I watched a documentary, "Rotten", that explored the various methods of honey adulteration. The high demand for honey with the sharp decline in honeybees are a concern.
Seems such practice of honey adulteration is widely practiced.
As consumers, how can we know pure honey from altered ones?
" The water method
Pour some water into a glass and place a spoonful of the honey you want to test into it. Lightly jiggle the glass. If the honey liquefies and begins to mix with the water it is not pure. On the other hand if the honey just settles at the bottom of the glass in a lump it is pure.
The fire method
You will require a candle with a cotton wick for this method. Dip the wick of the candle into the honey you want to test and try lighting the candle with a matchstick. If the wick burns the honey is pure, however if it doesn’t burn that means water has been added to the honey" (https://tribune.com.pk/story/1408955/three-ways-test-honey-youre-buying-pure/ )
Thanks for sharing, but are such methods "scientifically" proven or just expert advice?
" Test additional claims yourself. There are many anecdotes floating around about different ways you can test honey for purity, and many of them have not been scientifically tested. If you think something sounds plausible, try testing a jar of honey you think is pure. Then mix it with agave syrup, sugar syrup, or some other added sugar and perform the same test. If you consistently get different results with the diluted syrup than with the pure honey, the test might be useful. Keep in mind that no one household test can detect every possible additive in honey, however.
- Honey purchased at a farmers' market or from a local beekeeper is more likely to be pure.
- Honeycombs are more likely to be pure, since they are taken straight from the beehive. However, some beekeepers feed their bees artificial sugar or syrup, which can make them produce adulterated honey directly in the honeycomb.
- Crystallized or granulated honey may be more likely to be pure, since some common sugar additives may not crystallize properly. This is not a reliably test, however. Learning how to liquify honey is invaluable if you choose to buy crystallized honey.
- Scientists who analyze honey use a mass spectrometer to separate the molecules in the honey, detecting different types (isotopes) of carbon molecules associated with different sugars in a process called stable isotope ratio analysis.[8] Even then, some added syrups may still go undetected"( https://www.wikihow.com/Verify-the-Purity-of-Honey ).
" ( Wang, S., Guo, Q., Wang, L., Lin, L., Shi, H., Cao, H., & Cao, B. (2015). Detection of honey adulteration with starch syrup by high performance liquid chromatography. Food chemistry, 172, 669-674)
Abstract
According to saccharide profile comparison between starch syrups and pure honeys analysed through high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), a characteristic peak was found at 15.25 min retention time in HPLC chromatogram of syrup, but no peak was observed at the same retention time in chromatogram of pure honeys. This characteristic peak for syrup was identified as an overlapping peak of oligosaccharides with more than 5 degree of polymerisation (DP) based on HPLC chromatogram comparison between starch syrup and a series of standard mono-, di- and oligosaccharides of 3–7 DP. Additionally syrup content correlated linearly with the height of the characteristic peak of syrup under different slope in two ranges 2.5–7.5% and 10–100%, respectively. Therefore, the characteristic peak at 15.25 min retention time can serve as a syrup indicator in HPLC analysis of the adulterated honeys. This new HPLC method for honey adulteration detection was further applied in an authenticity inspection on more than 100 commercial honeys. In addition to the improved accuracy of honey adulteration detection, the proposed HPLC method was simple, low cost and easy practice for honey product quality control by government department considering the popularity of HPLC device and technology".
Hi Mohamad-Hani Temsah
A lot of expert views and methods have been proposed to test for honey quality (link 1). For a scientific perspective, honey could be tested for quality using their sucrose content through with derivatization solid-phase microextraction and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Other scientifically proven methods include stable carbon isotopic ratio analysis, High-Performance Anion-Exchange Chromatography, HPLC, NMR and a lot more (link 2-5).
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-and-easiest-method-to-check-whether-honey-is-pure-or-not
https://academic.oup.com/chromsci/article/53/9/1427/307719
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165993616300954
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021967312017979?via%3Dihub
https://www.apidologie.org/articles/apido/abs/2002/03/10/10.html
Pure honey is a natural product made by honey bees and should not come from the factory.
One of the best and easy way to know about the quality and provenience of honey is to first analyse samples under the microscope. Determine the number and identity of pollen grains. Each flower has its own type of pollen, the morphology of a pollen from a cactus is different from the one of rape seeds for example and the taste of the sample of course can tell you a lot…
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