How to distinguish natural honey from fake honey? Ways from a nutritionist, beekeeper and technologist

Nutritionist-dietitologist, author and presenter of a group weight correction program, RPP specialist

“If you’re not a professional, it can be difficult to distinguish real, natural honey from fakes. Here are the signs of a quality product.”

Come the season when we buy delicious, flavorful honey for ourselves for the winter. Pumping out the sweet product begins in May, but the one that was collected in late summer and early fall has a special taste and aroma.

Of course, the most high-quality and delicious honey is the one that you collected from your own hive, but, unfortunately, few people can boast of their own apiary. Therefore, we go to the store and carefully consider the label before buying.

Composition

It is important to pay attention to information about the producer, country of origin and date of packaging. Quality honey is collected from the nectar of flowers.

If the label states that the honey is made from syrup or other ingredients, this may be a sign of counterfeit. The packaging should be tight and hermetically sealed – made of plastic or glass. This is a mandatory criterion.

However, many people buy honey from hands, and here the relationship is built on trust, but you can assess the consistency, aroma, flavor, viscosity, layering, solubility.

Texture

Real honey has a varied consistency depending on its type (liquid, thick). Too homogeneous texture can be a sign of a fake. On smell, a natural product usually has a bright and characteristic aroma associated with the flowers from which it is collected, rather than cloyingly sweet or chemical.

Flavor

Each batch of honey has a unique flavor and depends on the region and type of flowers from which it is harvested. It is a bouquet of a combination of fruity, floral and herbal notes with a long, pleasant aftertaste.

The honey unfolds gradually. If you feel just a luscious sweetness without aftertaste or all honey from the seller has the same flavor, then with a high probability you are facing a product in which added sugar or other additives.

Viscosity

Experiment, drop honey on a surface and see how it flows. A natural product should flow slowly and smoothly, forming droplets. Color is something we can appreciate with our eye.

For example, acacia honey is usually light and buckwheat honey is dark, linden honey is from light yellow to amber, sunflower honey is usually bright yellow, but mixed herbs can be any shade. You can also ask the seller to move the spoon in the jar with honey, ideally you should see layers similar to waves.

Solubility

Take a cup of warm water with you and try to dissolve the honey. There should be natural particles left at the bottom of the container.

If the honey foams when stirring, then you may have a fake in front of you. Often you can hear about such a method of verification, as a “honeycomb grid”. The method is quite simple, but not always accurate, and therefore it is not recommended to use it in isolation. Of course, it is interesting to try all methods, and this one among others.

To test honey in this way, a spoonful of honey should be dropped into a container of water, and as it settles and dissolves, you can see how a multifaceted structure resembling a honeycomb-like “honeycomb grid” appears.

Natural honey is a living product, and as it is stored, sediment (precipitate) may form or crystallization may occur. But this does not mean that such a product should not be consumed. Even in this form, it retains all its beneficial properties.

Opinion of the beekeeper

head of a private farm, hereditary beekeeper

“When buying honey there is a danger of running into immature, that is, with a high moisture content. This is fraught with rapid fermentation of honey, which subsequently becomes unfit for consumption”.

Immature honey is much fatter than quality honey, so unscrupulous producers add starch to it. To detect this, iodine is dripped into the honey-water solution and looked at the color change.

However, no “home” method will not show whether the product in front of you is fake. The so-called genetic memory of honey also does not exist.

What is this “test”: the liquid product is poured onto a plate, poured cold water and made from side to side chaotic movements. A pattern remotely resembling a honeycomb is formed on the bottom. This is nothing more than a physical phenomenon called a Benard Cell.

You can just as easily do the same test with any other viscous liquid: dishwashing detergent or machine oil instead of honey.

The only reliable way to determine the naturalness and quality of honey is through laboratory testing. Ideally, you should find a beekeeper who is open and honest with you. It is better to trust sellers less, as they often prefer to buy the product from the factory rather than find regular suppliers.

Opinion of a product and service certification representative

TRTS24 portal expert

“Honey is a sweet, thick, viscous product produced by bees and related insects.”

To distinguish real honey from fake honey, you should pay attention to a few things. Real honey:

• Has a uniform texture with no lumps or crystals. If it has a crystallized texture, it should have a thin, smooth texture;

• has a distinctive aroma and flavor, varying depending on the type of flower from which the bees collected the nectar;

• is not sticky and does not drip easily;

• does not dissolve easily in water, while fake dissolves quickly;

• may contain small particles of bee pollen and propolis, whereas a fake will not.

The best way to make sure you are getting real honey is to buy it from a reliable place. The product should have a label indicating the manufacturer and its type: where it was harvested, when it was packed and before what time it is recommended to consume it. It is also necessary to have obligatory documents about the quality of the product.