Signs of natural and types of fake honey. Ways to distinguish a counterfeit by external signs and using chemical reactions. Recommendations on how not to spoil the bee nectar. Not everyone knows how to distinguish real honey from fake, but it is an absolutely necessary skill. The benefits of natural bee nectar are undeniable, but this cannot be said about falsified nectar, it is unsuitable not only for food, but also for the preparation of cosmetics. And if you do not want to pay money for a useless fake, it is worth learning how to recognize it.
Properties and characteristics of natural honey
Honey is loved for its health-promoting sweetness, unlike sugar, for example. For the same reasons, this product is more expensive, and therefore attractive to fraudsters, because it is profitable to counterfeit.
In order not to fall for their tricks, you should know the signs and properties of real honey:
- Consistency … In real bee nectar, it is homogeneous, without precipitation, stratification and impurities. But it can be different (depending on the ambient temperature and the time of year): for young honey it is liquid, and for mature honey (approximately by the end of winter) it is crystallized. Candying occurs gradually, the closer the cold, the thicker and thicker the product becomes, lighter and more turbid.
- Fluidity … It is possessed only by liquid honey. It should drain for a long time, in a thin thread, without tearing into separate drops, forms a slide on the plate, and the last drop springs and stretches, as if bouncing, up. High-quality ripe nectar can be wrapped around the spoon by turning it. And the immature flows down like water. This happens because there is twice as much water in it than in quality, but there are few enzymes and sucrose. The thing is that bees process nectar for a week, honey is infused, water is evaporated from it, complex sugars are broken down, the product is enriched with enzymes. When everything is ready, the bees seal the honeycomb with wax. But unscrupulous beekeepers can pump out the substance even before sealing to free the combs, and an immature product appears on sale.
- Taste … Naturally, the taste of honey is sweet, but also necessarily tart, with the presence of a pleasant bitterness, which does not make the throat very sore. In some varieties, the taste is specific, more tart or with a stronger bitterness, which causes the same increased sore throat, but in no case should it be sour (this is a sign of fermentation that has begun) and clearly bitter (this means that the product has been stored wrong and messed up).
- Smell … Natural honey smells unobtrusively of flowers, falsified or has no smell at all, or it is unnaturally sharp, giving off caramel, which means that it has been warmed up.
- Colour … Different shades of yellow, it all depends on which plants the nectar was collected from by the bees. Buckwheat honey is dark, brownish, with a lime shade similar to amber, acacia honey is pale yellow, and flower honey is transparent light yellow. White is unnatural for a natural product.
- The weight … Bee nectar is heavier than water; in a 1 liter jar, there will be about one and a half kilograms of honey by weight.
- Transparency … Liquid honey is quite transparent (but not too much), only acacia honey is slightly turbid, other varieties become cloudy only when they are sugar-coated (crystallized).
- Crystallization … This process is quite fast, taking from two to four weeks (depending on the type of honey) after the bribe. Usually, the nectar is candied by autumn, but some varieties, due to the high fructose content in them, pull with this until December (acacia, heather, chestnut), or even longer (up to a year), especially if the container is tightly closed enough. Crystals in candied honey should be small, and it itself looks like ghee.
- Foam … It can be present only in an unripe product, in the one where the fermentation process began, it should not be of high quality.
Remember! You should buy honey during the season (mass pumping begins on August 14, at Honey Spas), from a well-known beekeeper who is engaged in such a trade on a regular basis and appreciates his reputation. It is more profitable to make a wholesale purchase (in the quantity you need for a whole year), you can ask the seller for a discount.
Types of fakes of natural honey
What tricks do scammers use to make fake bee nectar. For this, chalk, flour, sugar, starch, molasses are used … Moreover, sometimes fake honey is very difficult to detect even in the presence of a laboratory.
Let's consider the types of fakes in more detail:
- Natural honey with additives … The most dangerous counterfeit. To create such a fake, thick sugar syrup tinted with tea is added to natural honey. And given the fact that sugar is also not cheap now, syrup can be replaced with various substances similar in appearance with the addition of flavors, but already much more harmful to health than sugar and tea.
- Artificial honey … It is made in factories from sugar (beet or cane), as well as from the juice of melon, watermelon, corn and other products with a high sugar content and tinted with saffron, St. John's wort or tea decoctions. In such a substance there are no enzymes, it does not smell of flowers, but it is difficult to distinguish it from the real externally and by taste. Artificial honey is not passed off as natural by conscientious sellers, but is sold with appropriate labels indicating its origin ("Beet honey", "Watermelon honey", "Melon honey"). But scammers can pass off such a product as natural, overstating its price.
- Honey not made from nectar … If you place feeders with sugar syrup next to the bee hives, then insects will not find it difficult to get nectar, but ferment honey from sugar. The result is an almost ordinary-looking product, inferior to the natural taste and useful properties. Such honey is very light, whitish, crystallizes slowly. But if you mix it with the real one, then it becomes almost impossible to identify a fake even in a laboratory. Therefore, it is so important to have a familiar beekeeper whom you trust and whose decency do not doubt.
- Honeydew honey … It is a type of honey fermented by bees not from nectar. But its source is not sugar syrup, but pad. Padya is a name for two types of substances. The first is a pad of animal origin. This sweet sticky liquid is secreted by some insects (in fact, this is their excrement), parasitizing plants, for example, aphids. The second species is of plant origin. Shoots and leaves of some trees (coniferous, oak, willow, cherry, ash, plum, apple, maple) emit a sweetish liquid, which is called honeydew or non-colored nectar for its external similarity and taste. In normal years, bees do not collect honeydew, because honey from it is poorly stored, does not crystallize, sour, and eating such a product reduces their lifespan by 2 times or more. The reason for the collection of honeydew by bees is the absence of flowering plants. This happens in dry summer or autumn. But may honey cannot be honeydew, because it is collected by insects in May-June, when everything is blooming intensively. Abroad, the honeydew product is highly valued for its healing properties, it contains 12 times more potassium than usual! But the product from honeydew of animal origin is considered the second grade, since it contains protein breakdown products. In tsarist Russia, a beekeeper who passed off any honeydew honey as a flower honey was in great trouble - he had no right to display his goods on the market without a special label, and the most inconvenient place for trade was allocated to him. Strictly speaking, a fake product cannot be called a fake, but it is also wrong to sell it without notice. The beekeeper must warn the buyer what exactly he is buying. And although such honey contains more trace elements and is considered a very useful product for weakened children, patients with anemia and in the postoperative period, its properties have not been studied enough, it is better not to use it without first consulting a doctor.
- Melted natural honey … In the spring or early summer, unscrupulous sellers offer buyers liquid nectar supposedly from this year's harvest. In fact, this is last year's overheated product, which lost all its value when heated (above 40 degrees). A melted product can be distinguished by its caramel flavor, it is often passed off as buckwheat, because when heated it can darken and acquire a characteristic brownish tint, or May. In fact, a practical beekeeper will never take away from bees (or rather, from their future brood) the food they need for growth and development. Having pumped out a large amount of honey in early spring, the beekeeper will not receive many tens of kilograms of nectar in autumn, since sluggish and weak bees simply will not collect it in large quantities. The May product is indeed pumped out by beekeepers, but in small quantities and, as a rule, for personal use, and not for sale and on an industrial scale.
A little trick! If you really want to buy May honey, ask the seller to give you a part of it in honeycombs, because scammers cannot fake them. This way you can be sure of the naturalness of your purchase, and chewing the wax will strengthen your teeth and gums.
How to establish the authenticity of honey in practice
Fraudsters are interested in having their product bought at the real price. Therefore, even an experienced gourmet can confuse natural and fake honey. But if you know some tricks, then the counterfeit is quite easily determined both by external signs and with the help of chemistry.
Determination of the quality of honey by external signs
You can determine what is in front of you, fake or real honey, without laboratory research. Here are some tips on the outer traits of bee nectar to keep you out of the way:
- Taste … Try the product first. If it dissolves without residue, there are no strong sugar crystals left on the tongue, and the throat is torn from the tart aftertaste, then it is of high quality. Moreover, do not hesitate and take it out with a spoon from the very bottom (it is at the bottom of the jar with counterfeit that there may be molasses). And if the seller is against it, it is better to bypass such honey.
- Smell … Real nectar is bound to have a characteristic fragrant floral scent. The fake one has no smell.
- Crystallization … If you see large and hard crystals in candied honey, then most likely this is a fake, fermented by bees from sugar syrup. In a natural product, the crystals should be fine.
- Liquid state … Buyers like the product more in this form, although the crystallized one does not lose its useful properties at all. But if there is a demand for liquid honey, it means that the scammers will organize the offer by dissolving (melting) the old honey. It will no longer contain useful substances, only pure glucose. It loses its healing properties at temperatures above 37 degrees, so, by the way, there is no particular health benefit to drinking hot tea with honey, not sugar. Only acacia, heather and chestnut nectar are candied later than all other varieties, and can remain liquid throughout the year (they contain more fructose). Any other real honey cannot be liquid in winter. If you see such a product on sale, it means that it was either melted or falsified (fermented by bees not from nectar, but from sugar syrup or honeydew). If you have a liquid product in front of you, sealed in honeycombs, you can be sure that this one has not been overheated. True, they are not insured against counterfeiting (the bees could have been fed with syrup).
- Transparency, sediment and delamination … Honey is, of course, transparent as long as it is in a liquid state. But if it is super-transparent, and you can even see the bottom of the can through it, and the nectar also casts amber, having a bright shine and caramel taste, then most likely you are dealing with a melted product. Acacia honey can be transparent and slightly cloudy, all other varieties are either transparent (so far liquid), or crystallized. If there is sediment or stratification in it (the substance is denser at the bottom than at the top), then this is definitely due to impurities. This happens if, for example, scammers put molasses mixed with semolina on the bottom of a can, and poured real honey on top.
- Impurities … In a natural product, if you look closely, you can see pollen and wax particles. Buy this honey calmly. But if grasses and parts of bees' bodies float in it, the same wax is large enough pieces, this means that either the nectar is natural, and the seller is very sloppy, if not unclean, or he deliberately added all this garbage to make his fake or low-quality authentic goods. In any case, it is better to refrain from buying.
- The presence of foam … Such honey is not worth buying, it began to ferment or was pumped out unripe. In high-quality, there should be no foam.
- Fluidity … A good product does not have a high fluidity, but sour, immature (it is poorly stored, quickly sour) or diluted with paddy - yes, because it contains a large amount of water. It is because of her that a fake product, if dropped on low-grade paper that absorbs moisture well (for example, newspaper or toilet paper), will spread over it or even seep through, forming wet spots around. Low-quality honey cannot be rolled onto a spoon, it will drip, making splashes and bubbles on the surface of the rest of the substance. But a real one, if you dip a clean wooden stick into it, and then lift it up, it will be pulled by a long uninterrupted thread, which, breaking off, will go down whole, forming a slide.
- Absorbency … If you try to rub a drop of honey between your fingers, then the natural one will be absorbed into the skin without residue, and the fake one will leave a rolling lump on your fingers.
- The weight … A jar with a volume of 800 ml should fit a product weighing 1 kg. If not, then it means that it has a lot of water (i.e. it is immature or diluted). And in a liter jar, by weight, there should be at least 1 kg of 400 g of bee nectar.
- Healthfulness … Motherwort honey soothes, and raspberry and linden honey are useful for colds. But when you are at the counter, you will not be able to test these qualities. But if at home you felt the corresponding effect (for example, you should definitely be thrown into a fever from raspberry), then return to the seller and stock up on such goods for future use. Better yet, take the coordinates of this beekeeper so as not to miss the opportunity to buy a worthy product in the future.
- Caked honey … It happens that the market sells a product in pieces. That is, it is so caked that a bank is no longer needed to store it, and even cutting such a monolith with a knife is quite difficult. It is unambiguous that this is not a product of the current year, and perhaps not of the past. If you trust the beekeeper, then such honey can be bought, but, of course, cheaper than fresher. But it is better not to take caked goods from unverified sellers. The fact is that honey absorbs smell and moisture. If stored in bad faith, it may contain unknown and not useful components.
- Honeydew honey … If you set out to find such a product or, conversely, do not want to buy, then remember that it differs in that it does not have the usual honey smell, it is brownish in color, dark, sometimes even greenish. Its taste is very sweet, but there is no characteristic nectar aftertaste. Honeydew honey remains liquid for a long time, it is hygroscopic and therefore poorly stored, quickly sour.
Please note! Before buying honey on the market, ask the seller for a certificate of product quality. And in the store, pay attention to the color of the label. If it is white, it means that this is the highest quality product. And if it is blue, then this indicates that it is of poor quality or honeydew. Also read carefully what is written there. There must be such data: variety and botanical type of honey, where and when it was collected, address and name of the supplier, standard.
Determination of counterfeit honey by chemical reactions
Having chosen a product that you visually like on the market, do not rush to purchase a large number of it at once. Even knowing how to distinguish honey from a fake in appearance, smell and taste, you can still be deceived. To prevent this from happening, buy 100 g for a sample, take the seller's contacts and agree that, if you like it, you will later take a large batch. And at home, calmly explore what you bought using simple chemical reactions.
There are different ways to check:
- Water and alcohol … Stir 1 tbsp in a glass of warm distilled water. l. honey. High quality, without impurities will dissolve without residue. If there are impurities, they will settle or float up. And if you add a quarter of the volume of alcohol there, and the solution does not become cloudy, it means that the product is not honeydew. The milky color of the solution and the transparent sticky dextrin that has settled to the bottom means that there is starch syrup in the honey. Another way: dissolve in 5 tsp. distilled water bee nectar (1 tsp), add methyl alcohol (6 tsp). If a large amount of a white-yellow precipitate has formed, then there is sugar syrup in it.
- Lime … This test was proposed by A. F. Gubin. Stir honey in lime water and add distilled water (10: 1: 1). Boil. If brown flakes appear in the mixture, the product is honeydew.
- Iodine … Dissolve honey in distilled water, and then add a couple of drops of iodine. Turned blue? There is starch or flour.
- Starch … Sprinkle a drop of honey with a pinch of starch. If it stays on top, like a white cap, then you bought a good product. Otherwise, this is a fake.
- Lapis and alcohol … At 10 h. L. stir 1 tsp of water. honey, add a little medical alcohol to half of this solution. If it turns white, starch syrup was mixed into the nectar. Add lapis to the rest of the solution. A white precipitate means the product has been mixed with molasses.
- By fire … Drop honey on a piece of paper and light it. Is the paper burnt and the nectar does not burn or melt? This means that it is of high quality, real. A fake one will melt if it is fermented by bees from syrup, and turns brown if it has already been diluted with sugar by humans. Another way: light the crystallized honey. Hissed, crackled - fake, silently melted - real.
- Stainless steel wire … Heat it, for example, by heating it over a gas burner or in a lighter flame, and sharply lower it into honey. Take out. If the wire is clean, the product is real, but the sticky mass on it will be evidence of falsification.
- Blotter … Drop honey on it and leave for 3-5 minutes. If, after this time, the paper underneath is not soaked on the reverse side of the nectar, it is real. And the longer the paper does not get wet, the better the substance. True, some experts (V. G. Chudakov) assure that this is not an ideal method. Falsification is determined by him with 100% accuracy, but it happens that natural honey falls into the category of fakes.
- Vinegar … If chalk was mixed into honey, then this is very easy to detect by dropping vinegar into it. The fake product with the addition of chalk will hiss.
- With a chemical pencil … Apply a layer of honey on the paper and draw with a pencil. A colored trace will remain in the product with flour or starch additives. True, the same V. G. Chudakov believed that this method does not give a 100% guarantee.
- Bread … There is very little water in high-quality nectar, and if you dip a piece of bread in it for 10 minutes, it will remain firm. But in honey, diluted with sugar syrup, it will get wet, soften, or even creep altogether.
- Cold … Place the honey jar in the refrigerator. A good product will not remain liquid, it will thicken, unlike melted or one to which water was added.
- Tea … Stir some nectar into the loose tea thoroughly. If there is sediment, it means that the honey is fake. A natural product will just make it a little darker and that's it.
- Ether … This is a very difficult method for real chemists. They determine if the honey has been heated. In this case, inverted sugar must have formed in it. To be sure of this, rub with 1 tsp. nectar a small amount of ether. Filter the resulting solution into a cup, then evaporate it to dryness and add 2-3 drops of a fresh 1% solution of resorcinol and hydrochloric acid to the residue. An orange, red or cherry color of the impurity means that this is a fake.
Important! Good honey thickens and crystallizes over time, and if yours is not sugared after a year or two, this is probably a fake or a honeydew product. If after some time after the purchase it began to divide into two layers (thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top), this means that you bought unripe nectar. It should be used quickly before fermenting.
How not to spoil natural honey yourself
So you've bought a quality product. Now it's up to the small thing - to properly store and use it, so as not to spoil it. Follow these two tips and you should be fine:
- Do not warm … From all of the above, you have already understood that heating honey to a temperature above 37 degrees deprives it of all useful qualities. Unique enzymes are destroyed, antiseptic properties disappear. And if you heat it to 80-85 degrees, you will get a carcinogenic substance containing toxic oxymethylfurfural. Therefore, nectar cannot be added to hot tea, milk or cocoa! And even for cosmetic purposes (masks, scrubs, etc.), the substance is not very heated.
- Do not store in metal containers … There are acids in a natural product that, by oxidizing the metal, will bring its particles into honey, but the amount of useful substances from such chemical reactions in it will decrease. After consuming such nectar, at best, you will get heartburn, and at worst, poisoning. To prevent this from happening, keep your purchase in glass jars, earthen jugs, wooden tubs, porcelain and ceramic dishes are also suitable. It is also not necessary to roll up jars of honey with a metal lid, it will be perfectly preserved under a regular plastic one.
By the way! There is a myth that honey collected by bees in the mountains is better than ordinary, flat honey. In fact, the whole advantage lies in the environmental friendliness of such mountain nectar. But the concentration of nutrients does not depend at all on the height of the places where it was collected. A good beekeeper even on the plain will find a clean place away from roads and industrial facilities and can even agree with farmers or an agronomist of an agricultural enterprise to place an apiary near flowering fields (this is beneficial to everyone). If you trust the seller and you know that the bees did not collect nectar along the roadways, then you can be sure that such honey is in no way inferior to mountain honey. How to distinguish real honey from fake - look at the video:
[media = https://www.youtube.com/watch? v = TJxzf_IWyOo] Now you know how to identify a fake honey, apply your knowledge in practice, and you will never fall for the tricks of unscrupulous sellers. And compliance with the storage rules will keep your sweet purchase from spoiling.
