How to identify real honey from fake. Methods for detecting counterfeit honey at home

At the end of summer, the markets are flooded with golden jars of honey of various flavors and colors. If you intend to buy seriously healing delicacy at the fair, arm yourself with a few rules of it right choice. What should be excellent honey and how to distinguish it from counterfeit, said Professor of the Department of Beekeeping. V. A. Nestervodsky National University of Bioresources and Nature Management Viktor Polishchuk and a beekeeper from the Kyiv region Vladimir Lozovoy.

The fact that in Ukraine there is an extremely wide assortment, while many countries produce only 1-2 varieties, is a fact established by experts that you will not find imported products by weight on the markets. But you can add some water to it, replace the nectar processing product and drop it with ordinary sugar syrup, sell 2-3-year-old honey, repeatedly melted and already deprived of any benefit. There are plenty of apiaries and honey reserves today, competition in the market is high and a normal beekeeper seeks to satisfy the buyer, and not sell the goods at any cost, but there is no guarantee that you will come across a manufacturer personally, also a conscientious one. A self-respecting beekeeper will never mix the remains of honeycombs and dead bees into honey, allegedly as proof that the honey is natural, and the buyer will let him smell and even taste it. By the way, buckwheat honey is becoming almost a rarity - it is now more profitable for farmers to deal not with buckwheat, but with seeds for oil, so the "trend" is the sunflower variety.

Signs of naturalness

Visually. The best honey is so thick that, when poured from jar to jar, it literally folds into a pagoda hill, which needs time to be distributed. This is because it contains no more than 17-20% water, and this is the consistency of syrup, in which 4 cups of sugar and 1 cup of liquid. Whether honey is diluted with water can be determined by weight: a kilogram of honey is placed in a container with a volume of 0.8 liters, and liter jar normal honey pulls almost one and a half kg. A conscientious seller on the market will allow you to check the consistency of the goods with a stick or a spoon: if the honey is pulled with a thin thread, it is of high quality, and the counterfeit one drips from the spoon and instantly drowns in the mass. In appearance, it will not be homogeneous and transparent, like natural, but cloudy, with sediment at the bottom or exfoliated (often semolina with molasses is placed on the bottom, but only honey on top). Foam is also a bad sign, honey is either unripe or fermented.

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Feel and taste.good honey always slightly tearing the throat with its astringency, and sourness is not felt (it is a sign of an immature or spoiling product). A drop of normal honey, rubbed with fingers, is easily applied and absorbed into the skin, and containing additives simply rolls into rolling pins. Good honey always has a strong, specific aroma, often flowery, pollen, but bad honey smells the less, the more syrup is added to it.

Solid or liquid. The more honey useful substances the faster it hardens. , remember that in the summer it should only be syrupy if pumped out this season, and only the rapeseed variety from the spring honey plant thickens very quickly and, harvested in the spring, will already be in bars by August (liquid - barely yellow, crystallized - almost white color). And when going to the market in autumn or winter, consider only candied honey - at this time there is no other normal product (there is also an exception: an acacia variety that keeps a liquid form for a long time). A decent beekeeper is liquid in winter, and in summer thickened honey will not sell: in the first case, it will most likely be melted (and you can only heat it carefully, at a temperature not higher than 37 °, otherwise all the useful properties are in vain), in the second - unmelted, but also last year.

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Check at home. Just in case, do not buy at an unverified point immediately three-liter jar, and take a mayonnaise jar for testing and experimenting. Honey check can be arranged a simple piece of bread. Dip it in the purchase for 10-12 minutes - if it is softened, then you bought a banal syrup, and the bread will harden in natural honey. Honey diluted with water forms liquid spots on a sheet of paper or leaks, but a good product will remain unchanged. If you poke honey with the hot tip of a knife, nothing will remain on the metal, while the fake will leave a layer of burnt sugar (as when cooking homemade candies). Dilute a teaspoon of honey in half a glass hot water: low-quality will not dissolve completely, and if you pour a little alcohol into the resulting liquid, it will also become cloudy. A solution of real honey after all these manipulations remains transparent, like a tear, and will fail only if it is honeydew from coniferous trees. By the way, all additives will float or settle if you take distillate for testing. You can drop iodine into the same mixture, and if the seller mixed starch, it will turn blue. And when vinegar is added, bubbles may appear: obvious signs that chalk has got into the honey. The last way is to sprinkle a drop of honey with a pinch of starch. Ideally, the white powder will remain a separate layer, but artificially mixed honey will certainly enter into some kind of reaction with it.

According to the documents. Laboratory research in no time will find any impurities and excess water in honey, so it would be useful to ask the seller for a veterinary and sanitary passport of the apiary and a certificate of conformity (expert opinion). If it is, it means that the product passed the test without problems, because the control will easily show even an excess of sucrose content by even just 5 percent. The document must have a laboratory seal and a mark on passing radiological control. And make sure that a check is attached to the certificate for payment for research and with a date that matches that indicated in the expert conclusion.

Tatiana Malinovskaya

Consistency of honey

In real honey, it is homogeneous, without impurities and stratifications, there should not be any sediment at the bottom. Depending on the season, it can be liquid (for young honey collected in summer) or thick, so-called "candied" honey. Such crystallized honey, as a rule, becomes lighter, cloudy.

In this regard, the quality of liquid honey, which can be seen on store shelves in winter, is questionable. His liquid consistency suggests that the product was falsified or that honey could be “dissolved” (melted) to give it a marketable appearance. Although it is also possible that the bees were fed sugar.

The only exception is acacia honey, which crystallizes slowly and can retain a liquid consistency longer.

Fluidity of honey

The indicator is effective in assessing the quality fresh honey. If you lower a spoon into a container with honey, scoop it up a little and lift it up, it will stretch for a long time, flowing in an even stream onto a plate, without breaking and forming a hill. Last straw springs back and pulls back to the spoon.

When turning the spoon around its axis natural honey is wound on it, the fake will drain. And if you turn the jar of honey upside down, the air bubble (it should be one and large) should rise in the direction from the lid to the bottom of the jar.

There is another trick: a drop of honey can be rubbed between your fingers. The natural one is completely absorbed into the skin, the fake one forms a lump and will roll.

Taste

Real honey is distinguished not only by pleasant sweet taste, astringency, but also a slight bitterness in the aftertaste. After a quality product, there must be a sore throat.

Aroma

Natural honey from a fake can be distinguished by smell. In a quality product, it is unobtrusive, natural, floral. The counterfeit smells very sugary, unnatural, sharp, maybe an admixture of caramel.

Color

Depending on which honey plant the nectar was collected from, honey can change its color from light yellow to dark brown. So, linden honey amber color, buckwheat honey is brown, and flower honey is light yellow.

If you see white honey, it can be not only acacia, but also a product obtained by processing sugar. In this case, the bees are fed sugar syrup, which they process like regular nectar. And although even in laboratory conditions it is difficult to distinguish natural honey from a fake, in terms of its health benefits, it cannot be compared with natural honey.

The brown color of honey can be achieved not only by collecting nectar from buckwheat fields, but also by melting last year's honey. At the same time, it heats up over 40 ° C and loses all its useful properties. Be vigilant if such honey is offered to you in spring or early summer.

The situation with May honey, which many lovers of this delicacy are waiting for, is also interesting. Theoretically, of course, you can pump out in May. But the problem is that this honey is necessary for the bee family in order to feed the brood. If you take honey from the family in May, the worker bees will be weak, lethargic, which will affect a significant decrease in the amount of the collected product. Therefore, it is unlikely that a good owner will make such sacrifices and risks. Be carefull.

Chemical laboratory at home

In addition to assessing the organoleptic properties of the delicacy you purchased, you can conduct a small experiment at home to identify impurities in honey.

What only unscrupulous sellers add to honey: molasses, chalk, plaster, and starch. But bring on clean water scammers are possible.

memo

Buy honey only from trusted beekeepers and in season. Remember that they do not begin to pump out honey until June, when the first plants begin to bloom. Then go shopping. And it's better to buy whole year and for wholesale you can ask for a discount.

Another way to check honey for quality can be the presence of honey in the combs of the beekeeper. It is almost impossible to fake it, and in the absence of such, one can doubt the quality of honey.

In order not to be deceived when buying, please note that 1 liter of mature honey must weigh at least 1.4 kg.

If a piece of candied honey is set on fire, it should silently melt. Hissing and crackling will give out a fake with a head.

In order for honey to bring only benefits to your health, do not be too lazy to evaluate the quality of the purchase before use. And if necessary, you can take the honey to the laboratory for expert quality assessment.

Many people know about honey only that it is very useful product, it is made by bees and collected by beekeepers. And the fact that there is a lot of honey in Russia, so everyone who is not lazy sells it. In many outlets this product of bees is sold with the label "natural", which is far from always true.

Very often on the shelves of shops you can find a lot of fake honey or diluted with various impurities. So how to distinguish natural honey from a fake?

What should be real honey?

• Honey of a liquid or thick consistency is natural, freshly pumped, not subjected to overheating. Real Bee Honey has a pleasant floral scent. Liquid honey is clover, fireweed or white acacia. This happens in July-August, immediately after pumping. After two months, the honey begins to crystallize.
• Crystallized - real honey. Crystallization is natural process, which does not affect the content of nutrients in honey. The exceptions are acacia or chestnut, these are varieties that do not crystallize at all, heather honey, bypassing crystallization, turns into jelly.

Attention! It must be remembered that adulterated honey does not crystallize.

Fake honey

Fraudsters prepare counterfeits different ways. For example, sugar is hydrolyzed with acetic or citric acid. Or evaporate watermelon, grape or melon juice, bringing to the desired density. The resulting mixture is very similar to honey in smell and color, in the presence of fructose and glucose in it, but it does not contain active ingredients that natural honey has.

When buying, be sure to pay attention to the packaging. As a rule, with small packaging, honey is heated above 40 degrees and loses its beneficial properties.

You need to be very careful when purchasing honey with pollen. This is a very expensive product. Pollen retains its beneficial properties for only six months. And no one knows what kind of pollen is added to honey. It is correct to buy pollen separately, granular, not diluted in any way.

When creating falsifications, to increase the mass of the product, components such as sugar, molasses, chalk, starch, flour, gelatin, etc. are added to honey.

Overheated natural honey that has lost its nutritional value is considered counterfeit.

Unripe honey is also not real. The maturity of honey is related to its viscosity and moisture. Unripe honey foams - this is a characteristic sign of the presence excess water in its composition. Such honey quickly turns sour, its taste worsens, its nutritional qualities. In mature honey, the water content should be no more than 20%.

How to distinguish honey from a fake?

Folk methods for distinguishing natural honey from fake:

• First, drop in liquid honey spoon or wooden stick, rotate it a little and lift it up. If the honey is real, then it will stretch in a long thread, which, when broken, forms a turret. The fake one will just drip and drip.
• Secondly, you can recognize real honey by smell. Fake honey does not smell, while real honey has a pleasant flower-meadow aroma.
• Thirdly, a remarkable indicator of naturalness bee product is the taste. If honey is real, then it irritates the mucous membrane of the pharynx, causes perspiration. After swallowing, irritation increases slightly. If honey is diluted with sucrose, then this feeling is reduced and is completely absent in case of complete falsification.
• Fourth, you need to know what honey should be in different time of the year. If liquid is sold in the spring, then it is a fake or it has been heat-treated.
• Another way to distinguish real honey: in boiled water stir in a spoonful of honey. Real, genuine honey will dissolve completely in water, a precipitate will remain from the diluted one, or a white film will appear on the surface of the water.
• Sixth way. To choose mature honey and not confuse it with unripe, you can wrap liquid honey on a spoon and lift a little while continuing to rotate. At the same time, unripe honey will drain from a spoon, and mature honey will wind up.
• How else can you tell if honey is real? Visually. Fake honey is transparent, while natural honey is cloudy due to the presence of proteins in the composition and becomes even more cloudy during crystallization.
• Another way to find out fake honey or not, to evaluate the crystallization. If, when crystals fall out in a jar, stratification is visible, uneven layer-by-layer crystallization occurs, then this is a fake.
• Often honey is diluted with starch. There is an easy way to distinguish real bee honey from diluted or fake honey: dissolve honey in water and drop a few drops of iodine. If there is an admixture of starch, then this is a fake.

Conclusion

Still, folk methods cannot give an accurate idea of ​​whether a natural beekeeping product or its fake is really on the shelf. How to correctly distinguish honey from a fake, they can only say laboratory tests. There are currently about thirty of them. it various tests for the presence of sucrose in honey, reactions to dextrins, qualitative reactions to the presence of gelatin and many other studies.

On August 14, the First Spas, which was also called Medov, was celebrated in Rus' - by this day the honeycombs should be filled, and the beekeepers begin to get the contents. In temples, from that day it was allowed to eat it - they did honey gingerbread, pancakes with poppy seeds and honey, gingerbread and other pastries. Honey fairs in Russia begin in May, when beekeepers begin to extract the first honey. On beautiful counters lined with a variety of jars, you can find honey for any, the most demanding taste. True, sometimes buyers are faced with the fact that for a lot of money they bought not a “natural product”, but it, and they can only hope that this honey is not dangerous to health.

For an unscrupulous manufacturer, the most important thing is to increase the mass of the product or even mix some kind of substance that should resemble honey as much as possible. Most often, sugar syrup is added to honey. Thus, it is possible to increase the mass and make unripe honey sweet. In addition, starch, beetroot or molasses, invert sugar, sucrose - as far as imagination is enough. We have collected tips on how to distinguish real honey from a fake at home.

1) Tensile test Natural honey is by no means watery. It must be tenacious. Warm the honey to about 20 degrees, stirring with a spoon. Then remove the spoon and begin to rotate it - if it is of a normal consistency, then it should wrap around the spoon, and not drain. Then watch how the honey will flow back into the container - it should slowly lie down in a slide, forming bubbles on the surface.

2) Checking with a newspaper Drop some honey on a piece of paper (a piece of newspaper or toilet paper) - the paper should remain dry. If the honey has spread and formed a wet trail, then it has water in it.

3) Check on bread Another test for the presence of water, which should not be, can be done with a piece of bread. It just needs to be dipped in honey for 10 minutes, then removed. in kind quality honey bread should harden, in fake it will soften.

4) Checking with iodine In order to detect impurities in honey, you will need to conduct the simplest experience. Dilute a little honey with water and add a drop of iodine there. If the liquid is purchased Blue colour, then it contains starch or flour.

5) Checking with vinegar essence To do this, you also need to make a solution of honey using warm water. If when adding vinegar essence the solution hissed, but it contained chalk.

6) Checking with a lapis pencil For the next experiment, you will need a lapis pencil, which can be bought at a pharmacy for less than 150 rubles. Make a 5-10% solution of honey and dip the pencil into it. If formed white precipitate- added sugar to honey.

7) Checking with an indelible pencil To determine if there are foreign liquids in honey, take a chemical pencil and a piece of paper with you to the fair. Smear on paper a large number of honey and try to write something through the layer of honey with a pencil. If after a few seconds you see an inscription or streaks blue-violet color, which means that water or syrup was added to the delicacy.

8) Wire test Take a stainless steel wire, heat it on fire (you can use a regular lighter) and immerse it in honey. If a sticky mass sticks to the wire, then this is a fake. If the honey is natural, the wire will remain clean. And in general, as in the sensational case with combustible cottage cheese in St. Petersburg (journalists checked the quality of the “natural” cottage cheese bought in the store and found that it can burn for more than 10 minutes), you can try honey and set it on fire - you never know what it was made of . Good honey simply will not burn. A fake can change color, such as turning brown, melting, starting to give off a caramel or chemical smell.

8) Sediment check Stir a spoonful of honey in a glass of warm tea and leave for an hour. If after that a sediment remains at the bottom of the glass or on the surface, the quality of your purchase leaves much to be desired.

9) Testing with ammonia Mix some honey with water in a ratio of one to two. Then add a few drops ammonia and shake the resulting solution. If it turns brown, it means that starch syrup has been mixed into the honey.

10) Smell test Natural honey is always very fragrant. If it does not smell, then most likely it is not natural.

Before you go to buy honey for the whole year, be puzzled by what varieties there are and what color they differ in - this can also play into your hands in your search for natural honey. For example, buckwheat honey should be brown, flower honey should be golden yellow, lime honey should be amber, and mustard honey should be creamy yellow. The unnaturally white color of honey is a reason to think, because some producers do not take out bees to collect nectar, but simply feed the unfortunate creatures with sugar. The resulting honey, of course, does not have any valuable properties.

HOW NOT TO SPIT HONEY

When shopping is done, remember that honey should not be stored in metal utensils. The fact is that the acids contained in honey can oxidize and lead to the fact that valuable product will lose some of his useful properties and can even lead to poisoning.

If you like to drink tea with honey, do not add honey to boiling water. Already at 60 degrees, the structure of honey disintegrates, and it loses its properties. Over time, honey necessarily becomes thick and cloudy, so if honey bought in summer remains liquid and transparent until winter, it is not natural. If the honey thickens from below, but remains liquid from above, this means that the honey was collected immature, and such honey can be stored for only a few months.

HEALING PROPERTIES OF DIFFERENT HONEY

Linden honey used as an antipyretic, it has a diaphoretic property. In addition, it is bactericidal and promotes expectoration of sputum.

Buckwheat honey especially appreciated in the treatment and prevention of anemia, with hypo- and beriberi, useful for people predisposed to cardiovascular diseases. Such honey favorably affects the quality of blood and restores the body well after blood loss.

chestnut honey good for disorders digestive system and, like buckwheat, in case of problems with cardiovascular system. In addition, it has an antimicrobial effect.

fireweed honey useful for the prevention and treatment of colds. It contains a lot of vitamin C.

flower honey women need to eat. It is useful for the female reproductive system, is used for the prevention and treatment of gynecological diseases. With erosion, ladies are recommended to use sainfoin honey. And during the period breastfeeding breastfeeding baby is helpful sweet clover honey which promotes milk production. This type of honey also has anti-inflammatory, soothing and analgesic effects.

chestnut honey useful for men with potency problems. In general, men are advised to buy dark and bitter varieties of honey, for example, buckwheat.

Honey with perga (pollen rammed by bees) has a pronounced immunostimulatory effect. It restores immunity well, including after illnesses and operations.

Meadow forbs honey helps with insomnia and headaches.

Maria Al-Salkhani

The beneficial properties of honey are widely known. It is used not only as a sweetener, but also as a treatment colds. It has an antibacterial, antiviral, soothing and healing effect, it helps to strengthen the immune system and increase vitality.

The high cost of a natural product is a direct consequence of the complexity of its production. But even having paid a considerable price for this product, one cannot always be sure of its quality. Fake is not a new phenomenon.

A mention of unscrupulous traders is contained in the Encyclopedia of Beekeeping, published by an American entrepreneur and a great enthusiast in this field. Agriculture Amos Ruth in 1876.

Unnatural honey

The current fakes can be divided into three groups:

• Natural with addition foreign substances designed to increase the total volume and density of the mass;
• Products, obtained from a mixture sugar and water, with the addition of dyes and flavors;
• Sugar.

The method of falsification described by Ruth in the 19th century is still used today.

A mixture of sugar and water is boiled down to a state thick syrup, after which flavorings and dyes are added to it. To heighten the effect, the final product can be mixed with large quantity real honey.

Since the days of Amos Root, honey adulteration techniques have improved. Now artificial mixtures are prepared from invert sugar and sucrose and add thickeners to them, among which you can find corn and potato starch. Quality fakes can be difficult to identify even with the help of professional expertise. Fortunately, they are rare.

Another method of obtaining honey is used by unscrupulous beekeepers. Instead of waiting for the bees to collect flower nectar, the insects are fed regular sugar syrup. Sugar honey obtained in this way has no useful properties.

How to distinguish a quality product from an artificial one

Good taste

The taste of natural honey is sweet with a tart note, which is especially noticeable in buckwheat and chestnut. Real product leaves a pleasant aftertaste. Counterfeits will have an unremarkable sweet taste., in some cases a little cloying.

Natural color

Color can vary from white to dark brown. Each variety has its own characteristic color. Honey collected from white acacia flowers is almost transparent in liquid state.

Buckwheat honey has a rich brown color with a reddish tint. The white product may well be not from plant pollen, but from sugar syrup.

Before buying, you should find out what kind of honey is in front of you. This will make it easier to relate the description to the product you are offering.

Correct consistency

The structure of natural and artificial honey strikingly different. Rubbing a drop of it with your fingers, you will notice that it has disappeared without a trace, quickly absorbed into the skin. After doing the same with a fake, you will feel that small lumps remain on the skin.

Honey tends to crystallize after several months of storage. If in the middle of winter they try to sell you a liquid product, then this is an alarming sign. Such a product was either made from sugar syrup or heated before being sold. Honey, heated above a temperature of 40 degrees, loses its beneficial qualities.

Viscosity test

An important indicator and condition in determining the authenticity of naturalness is its viscosity. Dip a clean spoon into the honey container, and then slowly remove it. The real product should follow the spoon continuous thread. When the substance drains from the spoon, it forms a visible mark on the surface, which slowly dissolves.

Aroma

The smell is the hardest to fake. The aroma of the natural product is thick and fragrant, you can distinguish notes of honey plants in it. A product made from sugar does not have a pronounced aroma. How to check? If you find it difficult to catch the smell, then you have a fake.

Define sugar

Whether there is sugar in the product can be determined using thin paper. To do this, drip honey on a paper napkin or a sheet of blotting paper.

The appearance of wet spots will indicate that the product is artificial.

Natural product can stay on the paper surface for several minutes without seeping onto reverse side sheet. The longer the trace does not appear on paper, the better it is.

How to test real honey at home?

If you still have natural honey or not, then you can dispel them with a few simple procedures. How can you distinguish honey and know its quality?

drop of iodine

Dilute a small amount of honey with water, add a drop of iodine to the resulting mixture. If after that the solution turned blue, then this means that it contains starch or flour.

With the help of bread

Place a piece of bread in a bowl and leave for 5-10 minutes. If after this time the bread has retained its shape, then you have a natural product. If the bread is softened and spread, then this is a clear sign that the product was made on the basis of sugar syrup.

Pencil

On the back of your hand or a piece of paper, drip honey and spread it in a thin layer. Swipe with a regular chemical pencil on the surface. A thick line will indicate the presence of water in the product. The absence of a noticeable trace will mean that you have undiluted honey in front of you.

Vinegar

Dissolve a teaspoon of honey in water, add a few drops of vinegar to the resulting mixture. If this is followed by a hiss, then this is a sure sign that the product contains chalk.

Identify fake with water

Put the spoon into a clear glass warm water and stir. The natural product will dissolve without residue, slightly coloring the water. If impurities are present in the product, they will either precipitate or float to the surface.

The best way to protect yourself from fakes is to purchase homemade honey from a familiar beekeeper. In order to choose a trustworthy person, ask if he sells honeycombs.

If the answer is yes, you will know for sure that the seller has access to natural honey. Such people highly value their reputation and will not risk it by offering fakes.

Buy honey in season, because real beekeepers sell it as it is made. If you buy honey in a store, check and pay attention to the correct label. A fake product can harm your health.