Honey has long been famous for its beneficial properties. But it is important not to miscalculate and buy really real natural honey, otherwise there will be no benefit from it.

How to check the quality of honey

1. In order to determine the maturity of liquid (non-sugar, fresh) honey, a spoon is dipped into it and they begin to rotate it. Unripe honey flows from the spoon, and mature honey is wound, lying on the spoon in folds, like a ribbon.

2. Take liquid (non-sugar) honey for a sample by dropping a thin stick into the container. If this is real honey, then it follows the stick with a long, continuous thread, and when this thread breaks, it completely descends, forming a turret on the surface of the honey, a pagoda, which then slowly disperses. Fake honey will behave like glue: it will flow abundantly and drip down from the stick, forming a spray.

3. Quality honey should not foam. Foaminess indicates fermentation, i.e. spoilage of honey. Natural honey cannot ferment, because it is bactericidal.

4. Over time, honey grows cloudy and thickens (candied) - this is a sure sign of good quality. Liquid honey usually occurs in summer (July-August) during the period of its pumping. After a maximum of 1-2 months (depending on the variety), it crystallizes. Therefore, if liquid honey is sold in winter or spring, it means that it is either heated or falsified. It should be remembered that when heated to a temperature of + 40 ° C and above, honey loses its main beneficial properties. In candied natural honey, all the beneficial properties are preserved, and it is undesirable to heat it up or add it to hot dishes and drinks.

Most often, real honey is candied 2-3 weeks after collection. Considering that the last bribe is taken in late September - early October, by October 20, natural honey can only be candied. The exception is honey from white acacia (acacia honey), which does not crystallize for a long time (sometimes until spring), and heather honey, which turns into a jelly-like mass. It happens that honey during storage forms a crystallized layer from below, and from above - syrupy. This indicates that the honey is immature and contains an increased amount of water.

5. Check the smell and taste. Counterfeit honey is usually odorless. Real honey has a fragrant aroma. This smell is incomparable. Honey mixed with sugar has no aroma, and its taste is close to the taste of sweetened water.

6. Determine if the honey contains starch. To do this, put a little honey in a glass, pour boiling water over it, stir and cool. Then add a few drops of iodine there. If the composition turns blue, then starch is added to the honey.

7. The addition of starch syrup can be determined with ammonia, which is added dropwise to a sample of honey previously dissolved in distilled water (1: 2). The solution turns white with a brown precipitate.

8. An admixture of chalk can be found if you add a few drops of vinegar to honey diluted with distilled water. In the presence of chalk, the mixture boils due to the release of carbon dioxide. Or you can just drip vinegar or some other acid on honey. If the honey "boils", then there is chalk.

9. The definition of sucrose (sugar) additives in honey is as follows: dissolve honey in hot distilled water (in extreme cases - boiled) in a ratio of 1: 2 to obtain an easily flowing (fairly liquid) solution. Examine for the detection of mechanical impurities - a solution of natural honey (without introduced insoluble additives) will necessarily be transparent, without sediment and without foreign impurities on the surface. Then carefully add a few drops of silver nitrate solution there, observing the reaction. If the honey is without added sugar, there will be no cloudiness. If sugar is added to the honey, a distinct whitish cloudiness will immediately begin around the drops.

10. The presence of mechanical impurities is determined as follows: we take a sample of honey into a small test tube, add boiled or distilled water and dissolve it. Natural honey dissolves completely, the solution is clear. In the presence of insoluble additives (for falsification), a mechanical impurity will be found on the surface or in the sediment.

11. Another very simple express check: you need to drop honey on paper and set it on fire. The paper burns around, but real high-quality honey does not burn, melt or brown. If the honey began to melt, it means that the bees were fed with sugar syrup, and if it turns brown, it means diluted with sugar.

How to choose the right honey

1. By color. Each type of honey has its own color, inherent only in it. Flower honey - light yellow, lime - amber, ash - transparent, like water, buckwheat has different shades of brown. Pure honey without impurities, as a rule, is transparent, whatever color it may be. Honey, which contains additives (sugar, starch, other impurities), is unclear, and if you look closely, you can find a sediment in it.

2. By aroma. Real honey has a fragrant aroma. This smell is incomparable. Honey mixed with sugar has no aroma, and its taste is close to the taste of sweetened water.

3. By viscosity. Take honey for a sample by dropping a thin stick into the container. If this is real honey, then it follows the stick with a long, continuous thread, and when this thread breaks, it completely descends, forming a turret on the surface of the honey, a pagoda, which then slowly disperses. Fake honey will behave like glue: it will flow abundantly and drip down from the stick, forming a spray.

4. By consistency. Real honey has it thin, delicate. Honey is easily rubbed between the fingers and absorbed into the skin, which cannot be said about a fake. Counterfeit honey has a rough structure; when rubbed, lumps remain on the fingers.

Honey consistency

Real honey has it homogeneous, without impurities and stratification, there should be no sediment at the bottom. Depending on the season, it can be liquid (from young honey collected in summer) or thick, so-called "candied" honey. Such crystallized honey, as a rule, becomes lighter, hazy.

In this regard, the quality of liquid honey, which can be seen on store shelves in winter, is questionable. Its liquid consistency suggests that the product was falsified or that the honey could be “dissolved” (melted) to give it a marketable appearance. Although it is also possible that the bees were fed sugar.

The only exception is acacia honey, which crystallizes slowly and can retain its liquid consistency longer.

The fluidity of honey

The indicator is effective in assessing the quality of fresh honey. If you put a spoon in a container with honey, scoop it up a little and lift it up, it will stretch for a long time, flowing down in an even stream onto a plate, without bursting and forming a hill. The last drop springs back and pulls back to the spoon.

When the spoon is rotated around its axis, natural honey is wound on it, while the fake will drain. And if a jar of honey is turned upside down, an air bubble (it should be one and large) should rise from the lid to the bottom of the jar.

There is also such a trick: you can rub a drop of honey between your fingers. Natural is completely absorbed into the skin, the fake will form a lump and will roll.

Taste

Real honey is distinguished not only by a pleasant sweet taste, astringency, but also by a slight bitterness in the aftertaste. After a quality product, there must be a sore throat.

Scent

Natural honey can be distinguished from fake honey by its smell. In a quality product, it is unobtrusive, natural, floral. The counterfeit smells very cloying, unnatural, harsh, there may be an admixture of caramel.

Color

Depending on which honey plant the nectar was collected from, honey can change its color from light yellow to dark brown. So, lime honey is amber, buckwheat honey is brown, and flower honey is light yellow.

If you see white honey, it can be not only acacia, but also a product obtained by processing sugar. In this case, the bees are fed sugar syrup, which they process like regular nectar. And although even in laboratory conditions it is difficult to distinguish natural honey from fake, in terms of its health benefits, it cannot be compared with natural honey.

The brown color of honey can be achieved not only by collecting nectar from buckwheat fields, but also by overheating last year's honey. At the same time, it heats up over 40 ° C and loses all its beneficial properties. Be vigilant if such honey is offered to you in spring or early summer.

The situation with May honey is also interesting, which many lovers of this delicacy are waiting for. Theoretically, of course, you can pump it out in May. But the problem is that this honey is needed by the bee family in order to feed the brood. If honey is taken from the family in May, worker bees will be weak, lethargic, which will significantly reduce the amount of collected product. Therefore, it is unlikely that a good owner will make such sacrifices and risks. Be carefull.

Chemistry laboratory at home

In addition to assessing the organoleptic properties of the delicacy you have purchased, you can conduct a small experiment at home to identify impurities in honey.

What unscrupulous sellers do not add to honey: molasses, and chalk, and plaster, and starch. But scammers can be brought to light.

Memo

Buy honey only from trusted beekeepers and in season. Remember that honey is pumped out not earlier than June, when the first plants begin to bloom. Then go shopping. Moreover, it is better to buy for a whole year, and you can ask for a discount for wholesale.

Another way to check the quality of honey is if the beekeeper has honey in the combs. It is almost impossible to fake it, and in the absence of such, you can doubt the quality of honey.

In order not to be fooled when buying, please note that 1 liter of mature honey must weigh at least 1.4 kg.

If a piece of candied honey is set on fire, it should melt silently. Hissing and crackling will give out a fake head.

In order for honey to bring exclusively benefits to your health, do not be too lazy to evaluate the quality of the purchase before use. And if necessary, you can hand over honey to the laboratory for expert quality assessment.

In this article, we will talk about how to identify real honey from fake. Dealers of honey are a frequent and widespread phenomenon.

When faced with a reseller, you will not even know, since they, as a rule, pretend to be a manufacturer. Resellers can tinker with honey to diversify their product and attract more buyers. However, there are also unscrupulous manufacturers on a par with them. In this article, we will also talk not only about the ways to distinguish natural honey, but also about which varieties are very difficult to find, and which do not exist and in general.

Let's first take a look at the “types” of counterfeits. The most "natural" of these can be real honey with various additives (for example, with the addition of essential oil to get a "different sort"). Also, honey can be artificial and made from products that are not nectars from flowers.

To make linden, beekeepers use starch, sucrose and molasses, and also use other means. Unfortunately, today honey can be so professionally forged that it will be extremely difficult to distinguish it. Especially some "amateurs" (because a real good beekeeper will not do this) prefer to feed the bees with sugar syrup, and then the latter process it along with the nectar. Only the laboratory recognizes such a product for "poor quality".
The surest way is to buy from familiar beekeepers whom you know and trust. However, not everyone has such. But do not despair, there are several signs, knowing which, an ordinary buyer may suspect a poor-quality product.

Please note: according to GOST 19792 2001, natural honey should be stored so that direct sunlight does not fall on it and the shelf life in an unsealed container should be no more than 8 months (i.e. selling last year's honey, beekeepers or dealers violate these rules) ...

Visual signs of counterfeiting

Let's see what can be alarming when choosing honey and, with varying likelihood, indicate a "fake" product.

• The price is too low. As tempting as it might be to buy a cheaper medicinal product, think about why a beekeeper, who has spent so much effort, sell good honey "almost for nothing"? There is a great risk that, saving money, you will buy only some part of real honey mixed with sugar syrup and colored tea. It is really not very easy to distinguish such a fake.
• Liquid honey. The product has a liquid consistency only for several months, then it becomes thicker. In particular, this form of healing sweetness should alert you if it's winter. This means that either the product was diluted or warmed up, which is also not very good. However, it should be borne in mind that some varieties can remain in a liquid state for a long time. Which ones and why? You will learn about this from the article about.
  

  Attention: an overheated product at a temperature exceeding 50-60 degrees loses its useful properties. Many sellers “forget” about what real honey should be, carrying out such a procedure to make the honey look attractive.

• Too much white. This product was most likely diluted with sugar syrup.
• Too dark color, caramel flavor present. This sign indicates that the sweetness has been heated or melted. Often, such a dark variety of last year's product, such as buckwheat, can be melted and sold, saying that it is fresh.

Please note: the crystallization process is natural. If the sweetness is stored for a long time and such a process is not observed, it means that it contains potato syrup or it was thermally processed in the past. Of course, in this case, the purchase has already been made and it is “too late to drink Borjomi,” but for the future you will know that it is not worth buying from this beekeeper or from the company.

Determination methods

Manufacturers of the "fake" product hone their skills in disguising a fake every year better and better. Let's see what other methods can be used if it is not possible to determine natural honey "by eye".

• Method with a glass, water and iodine. Here's the first and simplest method - pour some honey into a glass, and then add a small amount of water there. Get in the way. When honey dissolves, all additives will settle to the bottom. If you drop a few more drops of iodine into the glass and the mixture turns blue, this will indicate the presence of starch.
• Spoon method. This method can be used only if the room is warm enough (about 20 degrees). Take a spoon and start winding honey on it, rotate quickly. If the product is natural, then it will behave like caramel - curling around the spoon and not dripping. Otherwise, the product may drip from the spoon, bubbles will appear, or you may see blotches of a different color.
• Blotting paper method. How to determine the naturalness of honey using paper - put some honey on the paper and wait about 5 minutes. If there is no wet spot on the back of the paper, then the honey is of good quality and undiluted. This is a good way at the fair - you can take honey on a disposable spoon or stick to sample, and then put it on paper.
• Fire method. This method is only suitable for already crystallized honey. Light a piece and watch how it burns. If the product is natural, then it will melt calmly. A fake will show itself with crackling and hissing (foreign components will appear).
• The Bread Method. This way you can check if the sweetness has been diluted with sugar syrup. Take a small piece of bread and dip in honey. Wait about 10-15 minutes. Then take it out and look at it. A good and high-quality product will not soften the bread, but if sugar water is present, the bread will soften.

Advice: when making a purchase, give preference to only thick honey. A product with a transparent consistency may mean that the seller has warmed it up.

Non-existent varieties of honey

Some beekeepers or resellers are so full of imagination that they literally begin to invent honey varieties or distribute those that are incredibly rare and it is difficult to meet them at an ordinary fair. Let's see what "varieties" can also alert.

• From royal jelly. It is incredibly difficult to make such honey and is almost impossible to make in such quantities that it can then be put up for sale. One mother liquor contains about 200 grams of milk. It takes incredible effort to make such honey. In most cases, a label with a loud name and incredibly useful properties, as well as a price tag with a "round" figure, is glued to a can with a white product.
• From wild rose, poppy, corn, lupine, hazel. Despite the fact that the flowers of the corresponding plants do not have nectar, you can often find a rosehip product (honey mixed with rosehip decoction? Only no one will say this).
• Chamomile honey. Such a name should also alert you, there is no such kind, especially on sale.
• May. In May, a professional and responsible beekeeper feeds bees with honey, which after winter are just starting to grow their families. It is impossible to collect such a product for sale this month.
• From strawberries, blackberries, blueberries. Natural bee honey using nectar from these shrubs is very difficult to make for sale - they give a very scanty amount of nectar, which means that it is extremely difficult to make honey from it. It's another matter if the bees are fed with the juice of berries, which they process as nectar, but this is a product of lower quality and sellers keep silent about the method of production.
• Pumpkin - It is possible to make a product from the nectar of the flowers of this plant, however, it can also be dangerous due to the fact that they are treated with pesticides to control pests.
• From a silvery sucker. In this case, even comments are superfluous. There is such a variety, but it turns out so little that it is not even worth talking about selling.

Also, you should be alarmed by the mention of wild honey and too huge selection of "flower" varieties from the seller.

Remember: always taste and smell the product before purchasing. Do not hesitate to ask questions - when was the gathering, where is the apiary. You pay money (and sometimes a lot), so you have every right to find out everything.

Real honey has a floral aroma, sweet and pleasant (there are some varieties whose taste is quite original, but if you are going to purchase such, then find out in advance on the Internet what exactly the taste and smell should be). When swallowed, it may "pinch" the throat a little and have a slight bitterness. See how a fake forgery is determined at home and in the laboratory and how even well-known companies are deceiving consumers

At the end of summer, the markets are flooded with golden jars of honey of all kinds of flavors and colors. If you intend to thoroughly buy a healing treat at the fair, arm yourself with a few rules for choosing the right one. What excellent honey should be and how to distinguish it among counterfeit products, said the professor of the Department of Beekeeping named after V. A. Nestervodsky National University of Bioresources and Nature Management Viktor Polishchuk and beekeeper from the Kiev region Vladimir Lozovoy.

The fact that in Ukraine there is an extremely wide assortment, while many countries produce only 1-2 varieties - a fact established by experts, you will not find imported weighed goods on the markets. But you can add water to it, replace the processed product of nectar and honeydew with ordinary sugar syrup, sell honey 2-3 years old, repeatedly melted and already deprived of any benefit. There are plenty of apiaries and honey stock today, competition in the market is high and a normal beekeeper seeks to satisfy the buyer, and not sell the product at any cost, but there is no guarantee that you will come across a manufacturer personally, who is also conscientious. A self-respecting beekeeper never mixes the remains of honeycombs and dead bees into honey, ostensibly to prove that honey is natural, and will let the buyer smell it and even taste it. By the way, buckwheat honey is becoming almost a rarity - now it is more profitable for farmers to deal not with buckwheat, but with seeds for oil, therefore, the sunflower variety is "in trend".

Signs of naturalness

Visually. The best honey is so thick that when poured from jar to jar, it literally folds into a pagoda-like hill, which takes time to distribute. This is because it contains no more than 17-20% water, and this is the consistency of a syrup, in which there are 4 glasses of sugar and 1 - liquid. Whether honey is diluted with water can be determined by weight: a kilogram of honey is placed in a 0.8 liter container, and a liter jar of normal honey pulls almost 1.5 kg. A conscientious seller in the market will allow you to check the consistency of the goods with a stick or a spoon: if honey is drawn with a thin thread, it is of high quality, and fake honey drips from the spoon and is instantly drowned in mass. In appearance, it will not be homogeneous and transparent, like natural, but unclear, with sediment at the bottom or stratified (often semolina with molasses is placed on the bottom, but only honey on top). Foam is also a bad sign, honey is either unripe or fermented.

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Touch and taste.Good honey always slightly rubs the throat with its astringency, and sourness is not felt (it is a sign of an unripe product or spoiling). A drop of normal honey, rubbed with fingers, is easily applied and absorbed into the skin, and containing additives simply rolls into rolling pins. Good honey always has a strong, specific aroma, more often floral, pollen, but bad honey smells the less, the more syrup is mixed into it.

Solid or liquid.The more useful substances in honey, the faster it hardens. , remember that in summer it should only be syrupy if pumped out this season, and only a rapeseed variety from a spring honey plant thickens very quickly and, harvested in spring, by August will already be in bars (liquid - barely yellow, crystallized - almost white) ... And when going to the market in autumn or winter, consider only candied honey - at this time a normal product cannot be otherwise (there is also an exception: an acacia variety that keeps its liquid form for a long time). A decent beekeeper is liquid in winter, and in summer he won’t sell thickened honey: in the first case, it will most likely be melted (and you can only heat it carefully, at a temperature not higher than 37 °, otherwise all the useful properties are down the drain), in the second - unmelted, but also last year.

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Home check.Just in case, do not buy a three-liter jar at an unchecked point at once, but take a mayonnaise jar for testing and conducting experiments. Checking honey can be arranged with a simple piece of bread. Put it in the purchase for 10-12 minutes - if it is soft, then you bought a banal syrup, and in natural honey the bread will harden. Honey diluted with water forms liquid stains on the sheet of paper or leaks, but a good product will remain unchanged. If you poke honey with a red-hot knife tip, nothing will remain on the metal, while the counterfeit will leave a layer of burnt sugar (as when boiling homemade lollipops). Dissolve a teaspoon of honey in half a glass of hot water: a low-quality one will not dissolve completely, and if you pour a little alcohol into the resulting liquid, it will also become cloudy. After all these manipulations, a solution of real honey remains transparent, like a tear, and will fail only if it is honeydew from coniferous trees. By the way, all additives will float or settle if you take a distillate for testing. You can also drop iodine into the same mixture, and if the seller mixed in starch, it will turn blue. And when you add vinegar, bubbles can go: clear signs that chalk has got into the honey. The last way is to sprinkle a drop of honey with a pinch of starch. Ideally, the white powder will remain a separate layer, but artificially mixed honey will certainly enter into some kind of reaction with it.

According to the documents.Laboratory tests in no time will find any impurities and excess water in honey, so it will be useful to ask the seller for the veterinary and sanitary passport of the apiary and the certificate of conformity (expert conclusion). If it is, it means that the product passed the test without problems, because the control will easily show even an excess of the sucrose content even by only 5 percent. The document must have a laboratory seal and a mark on the passage of radiological control. And make sure that the certificate is attached to the receipt of payment for the research and with the date that coincides with the one specified in the expert conclusion.

Tatiana Malinovskaya

How to check honey for naturalness by its appearance at fairs? What methods can be used to determine the quality of honey at home? Take advice from experienced beekeepers and honey nectar lovers.

No one even doubts the benefits of honey. On the contrary, for the winter everyone is trying to stock up on a sweet natural product in order to pamper themselves on long winter evenings with a spoon or even a spoonful of fragrant amber honey, and with tea.

Since childhood, we know about its healing properties - to whom did the grandmother or mother not warm milk with honey for colds or for a sound restful sleep?

And everyone also knows that honey is produced by bees, and bees will not carry anything into their hive, and their honey is an extremely pure product from chemistry. But our cunning chemical industry has learned how to make honey, which is indistinguishable from the real one. Or cunning sellers in the market try to cash in on inexperienced buyers by selling low-quality or diluted honey. Therefore, the ability to check a product for quality is a useful quality.

It turns out that different types of honey have different health benefits. The healing qualities are determined by the honey plant. Everyone has heard about the benefits of linden or buckwheat, but there are many plants whose melliferous properties are no less useful in certain cases.

Honey is classified by the plant from which it was collected, or by the place of collection, for example, meadow, forest, mountain. Its diversity is very large, we will consider the most basic types and varieties.

1. Lime. Pale yellow. Mineral substances in its composition have the same concentration as in human blood, therefore it normalizes metabolism and hormonal activity. Useful for colds and diseases of the digestive tract. A good antipyretic agent.
2. Buckwheat. The color is very dark. Contains a lot of iron and protein. It has anti-inflammatory properties, is indicated for anemia, vitamin deficiency, heart problems, potency.
3. Clover. Almost white, creamy. Acts as a mild sedative. Used to treat female diseases.
4. Sunflower and herbs. Intense yellow color. One of the most common types. An excellent antipyretic and anti-cold remedy. Crystallizes quickly.
5. Acacia... Transparent, pale. It is high in fructose and low in glucose. Stays liquid for a long time. Suitable for diabetics and for baby food... Useful for hypertension, visual impairment, nervous disorders.
6. Heather. Dark brown, crystallizes quickly, contains a lot of salts and protein. Diuretic, treats rheumatism and kidney stones, is used as a hemostatic and antiseptic.
7. May. Light in color. Mainly remains at the disposal of bees for recuperation. It is pumped out only in the southern regions. That is why it is considered an exclusive variety. Has pronounced antibacterial properties, is useful for viral diseases.
8. Forest. Warm brown. It thickens quickly. Bees collect a mixture of honeydew from trees, flowering bushes, raspberries, blackberries. There are more useful minerals and enzymes in it than in flower varieties. Recommended for colds.
9. Donnikovy. Light in color, smells of vanilla. It is indicated for atherosclerosis, diseases of the liver, kidneys, heart.

Checking the product by external signs

In the markets and in stores, a synthetic product is often sold, which is passed off as a natural bee. Bees, having collected nectar, work on it for at least a week - they remove water, break down complex sugars, enrich them with enzymes, and close the honeycomb with wax caps. For some time it should ripen in the combs.

Unscrupulous beekeepers sometimes pump out nectar that has not yet matured early, and to obtain more weight and viscosity, chalk, starch or sugar syrup can be added to bee honey.

How to check the quality of honey for an ordinary consumer who does not have special knowledge and experience? Feel free to sniff, taste, evaluate for viscosity and consistency.

Taste

The honey tastes tart and sweet, you should not feel any sour aftertaste or bitterness. This product has a slight sore throat.

When sugar is added, the taste is reminiscent of sugary sweet water. A caramel flavor indicates that the product has been heated.

Color and shade

The color of honey depends on the variety. It can be white, yellow, brown, and even almost black. But it always retains transparency and purity. Honey with additives will be cloudy and have a sediment. White grains are added and undissolved chalk or starch. Very light shades may indicate added sugar.

An exception is acacia honey, which has some turbidity, since it crystallizes for a very long time, and clover honey has an almost white color.

Consistency

Natural honey has a delicate, creamy, homogeneous consistency. It is easily absorbed into the skin when rubbed, while fake forms lumps and grains.

In the warm season, honey is liquid, and in winter it has already become sugar. If you buy honey in winter, and it is of a liquid consistency, then most likely it was previously melted to give it a presentation.

When rolled onto a spoon, good ripe honey will be superimposed on it in a thick, viscous spiral. Very liquid nectar has not matured and can quickly deteriorate.

Viscosity

Real honey flows from a spoon in an elastic stream, and on the surface forms a hill that slowly spreads. When the trickle breaks, the spring effect appears, the nectar returns to the spoon, collects in a drop and again tends downward. Sugar honey will drip and drip.

Scent

Real honey is very fragrant and fragrant, but not a harsh aroma. Fake is practically odorless. When additives are added to honey, the odor is distorted.

It should be borne in mind that some types of honey have a faint smell, so before buying a particular type, you need to know as much as possible about it.

How to check honey for naturalness at home

You can check the naturalness of honey at home using several simple methods.

With iodine

Dissolve a spoonful of honey in one hundred grams of warm water, mix well until a homogeneous solution is obtained and add iodine to it. If starch or flour is added to the food, the contents of the cup will turn blue.

With bread

Put a slice of bread in a saucer with honey. Natural honey in half an hour will be absorbed into the pores of the crumb, but the piece will remain intact and even harden a little. If the nectar is diluted with water, then the bread will soften and crumble into gruel.

With a chemical pencil

Smear a drop of honey on the paper and run it with a chemical pencil, if, of course, you can find such a rarity. If there are starch or chalk impurities, blue stains will appear.

Soviet scientist Chudakov V.G. conducted research in 1972 and tested folk methods on thirty-six varieties of honey, half of which was with additives. His experiments showed that this method is not reliable.

With vinegar

Put a spoonful of honey in warm water (half a glass), stir well and add a spoonful of vinegar. If there is chalk, the vinegar will react with it and sizzle.

With water

Place a spoonful of honey in hot water. If it quickly melted, then there is no doubt about its quality, and if it continues to lie like a hill, then it is a fake.

other methods

It happens that beekeepers feed bees with sugar syrup. Bees produce honey nectar in any case, but there is no benefit from it. How to check the quality of honey for sugar?

1. Place a drop of honey on a piece of newspaper, blotting paper or napkin. If after half an hour a wet spot has formed around it, then this is a low-quality product. Scientist Chudakov confirmed that this method determines one hundred percent falsification, however, some varieties of natural honey are included in their list.
2. Natural honey does not burn, but with the addition of sugar forms black soot around the edges of the spoon. You can also check with a stainless steel wire: heat it and lower it into a jar. If there are additives, then the wire will be covered with a dark adhesive mass. The clean product will not leave marks on the wire.
3. Make a honey solution and dip a lapis pencil (you can buy it at any pharmacy) into it, the sugar product forms white flakes.
4. Dissolve one part of nectar in two parts of water and add ammonia. If the solution turns brown after mixing, then starch syrup is present in it.
5. Add a little honey to the warm weak tea, the real tea will darken and become cloudy, there will be no sediment at the bottom.

By the way, if you add low-quality honey to hot milk, it will curdle.

1. Honey can be stored for a long time, after a maximum of six months it becomes sugar-coated and crystallizes. If this does not happen, then the product is not natural. Store honey in a dark place in glass or enamel containers. You cannot keep it in metal containers, otherwise it will oxidize and you can even poison it.
2. If you bought fresh honey, only from an apiary, and found foam on it, then this is a sign of immaturity - there is a high probability that it will ferment. The nectar must necessarily stand in the combs for some time, then it is saturated with natural antibiotics and the fermentation process is suppressed.
3. Do not buy honey from apiaries located along the route, it will contain harmful substances, for example, lead, which gets on flowering plants with exhaust gases.
4. If after some time the contents of the jar stratified - the bottom was sugared, and a liquid substance remained on top, then this is a sign of unripe honey. Stir well until smooth and eat as soon as possible, as unripe honey is stored for only a few months, and then begins to ferment.
5. When buying honey, do not listen to honey-loving sellers, each sandpiper praises its swamp. Trust only your eyes, taste and scent.
6. A sweet product is measured in kilograms, not liters. A liter jar will weigh about one and a half kilograms, if the weight is noticeably less, then this is diluted honey.
7. If you like tea or milk with honey, then remember that at temperatures above 60 degrees, it loses its beneficial properties.
8. For men, to solve male health problems, it is recommended to buy dark varieties of honey.

Conclusion

In order to be sure of the quality and naturalness of a sweet bee product, it should be purchased from a well-known trusted beekeeper. Honey handled at markets and fairs or bought in a store is a product of dubious quality.

But it is not always possible to find a conscientious beekeeper, so you have to act by trial and error. Buy a small jar of 100-200 grams and, at home, do a more detailed determination of the naturalness of honey. If everything is in order and the product suits you, feel free to take a large volume and take care to take the seller's contacts.

Mother of two children. I have been running a household for over 7 years - this is my main job. I love to experiment, I constantly try various means, methods, techniques that can make our life easier, more modern, richer. I love my family.