How to distinguish natural honey from fake. • Artificial honey

Liquid natural honey can only be within a month after it was collected. The honey collection lasts from the end of July to the end of September. If in winter they offer you liquid honey, it is most likely unnatural. High-quality real honey should thicken and begin to crystallize by this point.

2. Check if the honey is foaming

If honey foams on the surface, it means that fermentation processes are taking place in it. It begins when the volume of water in honey exceeds 20%. This honey is definitely not natural.

3. Smell the honey

Natural honey always has a characteristic smell. If the honey smells nothing, it has been produced artificially.

4. Check if the honey is stratifying

Take a close look at the container with honey and check if the mass is homogeneous. If the honey seems thicker at the bottom of the jar and thinner at the top, it's fake. Most likely, the manufacturer added an impurity. Often, unscrupulous manufacturers put a mixture of semolina with molasses at the bottom of the can.

5. Pay no attention to the color

Color is not an indicator of the quality of honey, it can only speak about its variety. For example, buckwheat and cherry honey are usually dark brown, while acacia honey is light. Other varieties of honey can be dark amber, amber, light yellow, and even almost white color.

Greetings to all honey lovers.
Everyone who buys Bee Honey at the market or honey fair at the beekeeper's, he wants to be sold natural honey, real. In this article, we will look at how to check the quality of honey at home for naturalness. different ways: matches, using water and iodine, vinegar, milk and chemical pencil.

Some signs of low-quality honey.

How to identify a fake when buying, what to look for and what you need to remember in order to buy real natural honey. How to choose real and not fake honey?

• Honey has an amber luster and crystal transparency (it was heated, and it has already lost its beneficial properties).
• When poured into a container, honey foams (most likely, it is not ripe).
• The aroma is not felt and the honey is unnaturally white (most likely, honey with an admixture of sugar).
• If the container from which the honey is collected is plastic, copper or galvanized (in this case, the honey will not be stored for a long time and there are toxic impurities in it).
• Liquid on top, and thick below (the so-called bundle). And also if the honey is liquid in late autumn, winter, spring (not candied). An exception is May honey.
• When sampled, honey has a bitter, sour or caramel taste, undissolved grains will remain in the mouth (it should tear the throat slightly).
• Rub between your fingers, if grains remain between them, and the skin is sticky - fake honey (in real honey, the crystals will dissolve and the honey will be completely absorbed into the skin).
• Scoop it up with a spoon and pour it back, the fake will drip from the spoon, forming splashes (should descend in a continuous thread and “stack” in layers, and Last straw pulls back to the spoon).
• When weighed, a liter of honey weighs less than 1.4 kg (most likely, it is immature or fake).

How honey is faked.

In order to gain profit, dishonest producers use such methods to hide the authenticity of honey:

• The bees are fed sugar syrup. In honey obtained in this way, there are little useful substances.
• Bred honey sugar syrup and molasses, with the addition of citric acid.
• Evaporate the juices of watermelon, melon, grapes. It turns out a viscous mass.
• For density, flour, starch, chalk, sand and even sawdust are added.

How to check honey for naturalness.

How to check honey at home if you were given it as a gift, or if you bought it in a hurry, and then began to doubt its authenticity?

First of all, we pay attention to the smell and taste. Natural honey conveys the aroma of the plant from which the nectar is collected.

After tasting it, honey literally melts in your mouth and has a pleasant taste. rich taste, no solid particles should be felt. When swallowed, it feels like honey is slightly bitter. This is confirmation that the product is natural.

If this is not enough for you, then let's take a closer look at how to check if honey is real and if there is sugar in honey.

How to check honey with iodine and water for the presence of starch and flour?

Make a solution of honey with water, if the honey is natural, the solution will turn out without sediment. Drop 2-3 drops of iodine into it, it should not turn blue. If there is an admixture in the form of starch or flour in honey, iodine will react with it and the solution will turn blue. pure honey does not react to iodine, it will not change color. like this in an easy way you can test honey with iodine.

How to check honey with vinegar for the presence of chalk?

Dilute honey with water, drip 2-3 drops vinegar essence. If the solution foams, you have a fake. An admixture in the form of chalk was added to the "honey". The vinegar reacts with the chalk and the solution boils.

Checking honey with a piece of paper or napkin.

Apply honey to paper or napkin. If wet spots form around the honey, it is diluted.

Checking honey with a piece of stale bread.

Dip a piece in honey stale bread. After 8-10 minutes, it should remain the same hard, and not soften.

How to test honey with matches or fire?

Bringing a lit match to the honey, the fire will make the quality honey melt first, and only then hiss.
You can also smear some honey on a sheet of paper and set it on fire, nothing will happen to natural honey, it will become liquid, will not burn and will not change color. If there is a smell when burning burnt sugar, so it's fake, not real honey.

Test with heated stainless steel wire.

Heat a stainless steel wire and dip it in honey. Good honey will stay on the metal and not flow back.

You can test honey for sugar with milk.

Using hot milk, you can check the naturalness of honey for clotting or whether sugar has been added to honey.
Natural honey dissolves in milk, but does not curdle, if it curdles, then honey is a fake, which means it was made using burnt sugar.

This video describes in detail and shows with examples how to check natural honey or not at home and how to cook artificial honey.

Ripe and unripe honey.

The fact is that the concept of natural honey is not always unambiguous. Honey must be necessarily ripe, which means that the water content in it is not more than 20%.

The beekeeper determines this simply. Ripened honey is in sealed cells of honeycombs, and there it must stand for a certain time, that is, to ripen.

If beekeepers pump out frames with incompletely sealed combs, they get unripe honey.
And it seems that honey is natural, but not of high quality, which affects its shelf life and worsens its properties. He might just wander off.

What is honey?

The types of honey depend not so much on which inflorescences of plants or fruit trees the bees collected nectar from, but on the admixture of pollen from these plants in honey.
It is the amount of pollen in honey that directly affects the quality of honey.
The more pollen in honey, the faster honey will crystallize, but this does not mean that the honey is not natural.
Therefore, when buying honey, we must first of all pay attention to the consistency, color, viscosity, aroma.

We determine honey by appearance and color.

The shade of honey depends entirely on which plant the nectar is collected from.

TO dark varieties honey is mountainous from yellow to light brown and buckwheat honey(dark).

The rest of the varieties are lighter in color. For example, clover honey is the lightest or most transparent, and forbs have a golden yellow to yellow-brown hue.

Flower honey is usually light yellow in color, there is little pollen in such honey, it is fragrant, fluid, like any honey it has a calming and antiseptic effect. These include sweet clover, white locust, esparcet, akkuray honey.

Honey thick consistency, high viscosity, fragrant with elevated content pollen. Such varieties of honey include linden honey (light yellow), sunflower honey (light amber).

Beekeepers feed their bees with sugar syrup in the spring to increase the strength of the colony and this is normal, but if you overdo it, then the honey mostly consists of sugar syrup, and subsequently has a white color.

Such honey has a low viscosity, liquid, has sweet taste, no fragrance. You can use it for food. The sugar content in such honey will not bring harm, but it does not have those useful properties that natural honey.

Candied honey, what does it mean?

If you bought liquid honey and after a month or two it thickened, then this is not unusual. The thickened honey began to crystallize from the abundance of pollen in it. Crystallized (shrunken) honey becomes natural liquid honey as early as 2–3 months after it has been pumped out. The type of honey depends on the size of the sugar crystals. Crystals can be seen in honey with the naked eye. Crystallized honey does not lose its properties. It is just hard to get it out of the dishes where it is stored.

Turbid honey.

When honey is pumped out, bee pollen gets into it and the honey becomes a little cloudy. Perga is a protein. Bee pollen in the hive is used to feed the larvae. Therefore, perga only improves nutritional properties honey.

Fall honey.

The variety of honey is honeydew honey. If the apiary is far from honey plants, then the bees will be forced to collect honeydew honey.

His bees collect:

• from the leaves or stems of plants (sweet, sticky liquid) such as cherries, apricots, pears;
• with the release of insects (aphids, mealybugs, psyllids);
• bees gather from honeydew sweet juice, which is released on the leaves of plants;
• from the leaves of needles, fir, roses from secretions that appear under the influence of a sharp change in temperature.

By what features can honeydew honey be distinguished from ordinary flower honey?

Honeydew honey can be distinguished from flower honey by taste, smell or visually. Honeydew honey has a moderate sweetness, the taste is bitter. From the point of view of experts, bitterness is the main difference between honeydew honey and flower honey. Honey collected from coniferous plants has the aroma of these plants and is pleasant to the taste. Honeydew honey has a peculiar color from dark brown to black.
Of the properties, it can be noted that honeydew honey crystallizes more slowly than flower honey, or does not crystallize at all, quickly turns sour, liquid fraction sedimentation is possible.

Unripe honey.

Too liquid honey is an indication that the honey is immature or falsified.
If water is released from the honey, there is a smell, a precipitate in the form of flakes or powder, signs of fermentation are noticeable, such honey is not natural.

How to check honey with a chemical pencil?

This video shows how to test honey using chemical pencil which, reacting to moisture, writes in blue.

If we buy honey based on long-term storage, then you need to buy flower varieties of honey, collected by bees spring and early summer.

We hope you could find the answer to the question of how to check whether honey is natural or not at home and how to choose real, not fake honey.
All the best!

Bee nectar has been used for a very long time as a medicine. They treat ailments of the respiratory, digestive and circulatory system. In addition, this beekeeping product is used in cosmetology and nutrition. The effectiveness of the product depends on its naturalness. But how do you know real honey or fake? This can be done at home without the use of special reagents and apparatus.

How to determine the quality of honey at home?

First, evaluate the organoleptic properties of the product you are going to purchase. That is, try and smell the product. It should not smell like coffee or have extraneous aromas. The smell must match the type of product. After consumption, there should be a characteristic aftertaste. You should not feel any acidity or bitterness.

Assess the consistency. In spring and summer, almost all bee nectar is in a state of flux. Is real honey candied or not? In autumn and winter, all varieties become very thick, and crystals appear in them. Accordingly, if you are going to purchase nectar in winter, and it is liquid, most likely, the product was drowned to give it presentation. In winter, honey should be thick with crystals.

If you don't know how to check whether honey is real or not, look at its color. The shades of the product vary depending on its variety. So, buckwheat nectar has a dark brown color. There are almost colorless varieties. Please note that immediately after pumping it should not have any sediment. If I notice white grains in the jar that are at the bottom, then I understand that chalk or starch was added to the nectar.

How to test honey with iodine?

Iodine reacts to the presence of starch in the product. To carry out the test, follow the instructions:

• dissolve a teaspoon of the product in 120 ml of warm water;
• it is necessary that the liquid becomes homogeneous;
• put 3-4 drops into the solution alcohol solution iodine;
• observe the color of the liquid;
• if it turned blue or bluish stains appeared, then you were sold a fake.

Flour or starch is added to nectar to increase weight and viscosity. This is necessary if the honey is diluted or even made from sugar.

Linden honey how to identify?

It can be considered their most useful, because it contains terpene compounds that soothe and have antibacterial effect. How to determine the naturalness of honey at home? It is difficult to distinguish this variety of honey from others. Even I can't always tell it apart from other species. But immediately after collection, it is liquid and resembles greenish water. The aroma of the product resembles the smell of linden blossoms. If you want to know how to determine the naturalness of linden honey, you need to conduct a pH test. Simply put, this is the acidity of the product.

Instruction:

• weigh 1 g of nectar and add 10 ml of water to it;
• stir the solution and drop an indicator to it;
• indicator paper can be used;
• linden honey is different from other varieties acidic environment, its pH is 4-5 units.

note

I do not use this method, because I do not always have indicator paper on hand.

Linden nectar is often mixed with royal jelly. A mixture with high biological activity is obtained. Royal jelly is a substance that bees feed to larvae and drones. The uterus also feeds on this food. The composition of royal jelly differs from honey in the content of proteins. The nectar contains a lot of zinc, cobalt and iron. Due to this, the product is used to increase hemoglobin. Honey with royal jelly how to distinguish a fake? To do this, look at the color of the product. It should be almost white. This color is due to the use of shrunken, that is, candied nectar for the preparation of the product. Royal jelly itself is also white. The taste of the product is also different from the usual bee nectar. It is less sweet, maybe even sour.

How to know real honey or not? You can check the quality of nectar with royal jelly at home. Get a small jar and spend a few simple tests. Dissolve the product in water and look for sediment. It shouldn't be. If you find white flakes or sediment, this is a fake. If you know how to test honey with iodine, then test and make sure there are no impurities.

How to check honey is natural or not using vinegar?

I often come across the fact that chalk is added to bee nectar to improve the consistency. To determine the presence of impurities, dissolve the nectar in warm water and add a spoonful of vinegar. If bubbles appear on the surface and you hear a hiss, then your product has been stuffed with chalk.

A lot of controversy arises around the viscosity of nectar. The question often arises, should real honey be candied? Yes, bee nectar is saturated solution. During storage, a small amount of moisture evaporates and the solution becomes supersaturated. Because of this, crystals appear. Suspicion should be caused by the absence of crystals in autumn and winter. So honey was diluted or heated. Do not confuse, the presence of sugar in nectar does not affect its ability to crystallize.

Often, sugar syrup is added to bee nectar. In order not to mess with the bees and not release them to collect nectar, insects can be fed with sugar. There is little benefit from such a product, and you can check the presence of sugar at home.

How to test honey for sugar:

• drop the product on White list paper and leave for 30 minutes;
• look at the paper, if a wet spot has formed around the drop, sugar syrup has been added to the nectar;
• take a little product in a spoon and see how the trickle flows;
• if the product is real, then it will not drip from a spoon, but will flow like a viscous inextricable thread;
• scoop some nectar into a spoon and set it on fire;
• a natural product does not burn, but if it contains sugar, then you will find soot and black marks on the edges of the spoon.

Several ways to check real honey or not

Put honey on your fingers and rub between them. If you feel any grains, you have a fake in front of you. The nectar should be absorbed into the skin. Of great importance is the absence of foam on the product. If you purchased a product immediately after collection and found foam, you have unripe honey in front of you. This means that there is a lot of moisture in it, soon it will just ferment.

Immature honey is usually pumped out by beginners, they are in a hurry to empty the combs and increase the yield. But the nectar in the comb must stand for some time. It "ripens" in the cells and is saturated with natural antibiotics. Due to this, all fermentation processes are suppressed.

Acacia nectar is stored for a very long time and does not thicken, this is due to the low glucose content. fireweed honey also stays liquid for a long time.

If the product does not thicken for a long time, then it was diluted with water. To test for the presence of water in the nectar, drop it on a white napkin. If the drop was absorbed and a wet spot remained, the nectar was diluted. You can test honey for moisture with a piece of bread. Cut off a slice and put it on a plate. Leave for 20 minutes. If the crumb is soaked, and porridge has learned, then there is water in the product. If the product is natural, then honey will be absorbed into the pores of the bread and even give the slice a hardness. These ways to check the quality of honey at home will help you make sure the product is natural.

There are a lot of ways to check the quality of honey, and this can be done at home. After a few simple tests, you can verify the quality of the nectar. It is best to purchase honey from familiar beekeepers.

Going to the market for a sweet bee product, be prepared for the fact that you will come across an unscrupulous seller. Experienced beekeepers know that there are a lot of scammers in the honey business these days. Chasing for easy money, they sell fake to naive buyers. Such a product at first glance looks very attractive. In fact, it turns out that there is a lot chemical additives, thickeners, flavor enhancers, etc.

Fraudsters go to great lengths to attract a buyer and force him to take more “fake” honey. It even happens that there are no impurities in the nectar, the whole product is exclusively from the hive. But the beekeeper fed the bees with sugar syrup, and what do we get in the end? As you understand, there will be no benefit from such a product. According to unofficial data, the market bee products about 80% of the goods are counterfeit.

How to be a simple layman who would be happy to pamper himself healthy sweetness Yes, afraid to run into scammers? After all, it turns out that even when buying honey directly from beekeepers, we are not immune from deception. You should not despair and get upset: beekeepers know a lot of ways to recognize the real, natural honey. By adopting them, you will be more confident and will not let yourself be deceived.

Scales to help

As you know, honey is not sold by weight, but measured in liters. Therefore, some sellers go to the trick and simply dilute the products. This is where scales come to the rescue: liter jar a natural bee product will weigh 1420 grams, while a fake will have less weight. It's all about the water content: real nectar, collected from the flowers of plants, ripens in the comb, after which the water content in it will be no more than 20%.

You probably already guessed that fake honey, diluted with syrup, will contain more water, so the weight finished product will be less. Before buying, ask the seller to put the goods on the scales, but rather use your own.

Taste and color

There is a saying that there are no comrades for the taste and color. Beekeepers agree with her only in part: taste characteristics and the color of honey can be very different and it depends on the forage base. Nectar collected from acacia will have a barely noticeable yellow tint; buckwheat has brown tones; a product collected from herbs will sparkle with green-yellow colors.

What should alert when buying honey? Too bright, unnatural product colors. Remember that this is a marketing ploy, the purpose of which is to get you to make a purchase, and in this case, naturalness and benefits are out of the question. The same applies to the aroma: unnatural and very bright pronounced odor indicates that flavors were used. flower honey does not need amplifiers, it is fragrant in itself.

However, the complete absence of smell indicates that the product is not real. If the bees ate syrup, then where did the herbal aromas come from? So approach the purchase of bee sweets responsibly, because your health depends on it.

Video "How to choose honey?"

More more secrets you will learn how to distinguish natural honey from a fake from the following video (author - Everything will be fine).

Honey is very delicious product, rich useful vitamins and micronutrients. But it only benefits when it is natural. IN Lately many unscrupulous sellers have appeared on the market, so it is important for everyone to know how to distinguish real honey from a fake at home.

Signs of a good product

By appearance it is very difficult to determine whether you are buying a quality one or not. Therefore, to understand whether you bought a good product, for example, in a store in closed jar you can only come home. natural honey have the following characteristics:

1. Quality honey always has wonderful aroma. If the product has no smell or it is sour, then before selling it was boiled or various additives were added.
2. Real honey is always stored for a long time, while not losing or changing its properties. taste qualities. A fake can soon deteriorate and acquire an ugly texture.
3. Natural product thickens over time. Do not confuse damage with natural process thickening. The fact is that some time after the collection ( exact time depends on storage conditions) crystals form in honey. They can be both small and large. It does not matter. But lumps in the product should not form. If they appeared, then, most likely, something was mixed into it.
4. Honey should not be too liquid. After collection, as well as the next 2-3 months, it has quite liquid consistency and that's okay. But even during this period quality product should be at least a little sticky. If it is completely liquid, it was either collected too early, or something was mixed into it.
5. Weight of honey liter jar must be at least 1.4 kg.