white sugar and other artificial sweeteners, and help the body regulate blood sugar levels.

Add real food, hearty cuisine and natural well-being.

The external use of honey has a healing and healing effect on wounds and burns due to the combination of simple sugars and their antibacterial nature. Honey contains a large number of probiotics or what is the same beneficial bacteria that survive the passage through the intestinal tract, are installed in the colon and help improve the health of the host.

How to check if the honey is real during its purchase? With room temperature fake can be determined by the consistency of the product. Try to mix honey - it should not foam and have impurities. If you scoop a little from the jar on a spoon and rotate it, you will see the quality of the product. Unripe honey is liquid and will drain from it quickly. This healing product must be tough, roll on a spoon, and if you want to pour it, it should not be torn into drops. A thin even stream forms a small hill on the surface.

Honey helps absorb and fix calcium in the body, which contributes to proper brain function, because neurons use calcium to generate an electrical signal that leads from one neuron to another to communicate messages. Honey stimulates the immune system and thus minimizes allergic reactions.

Can you distinguish 100% natural from refined honey? If you want to take advantage of all the beneficial benefits of honey, do not consume refined honey, but 100% natural honey. Pure honey is produced by bees in a completely natural process, assembled and packaged without any additional additives.

Liquid can only be fresh honey. After 3-6 months, it should harden and crystallize. Usually in shops for sale it is heated, and it remains liquid for a long time. But such a product has no useful properties.

How to distinguish real honey from a fake taste? For it to be healing, it must contain only the nectar of plants. Therefore, real honey smells like flowers and has a slightly bitter taste. If you swallow it, then feel your throat torn. A fake is just a sweet treat, often with an admixture of extraneous smells and tastes.

At this temperature, most of its trace elements and enzymes are destroyed. If you want to soak up all the trace elements and the goodness of honey, buy pure honey in farms or ecological honey, which guarantee you the production of handmade work without additives of any kind.

Do you consume honey in the usual way? Have you taken refined honey, thinking that you have taken advantage of its beneficial benefits? Starting today, you have enough information to take advantage of this superproduction and strengthen your health.

See you in the comments! There are many myths about honey, some of which may make us think that we are faced with wonderful food. One of these myths is that honey is the only food that does not spoil or does not rot as soon as time passes. Do you want to know if this is true?

If you have already purchased a product and brought it home, how to distinguish real honey from a fake then? The easiest way is to stir it in water. It should dissolve completely. And to check if there are any impurities, drip a little iodine into the solution. If it turns blue, there is starch or flour. Chalk impurities react to vinegar - it foams and hiss.

As you will know, honey is a sweet, viscous liquid produced by bees from the nectar of flowers. Bees collect this nectar, transform it through an enzyme that contains their saliva and store it in comb, where it matures until you get a product that we know as honey.

In general, we can say that the composition of honey is as follows. Water: 17% fructose Glucose 38% 31% Sucrose 1, 5% maltose: 7% other sugars 1, 5% protein and amino acids: 1% organic acids, vitamins and other 0, 7% Minerals: 0, 2%. However, as we have just mentioned, honey comes mainly from nectar from flowers, so you can imagine that the proportions indicated on these lines are very different, because they largely depend on the types of plants from which it comes Nectar, climate, etc.

How to distinguish real honey from a fake yet? Dissolve it with water and add a little liquid ammonia. If molasses is added to it, the solution will turn brown and precipitate will fall out. A simpler way is to put honey on the paper. It should not be absorbed and spread on the surface.

It is very important to know how to determine real honey for those who buy it for treatment. It should have bactericidal properties, so a piece of food, put in honey, should not spoil for a long time. If it is sour, there is foam and signs of fermentation, then the product is not suitable for treatment.

So, we can say that honey consists mainly of a mixture of sugars and water. There are also other substances that, although not in large quantities, are of great importance for the life of this product. If your answer is no, maybe you are the one who has copper in the kitchen, who would have to do a carbon-14 test to find out the date of purchase. The extreme case is the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen, in the tomb of which, apparently, honey was found in excellent condition. And the fact is that, contrary to what many people think, honey worsens over time.

Fake honey are widely spread in the market. All their varieties are distinguished by the absence of many valuable nutrients (vitamins, mineral salts, organic acids, proteins, and aromatics) and can be dangerous to human health. To obtain an accurate answer about the quality of food products, you should contact specialized state laboratories or test centers. There are also many popular methods to distinguish honey fake at home.

Food deteriorates over time for two fundamental reasons: the effects of certain microorganisms and the flow of certain biochemical reactions. Let's see what happens in the case of honey. Despite what many think, honey is not a sterile food. What happens is that these microorganisms are not able to develop in honey due to the characteristics of this unique food, among which. Low water activity: microorganisms need water for development, but the amount that exists in the honey available for these “bichitos” is very small. However, honey is a very hygroscopic product, which means that it is able to capture water from the environment when the humidity is very high. In this case, an increase in the concentration of water may contribute to the development of certain microorganisms, some of which may cause changes and fermentation. Osmolarity: a high concentration of sugars, which makes honey, also hinders the development of microorganisms. We have already said that honey contains a high concentration of sugar.

Appearance, color

Pure honey is always clear and uncluttered. Its viscosity can be studied by dropping a thin needle or wand into the bowl, after which it will stretch with a long thread, and when it is interrupted, it will drop completely, forming a “turret” on the surface of the product. A fake will behave rather like glue, dripping and dripping from the knitting needles, it may even create a spray.

Over time, these sugars can react to form toxic substances such as hydroxymethylfurfural. On the other hand, due to the high concentration of sugars contained in honey, and the presence of amino acids and proteins, staining reactions may occur, leading to a deterioration of the smell, taste and color of the product. In order for these reactions to take place, they do not need to be heated, but it is sufficient to store the product at room temperature for long periods of time.

What is the best way to store honey? If we put it in the fridge, the honey will crystallize, which does not significantly affect its useful life, but we also do not want this to happen. It would be ideal to have something that seems to have finally disappeared from our homes: a storeroom. Although honey is stored in optimal conditions for long periods of time, it is not an eternal food, because it undergoes transformations that change its properties. That is why you need to store honey in suitable conditions and consume it within the date indicated on the package.

Natural honey can be distinguished by its density, which should correspond to the varietal characteristics. At a temperature of 20 ° C, when a product is wound onto a spoon, the quality product is wound up like a ribbon, with a long stripe and is interrupted at a certain moment. Its structure is quite gentle, when rubbed in the palm, it is absorbed into the skin.

Science and knowledge in the kitchen. Edition. Microorganisms in honey. International Journal of Food Microbiology, 31, 1. We are used to always wanting to get the best products so that our body can improve, so we always need to have the best or original when we feed, because in this way we guarantee that we consume quality food.

However, many companies are responsible for creating a variety of products that ultimately do not bring the necessary benefits in order to improve our health in this way. Rather, they take care to make products of very poor quality that cannot be really good for everyone.

Quality flower honey contains no more than 5% sucrose, padevy - no more than 10%. Increased quantities can only be determined in the walls of the laboratory. Some features of the appearance and properties of the product should alert the buyer and at a cursory examination, forcing him to suspect a fake:

the smell of stale honeycombs;
unexpressed fresh taste;
too thin consistency for fresh honey or sticky, sticky and thick for long-stored product.

For this reason, it is always necessary to be able to determine which foods are of poor quality so that we can prevent the consumption of bad foods that can ultimately affect our body, and thus we have the opportunity to improve our health.

And it is precisely for this reason that we are going to help you learn to identify how you can distinguish this product as important as honey, so that you can consume one that is of good quality and avoid bad quality so that you can improve the consumption of good products.

A warning: Honey of pronounced white color may turn out to be sugar, dark brown - padevy. An insufficiently developed aroma or flavor of caramel often means that the product has melted.

Consistency

Honey, purchased in the winter, usually hardened. If the product retains plasticity this season, most often it means that it is diluted or heated. There are varieties that do not shrink longer than others, but they are difficult to distinguish from fakes:

It is one of the products that is healthier and more natural because they come from animals, such as bees, and can be consumed immediately after they are reached. However, many companies are responsible for changing this honey and processing it, since this method can serve them much more and is much more economical.

It was confirmed that 76% of the honey found in the markets undergoes a process called ultrafiltration, which causes it to lose a lot of real nutrients for consumption and the health of the consumer. For this reason, we will show you these tricks so that you can distinguish the original honey from the one that is being processed. A spoon of honey is added to a glass of water, if it is dissolved, it is false honey, if it does not dissolve, it is pure honey. If it turns on, then it is clean. . With the help of these tips you can learn how to use pure honey, which will bring great benefits to your health.

May honey contains a large amount of fructose, so it does not sugary for a long time. This is the earliest variety, one of the most beneficial to human health, but it is often he who turns out to be a fake.
Acacia honey also contains a significant proportion of fructose and water, and therefore is able to maintain plasticity for up to 1-2 years.
Greek honey is a great value, especially pine and thyme varieties are popular. They thicken only six months after collection, and under certain conditions they can maintain a liquid consistency of up to 1.5 years.
Chestnut honey is a viscous and dark variety, shrinking which takes 6-12 months. With long-term storage, it forms more and more large crystals, and also begins to stratify.

Liquid consistency characteristic of immature honey, which flows from the cutlery, not forming a stinging thread. It is pumped out in the event of a shortage of cells, it is not full-fledged and biologically active, contains too much water and cannot be stored for a long time. In it fermentation processes begin quickly, since the product is not sufficiently enriched with sucrose and enzymes.

Honey is the most natural and healthy product from bees. They work all day to do something amazing. Unfortunately, there are many false and misleading advertisements that make people think that they are buying pure honey. The truth is that the wide variety of bees available on the market has been processed and subject to numerous changes and contains chemicals to reduce prices.

According to a study conducted in the field of food safety, 76% of all the honey available on the market underwent a process called ultrafiltration. Unfortunately, in addition to removing impurities, such as traces of wax, the filtration process also eliminates the pollen in honey.

Rules for the selection and purchase of honey

It is advisable to purchase honey at a private apiary from beekeepers, whose product quality is confirmed by acquaintances or is known from personal experience. When buying a delicacy for the first time, it is better to limit yourself to a volume of 100-200 g in order to be able to quietly study it without serious financial expenses.

Ways to find out if the honey you are consuming is counterfeit or original

Pure honey crystallizes over time. If the honey you buy does not crystallize when you keep it in the fridge, it is probably not pure honey. Read the labels before purchasing. If honey contains corn syrup with fructose or commercial glucose, do not buy it.

Mix a few drops of iodine in a glass of water, and then add some honey to it. If the color of the honey turns blue, it is mixed with cornstarch. Mix a few drops of vinegar into a glass of water, and then add some honey to it. If you see the foam coming out, it means that your honey has been falsified with plaster.

Before purchasing honey, you need to check whether fermentation has started in it. It is easy to do this by gently stirring it, and you should not feel any special viscosity, observe active formation of foam and the appearance of gas bubbles, feel burnt or alcoholic taste, sour smell.

You should avoid buying honey collected in apiaries located in ecologically unfavorable areas, along roads with active traffic and an abundance of exhaust gases. Contact with lead and other heavy metals in bee products adversely affects human health.

Important! You can buy honey only if the seller stores it in a glass, wooden, ceramic or porcelain container. The use of metal utensils is unacceptable.

Methods for detecting fake honey at home

A popular method for determining the quality of honey is the use of a chemical pencil. The product is layered on a finger, paper or spoon, the core of the device is immersed in or carried out from above. It is believed that there will be a mark on the fake, which will indicate the presence of impurities of water, sugar. The method was studied by V.G. Chudakov in 1972, and his research clearly demonstrated the unreliability of the results.

A sample on blotting paper makes it possible to accurately distinguish counterfeit products, but some of them are natural samples. It is carried out as follows: honey is placed on a sheet of blotting paper in a small amount and it is checked whether a watery spot appears on the reverse side. His education will almost always mean that the product is falsified.

There are also separate methods for detecting the presence of impurities in honey:

The easiest way is to stir a spoonful of the product in a clear glass or jar of water. The impurity, if present, will settle at the bottom of the dish, while the honey will dissolve without residue.
Another method to distinguish a fake is the lowering of hot stainless steel wire into the product. It will remain pure if the honey is real, and will be covered with a sticky substance if the sample is falsified.
Sugar or beet molasses in the product can be determined by combining a 5-10% aqueous solution of honey with a solution of lapis (silver nitrate). The formation of a white precipitate will indicate that honey contains the indicated impurity.
Dilution of the product with sugar syrup is also easy to see by mixing 22.5 ml of methanol with 5 ml of a 20% aqueous solution of honey (prepared using distilled water). Loss of a large amount of whitish-yellow sediment will also mean that the treat is diluted.
The presence of starch syrup can be determined by combining the product with water and alcohol (1 part honey to 2-3 parts distilled water and a quarter of the volume of 96% alcohol). The solution should be shaken well: in the presence of extraneous compounds, it will take on a hue of milk. If the liquids are allowed to settle, the dextrin is precipitated in the form of a sticky transparent substance with a semi-liquid consistency.
The lack of timely shrinkage of honey and its special stickiness also allow you to recognize a fake. The solution of the quality product will remain uncluttered as a result of the experiment.
Flour or starch impurities are easy to detect using iodine. Honey is diluted in water in the ratio of 1: 2, take 3-5 ml of the resulting solution and combine with 3-5 drops of tincture of iodine or lugol solution. The appearance of a blue hue of the liquid will indicate a fake.
To determine the presence of inverted sugar in the product is not easy. For this purpose, 5 g of the sample is ground with an insignificant volume of ether capable of dissolving substances resulting from the breakdown of fructose. The resulting solution is drained in a bowl, evaporated and the dry residue is combined with 2-3 drops of a fresh 1% solution of resorcinol in saturated hydrochloric acid (specific gravity of 1.125 g). The appearance of an orange or cherry hue indicates a positive reaction to the presence of the desired substance and fake honey.
Adding honeydew honey can be detected as follows: combine lime water and a 50% aqueous honey solution (2 to 1 ratio), boil the composition. Sludge formation in the form of brown flakes means a positive reaction to the presence of an impurity.
The presence of chalk is easy to determine with the use of acetic essence, an aqueous solution of a fake in this case will spike when it is added.