How to find out which honey is real. Ways to check honey for naturalness at home

They learned to fake bee honey a long time ago. Previously, to falsify this product, they used ordinary sugar, water, dyes and flavors. This list has grown over time. Now, invert syrup, molasses, various impurities and chemicals are used to make a fake.

Now control over the quality of honey is a state responsibility. But some people prefer to buy not in stores, but from private individuals. Of course, such honey is not tested for quality. In order to independently distinguish natural honey from fake, you should know some tricks.

How to distinguish natural honey from artificial?

Each buyer must learn to recognize real honey from counterfeit. A natural bee product must comply with some mandatory points:

1. Persistent aroma, in which there are notes of wax, nectar, pollen, sweetness.
2. Natural honey can be stored for a long time without changing its consistency.
3. A real bee elixir has a viscous, rather thick consistency, regardless of the time of its collection. When rubbed with fingers, it quickly and easily absorbs into the skin. In this case, there should be no lumps left.

How to distinguish fake honey from natural?

The first step is to give the product a visual evaluation. A clear sign that explains how to distinguish honey from a fake is a liquid consistency, which indicates that the product was most likely diluted with syrup. Also, the presence of a large amount of white color in honey indicates the dilution with sugar syrup.

Fake honey can give out the presence of the following indicators:

• heterogeneous consistency;
• uneven color;
• the presence of sediment at the bottom of the container.

How else can you distinguish natural honey?

For this, there are special methods of determination, the effectiveness of which has been tested by time.

One of the most accessible methods is the napkin method. For its implementation, it is necessary to drop honey on a paper surface. If the honey is natural, then a wet spot should not form next to the drop. This is a clear indicator of quality. A real bee elixir lays down in the form of a slide, after which it gradually spreads.

A quality product should stretch from a spoon for a long time, forming a thin long thread.

Natural honey can be, as it were, wound on a spoon. With such actions, it will not immediately drain.

Fake or "fake" honey has at least one of the following features:

1. The presence of a sour smell or the complete absence of aroma.
2. Does not cause a slight burning sensation in the throat.
3. Peel off.
4. Foaming.
5. Has a rough texture.

How to distinguish fake fireweed honey?

Fireweed honey is obtained as a result of the collection of nectar from the fireweed flower by bees. Often such a product has a white color and a specific smell. However, it is very different from ordinary honey and all of the above signs of a poor-quality product do not apply to it.

Fake fireweed honey can be identified by the presence of colorants and chemical additives. To determine, you need to take two hundred grams of honey and a little more than a glass of water. Mix thoroughly and add a few drops of ammonia. The subsequent formation of a precipitate indicates that the honey is adulterated.

When buying any kind of honey, you should pay attention to the price. If its market value is clearly underestimated, then most likely the product is of poor quality. At a low price, sugar syrup is often put up for sale, tinted with tea leaves and mixed with a small amount of real honey.

Those who want to lose weight come to the rescue. Well, those who are not worried about the problems of excess weight can treat themselves to a piece of honey cake. It should be noted that only natural honey has the most valuable properties. Unfortunately, at present, some beekeepers are not chasing the quality of the product, but the volume. As a result of dishonesty, it has become quite easy to come across a fake and, under the guise of honey, acquire something that does not even smell like honey. Today you will learn how to determine the quality of honey at home.

The ideal option would be to determine the quality of honey at the time of purchase, then you can protect yourself not only from wasting money, but also from a purchase that will not bring you any benefit. It is known that some simply feed the bees with sugar to increase the volume of honey. In terms of taste, such honey practically does not differ from flower honey, however, in terms of useful properties, it clearly lags behind. There are several recommendations for choosing honey, we have already introduced you to them, but it will not be superfluous to repeat them. So, you can determine the quality of a beekeeping product by the following criteria:

Color

The color of honey depends on its variety and can vary from light yellow to brown. Flower varieties are usually light, linden honey has an amber color, while buckwheat honey gives off a brown color. At the same time, honey should be transparent, without sediment, if the product is cloudy, then this indicates that it contains additives. Often in honey there are bee products - bees, pieces of honeycombs, this should not alarm you, since this is a sure sign of the high quality of honey.

Aroma

Natural honey has a distinct smell that cannot be confused with any other. If honey is characterized by a slightly perceptible aroma, then most likely you have a product with added sugar.

Viscosity

You can also determine the quality of honey by its viscosity. Scoop honey with a spoon and lift it above the plane, natural honey will stretch with a continuous thread and form a slowly spreading hill on the surface of the honey.

Consistency

Anyone who has tasted natural honey at least once will confirm that the product had a delicate texture. Take a drop of honey and try to rub it between your fingers. If the product is absorbed, then this is a sure sign of its high quality; fake honey will roll into lumps during such manipulation.

Taste

And of course, the naturalness of the product can be established by tasting honey. Real honey has a tart-sweet taste. Taste a little honey, if you were treated to a natural product, then you will definitely have a tickle in your throat.

If you do not trust your senses, but are accustomed to relying only on research results, then you can also determine the quality of honey at home empirically.

How to check the naturalness of honey with water

Place a teaspoon of honey in warm water. If the bee nectar melted in a short time, and does not lie in a lump at the bottom of the glass, then you can be sure of the quality of the product.

Tea with honey is not only a delicious drink, but also an excellent method for determining the quality of honey.
If you dip a spoonful of honey into tea, the natural product will immediately turn dark.

Milk with honey will help with coughing and will identify a poor-quality product

It is known that you can get rid of a cough if you undergo a course of treatment with milk and honey. However, this will help not only cure the disease, but also determine the quality of honey. So, if you add unnatural honey to milk, it will curdle.

How to check the naturalness of honey with a blotter

Take a piece of a blotting paper or napkin and put some honey on it. After a couple of minutes, look at the back of the paper. If a watery speck was found, then the poor quality of honey will have to be stated.

Iodine and vinegar - indicators of the quality of honey

Fill a glass with warm water and dissolve a teaspoon of honey in it. After that, add a couple of drops of iodine to the liquid. If after a few minutes the water in the glass turns blue, this indicates that the honey contains starch.

Instead of iodine, vinegar can be added to water with honey. This will determine if the product contains chalk. As a rule, in the presence of foreign impurities, the water in the glass begins to hiss and boil.

How to check the quality of honey with bread

Can determine the quality of honey and a piece of stale bread. Dip the bread in a container with honey. If the bread becomes soft after a few minutes, then you have to admit that the honey is not natural.
The quality of honey can be judged by spreading it on a piece of bread. As a rule, a natural product lays down in an even layer, does not drip from the edges and quickly turns soft bread into hard bread.

Heating is an effective method for determining the quality of honey

Fill a tablespoon with honey and heat it over the fire. The natural product will char, honey containing impurities will ignite.

Chemical pencil will help to identify low-quality honey

Smear a drop of honey on a piece of not very thick paper and draw a chemical pencil over it. The appearance of blue stains indicates that the honey contains flour or starch.

Time will put everything in its place

If you don't want to experiment, you can just leave the medok alone for a few months. Time will do everything for you! So, if after a couple of months the honey began to thicken and crystallize, then this indicates that the product is natural. If honey remains liquid even after six months, it means that it contains a large amount of fructose. If the honey does not thicken, but separates into two layers - liquid and thick, then be sure that you have purchased an unripened product. Of course, it does not pose a health hazard, but it is characterized by a short shelf life.

We are sure that after all that has been said, it will not be difficult for you to determine the quality of honey, and if necessary, you can easily bring the seller-beekeeper to clean water.

Probably everyone has heard about the benefits of bee products. Such natural gifts can heal the body, prevent a variety of diseases and pathologies, and even treat some of them. Medications based on bee products can be purchased at any pharmacy or prepared at home. And the most popular of them is considered to be honey - a tasty and very healthy delicacy. But, unfortunately, today it is very difficult to find really high-quality honey. Therefore, the topic of our today's conversation will be honey fakes and how to determine them, let's talk about how to distinguish a fake honey from a real one.

Fake honey can be purchased anywhere - both from resellers and from manufacturers. At the same time, the average consumer will not even be able to distinguish them from each other. Let's try to understand not only the differences between real honey, but also the variety of existing fakes.

What are fakes?

The most “natural” fake is honey with various additives, for example, with essential oil. Such a trick helps unscrupulous sellers pass honey off as another variety.

Also, for the manufacture of fakes, starch, molasses or sucrose and other components can be used. In some cases, honey is forged so professionally that it is simply impossible to find out on your own. So unscrupulous beekeepers feed bees with sugar syrup, which increases the productivity of insects. In this case, only a laboratory helps to identify a fake.

Therefore, in order to get one hundred percent high-quality honey, it is better to buy it from beekeepers you trust.

How to distinguish natural honey from a fake by eye?

Sometimes too low a price indicates a fake. If you suddenly have the opportunity to buy honey cheaper, think about the reasons for the reduced price. Saving, you can buy only a part of real honey, mixed with sugar syrup and tinted with tea.

The liquid consistency of honey may also indicate a fake. This natural sweetness remains liquid for only a few months, then it gradually thickens. So in winter it is almost impossible to find liquid honey if you come across just such a honey - perhaps it is diluted or heated.

Also, a fake may be indicated by the presence of too much white in such a product. This phenomenon may indicate that the sweetness was diluted with sugar syrup.

Insufficient quality honey may look too dark, and it may also have a caramel flavor. A similar phenomenon indicates that the sweetness was warmed up or straightened. So, for example, dark buckwheat honey can be melted and sold as fresh.

Please note that the crystallization of honey is a natural phenomenon. In the event that such sweetness is stored for a long time, it may well be that potato molasses was mixed into it or heat treatment was carried out in the past. Usually this feature becomes apparent after the purchase, but if you find it, you will be able to refrain from buying from this beekeeper in the future. It should be noted that in autumn you can still buy liquid honey - chestnut and white acacia honey.

Also, fermentation, stratification of honey or the acquisition of an ugly forked texture by it can also indicate a fake.

You should not focus on the presence of bee corpses, pieces of wax or grass in honey. They do not indicate the naturalness of the product, because the seller can add them to the product on purpose.

How to identify fake honey at home?

Every year, manufacturers of "fake" bee products invent more and more new methods of masking fakes. However, there are several methods that will help you find out how high-quality honey is in front of you.

mechanical research

Try rubbing honey between your fingers. A high-quality delicacy sticks well, it forms an adhesive film. If you get a fake in your hands, you may have a feeling of excessive moisture. Also, a fake can form a lump that can be rolled in your fingers.

When falling from a whisk or spoon, honey will not splatter. Just put a small drop on a napkin - it should not spread. In this case, the honey will stretch from the spoon with a thin thread, and the last drop will spring and pull up.
A high-quality honey mixture will lie down in a slide, and only then it will spread.

A simple method with iodine and water (or vinegar)

Pour some honey into a glass, pour some water into it. Mix well. If there are additives in the honey, they will sink to the bottom.
Drop a couple of drops of iodine into a glass and stir. If the mixture suddenly turns blue, then starch is present in the honey.
You can also drop a little vinegar into the solution. If suddenly something hisses, it means that there is chalk in the honey.

Some more chemical experiments

Prepare a five to ten percent solution of honey and combine it with medical alcohol in a ratio of 4: 1. When a white precipitate appears, conclusions can be drawn about the presence of sugar syrup in the solution.

Also, methyl alcohol can be added to the honey solution - when a yellowish-white precipitate appears, one can draw conclusions about the presence of impurities in the honey.

The spoon method

This is a simple test method that can be performed in a fairly warm room - with a temperature of at least twenty degrees. Take an ordinary spoon and wind honey around it, making quick rotational movements. The all-natural product will behave like caramel - it will wrap around the spoon and won't drip. If you have a fake in your hands, it may start to flow from a spoon, bubbles or blotches of some other color may appear in it.

paper method

To determine the naturalness of honey using paper - put a small amount of honey on a piece of paper and wait for five minutes. In the event that a wet spot does not appear on the back of the leaf, the honey is of really high quality and has not been diluted. It is quite possible to resort to this method of verification at the fair - take some honey on a stick and put it on a piece of paper.

fire method

This method of determining the quality of honey will help to determine the authenticity of crystallized honey. Set fire to a small piece and carefully watch how it burns. In the event that you have one hundred percent high-quality honey in your hands, it will simply melt. If you come across a fake, it will crackle and hiss (this is how other foreign components will appear).

The bread method

This method allows you to find out if there is sugar syrup in honey. Just take a small slice of bread and dip it in honey. Wait for ten to fifteen minutes, then remove and inspect a piece of bread. A really high-quality product will not soften the bread, and if it contains sugar syrup, the bread will get wet.

advice from beekeepers

When choosing honey, give preference to its thicker varieties. If the product has a transparent consistency, it may well be that it was warmed up by the seller.

What varieties of honey do not exist?

Many beekeepers, as well as resellers, invent varieties of honey or distribute those that are especially rare. Let's take a look at the more troubling options.

Honey from royal jelly. It is very difficult and almost impossible to obtain such honey in such a volume that it would be possible to sell it. One mother liquor contains no more than two hundred grams of milk, and special efforts are needed to create a dessert. But sellers of sweets with such a big name have a reason to put an especially high price on it.

It is impossible to purchase honey from wild rose, corn, hazel or poppy. The flowers of these plants do not produce nectar. It is also impossible to get chamomile honey.

You should be alerted and honey from strawberries, blackberries or blueberries. To get natural honey using nectar from these shrubs, you need to spend a lot of time and effort, because they give very little nectar. But unscrupulous beekeepers can feed bees with berry juice, and insects process it like nectar. The resulting honey is not as useful as natural, but the sellers do not talk about it.

Also, do not buy honey from milk thistle, pumpkin and silver sucker. Mentions of the so-called "wild" honey or the predominance of "flower" varieties of honey from the seller can also alert.

More tips from a beekeeper

Be sure to taste honey before buying, and also smell it. Feel free to ask clarifying questions - about when the honey was collected, and about where the apiary is located. Bee products cost a lot of money, so you have the right to full information.

High-quality honey has a pleasant floral smell, as well as a sweet and pleasant taste. There are varieties of bee products that are characterized by a rather original taste. If you are going to buy just such, find out before that what taste and aroma they should have.

But most often, honey smells like a honeycomb - wax, nectar and pollen, as well as sweetness and, of course, honey. A low-quality product may have a particularly strong smell, sometimes there is no fragrance at all.

When swallowed, honey can sting a little in the throat, and also give a slight bitterness.

Be sure to ask about the weight of the purchased honey - one liter of a quality beekeeping product weighs an average of 1.4 kg.

Store the purchased treat in a dark or opaque glass or ceramic container. Close the jar tightly with a lid, because honey can absorb an extraneous odor. It is best that the storage temperature is between five and twenty degrees. In no case should you store honey in the sun.

It is not difficult to buy high-quality natural honey if you know how to choose it. You can avoid buying a fake bee product by learning a few tricks. About ways to distinguish real honey from a fake and what methods to use for this, read our material.

Any buyer should be able to recognize real honey and be able to distinguish it from a fake. Sometimes it happens that, focusing only on the appearance in the bank, a person buys a product, and when he comes home, he does not notice the substitution for a long time. Natural bee elixir must meet several mandatory points. Which one, see below:

1. First of all, you need to determine if there is a persistent smell. The aroma coming from the jar will always tell you which product is in front of you - real or fake. Honey, in which there are no syrups, which have not been boiled and mixed with various additives, smells like a honeycomb from a beehive - wax, nectar, pollen, sweetness, directly honey.
2. Natural sweetness is stored for a very long time without changing the taste, while fake goods almost always deteriorate, either begin to ferment, or delaminate and acquire an ugly forked texture.
3. The consistency of liquid bee gold is always quite thick, even if the mass is recently collected. A texture that is too thin indicates that the substance was diluted or collected too early.
4. Delicious in present condition, does not deteriorate after crystallization. Different varieties can thicken in different ways, it's all about storage conditions. Crystals can be either very small or quite large. But there should not be too large sugar "snowflakes" in the bee mass.
5. The weight of mature honey is at least 1.4 kilograms per liter.

How not to be confused with a fake?

So, how to determine that you have a counterfeit product? Pay attention to how the honey lies in the jar. This product should not delaminate. The homogeneity of the mass without sediment and foam, uniform color and the absence of large bubbles inside the jar indicates that the honey was stored in the right conditions.

Do not be afraid to taste or even rub the mass between your fingers. A real delicacy sticks well and forms an adhesive film, but a fake one leaves a feeling of excess moisture.

Honey should not splatter when dropped from a whisk or spoon. It is easy to distinguish a watery substance from a fake - put a small drop on a napkin. If a wet mark has formed near the stain, the mass is clearly diluted. A drop of this delicacy will keep its shape for a long time. This method is good for home use.

When tasting honey, scoop it with a spoon or a special whisk from the very bottom of the jar or other container in which it is poured. So you can find out if there is a candied layer below (if the container is opaque). If the bottom is thickened and the top is liquid, perhaps this is not a fake, but a mixture of several varieties.

You should not take such a product either, since mixing old, more mature and fresh honey can lead to a deterioration in taste. Thus, in order to distinguish a good product from a counterfeit, ordinary observation is also required.

If you can’t distinguish a fake from the original on your own, use the advice of experienced beekeepers.

Video "Distinguishing a real product from a fake"

Expert advice on how to distinguish natural honey without buying counterfeit. These recommendations and secrets will help you buy a really worthwhile product, the taste of which has no equal!

From a fake, because today on the market you can buy both high-quality and fake ones.

There are so many useful properties of honey that it is simply impossible to list them all. Honey is eaten, used in the cosmetic field, with its help they treat the throat and get rid of hematomas, they are used as an additional remedy in the fight against many diseases from the simplest to the most terrible.

Naturally, such versatility and popularity attracts many scammers and speculators selling low-quality honey. The buyer of honey needs to learn how to distinguish honey from a fake, so as not to get into a mess.

honey groups

Honey is divided into three groups according to:

• Origin;
• Manufacturing method;
• Taste, color and texture.

Origin of honey

1. flower honey harvested only from the nectar of flowers, getting a high-quality, tasty product with many useful properties.

• If nectar is collected by a bee by 50% from a single plant, it is called monofloral.
• If from different flowers growing in a garden or in a meadow, then honey is polyfloral.

2.honeydew honey bees do not produce from the nectar of flowers, but from honeydew (sweet juice that the leaves secrete) and honeydew (discharge in the form of liquid sweet drops of grass aphids, mealybugs, celandine fleas). This type of honey is used for processing.

Manufacturing methods

Depending on this parameter, honey happens:

• Gravity flowing from honeycombs;
• Pressed pressed;
• Centrifugal, that is, pumped out by a centrifuge.

It is the latter method that is used more often and transparent pure honey is obtained.

Consistency, color and taste

Honey is liquid or thick in consistency. The color varies from light yellowish to brown, depending on the nectar collected by the bees from the flowers.

All types of honey have a sweet taste, but some of the varieties have a specific taste (tobacco, chestnut and willow varieties have a bitter taste, and heather varieties are astringent). Any deviations in the taste of honey indicate its poor quality. Other taste defects may be due to the presence of impurities. Excessive acidity may be due to the onset of fermentation, the aroma of caramel is the result of heating honey, bitterness is due to improper storage conditions.

Linden honey

Light yellow, crystallizes easily, has a characteristic smell of linden flowers.

Acacia honey

Transparent, light, more liquid, with a slight aroma of acacia. Crystallizes slowly.

Buckwheat honey

Bright brown color, with a characteristic smell and slight bitterness.

Field and meadow honey

Light amber or brown in color, with a very pleasant smell and taste. It has almost all medicinal properties.

fruit honey

Collected from berry and fruit crops. Light amber, with a delicate smell and taste. Has dietary properties.

sunflower honey

Golden yellow color, pleasant taste, crystallizes quickly. Anti-allergic, but inferior in medicinal properties to the main types of honey.

Types of fake honey

• Natural honey with additives;
• Honey from non-nectar products;
• Artificial honey.

Natural honey with additives

Often dealers dilute natural honey with additives. It could be sugar syrup tea leaves, starch, chalk, sand and other. Additives may appear unnaturally light or too dark in color or have a caramel-like consistency. Honey becomes cloudy or has sediment.

Honey from non-nectar products

Another type of poor-quality product is honey that is not obtained from nectar. Bees are fed with sugar syrup, receiving processed sugar. To understand how to distinguish honey from a fake, you need to smell it (the smell is similar to sweet water) and try it (sugar crystals or powder will remain in your mouth).

Artificial "honey"

They also prepare completely artificial honey. Sugar syrup with acid is boiled, it is purified with soda, starch and various flavors are added. All this has a sugary taste, may exfoliate or have lumps.

Also, a suspiciously low price indicates a sure sign of a fake. Honey is a costly product and, therefore, expensive. Having met honey at a seductive price on the market, it is best not to rush to buy it, but first think: why does the beekeeper, having spent so much effort to obtain honey, sell it so cheaply? The likelihood that this is a low-quality product, consisting of additives to natural honey, or, even worse, completely artificial, is very high.

How to distinguish honey from a fake on the market

Every year the number of unscrupulous manufacturers and resellers is only growing. And it becomes more difficult to distinguish a natural product from an artificial one. Often visually it is even simply impossible to do. Therefore, other ways have been devised to distinguish honey from a fake.

For an ordinary buyer, there are several simple ways to distinguish honey from a fake.

• Real honey, when you try it, will dissolve evenly and without residue in your mouth, there will be no crystals or powdered sugar on your tongue. Also, after real honey, there will be a little tickle in the throat.
• You can calculate a fake using a glass of water and iodine. Add a little honey to a glass, then water and stir it all. Additives in this case will settle at the bottom. If, when a drop of iodine is added to the solution, the color of the solution turns blue, then starch is present in the "honey".
• You can use the method with a spoon, winding honey on it quickly. Natural honey will become like caramel, twisting without dripping from a spoon. And if it drains, and even bubbles or changes color, then there are obviously additives.
• If honey is allowed to drain from a spoon, natural honey will flow in a continuous stream and lie down in a hill, an intermittent stream and the absence of a slide indicate a fake.
• If you drop a little honey on the paper and leave it for five minutes, the appearance of a wet spot on the reverse side will give out a fake (diluted honey).
• If the surface of the honey is sprinkled with starch, the resulting white film will show that the honey is real. If the starch is absorbed, it is a fake.
• Crystallized honey is sometimes tried to be set on fire. Normal melting will show that the quality is good, and hissing and crackling will indicate the presence of additional components.
• Having smeared a small piece of paper with honey, it is set on fire. A good product will not burn, melt or turn brown.
• Add vinegar to a spoon with honey, if it foams, this means that chalk is present in the "honey".
• A good way to distinguish natural honey from a fake is a regular piece of bread. Dip it in honey for 10-15 minutes. If after this time the bread remains not softened, then everything is in order. If the bread is softened, sugar water is added to the "honey".
• Some scammers manage to add gelatin to increase viscosity. To check honey for the presence of gelatin to 5 ml. aqueous solution of honey add 5-10 drops of 5% tannin solution. The formation of white flakes will indicate the presence of gelatin in honey.

What varieties of honey do not exist?

Some varieties of honey, by their name, should cause caution. Consider several non-existent varieties of "honey".

It is impossible to purchase honey from wild rose, chamomile, corn, lupine, hazel or poppy. The flowers of these plants do not produce nectar.

Honey from royal jelly does not exist, there is a mixture of royal jelly with honey, but it is very difficult to make it at home, and almost impossible to sell.

May honey in the northern regions of Russia - a real beekeeper will not collect in the month of May, since the bees only feed at this time.

From, strawberries, blackberries - plants contain nectar in very small quantities, so it is very difficult to make it for sale. Such honey on the market indicates that the bees were fed with the appropriate juice, which means that the product is of poor quality and it is better not to buy such honey.

You can get honey from pumpkin, but due to the presence of pesticides in it, it can be dangerous.

Real honey has a floral aroma, a pleasant taste, which can be slightly bitter and sore in the throat. Armed with ways to distinguish honey from a fake in appearance and all of the above parameters, you will not fall for a fake, and will use only a high-quality natural product.

When choosing honey for yourself, prefer thicker varieties. If the product has a transparent consistency, it may well be that it was warmed up by the seller.