Counterfeit honey is sold not only in the market, but also in stores and supermarkets. It is possible to determine whether honey is of high quality or not by examining its three characteristic qualities: nutritional value, constancy natural composition, storage admissibility. The nutritional value of honey is influenced by the amount of carbohydrates it contains and maturity. Its taste and medicinal properties depend on the maturity of honey.

How to check honey for naturalness by its appearance

Sometimes it is required to check the naturalness of honey when buying on the market or in a store without using additional substances... The fastest and simple check honey is performed by external signs, without detailed analysis:

• Natural honey is easily rubbed between fingers and absorbed by the skin of the hands.
• Examine the surface of the honey. There should be no foam in the form of bubbles. Fermentation, foaming is a sign of immaturity or addition of water. Natural honey contains pollen particles, wax and other natural inclusions. Too pure, transparent honey is most likely artificial.
• Literate buyers are reluctant to purchase liquid honey, because "candied" is more difficult to counterfeit. Natural honey crystallizes over time, fake honey crystallizes very slowly or is completely absent. At the end of autumn and in winter there is no liquid natural honey, even late varieties... There are exceptions to the rule, some types of honey are always liquid: linden, May, buckwheat, fireweed, acacia. In summer, crystallized honey - last year's or even older.
• To taste natural honey - sweet, but in moderation, a little tart. In the mouth, it can cause slight tingling, burning sensation. Artificial honey such taste does not possess. Honey acquires a slight caramel flavor when heated. "Warm" honey has a more presentable presentation, but less useful. It loses its unique medicinal properties at a temperature of +50 degrees and even at + 35-40 degrees it can become harmful and carcinogenic.
• Another sign of natural honey is its smell. Natural product has a characteristic, easily recognizable fragrant aroma, the fake has no smell.

It is very difficult to test honey for naturalness in market conditions. The considered methods cannot protect you from all possible falsifications. Choose honey for color, smell and consistency.

How to find out the naturalness of honey by viscosity

A more detailed check of honey can be done at home, this will help to study the product for viscosity. Ripe, natural honey has viscous consistency... It is important that when experimenting with honey, the temperature environment was neither high nor low, about + 20-21 degrees.

Features of checking honey viscosity:

1. Dip a tablespoon in honey and turn it quickly several times. Natural, high-quality honey wraps around the spoon without dripping from it.
2. Dip a teaspoon in the honey. After removing it, watch how the honey flows from it. The process should take place slowly, in large drops. Most of the honey will remain on the spoon. This is due to the fact that mature honey is very viscous, it contains about 21% water. Immature is more liquid.
3. Dip a wooden stick in the honey. Pick her up. The honey should drain in a continuous, viscous stream. Natural honey does not drip, does not splash, forms a hill on the surface, which is gradually compared with the rest of the mass.

Ripe, high-quality honey is very viscous, its moisture content according to GOST is not higher than 18-20%. Honey pumped out early is unripe, poorly stored and can ferment.

Checking the quality of honey at home by heating and weighing

Even laboratory tests do not give honey complete information about its quality. The properties of each honey are unique. Its composition is influenced by many factors: the region of collection, the variety of honey plants, the breed of bees, the maturity of honey at the time of research, the presence of pollen.

Instructions for checking honey by heating:

• Place a sealed jar of honey (50 g) in a jar of water. Heat the honey in a water bath for 10 minutes at a temperature of about +45 ° C. Then open the lid and assess the odor. It must be tangible. The lack of smell is a sign of falsification.
• Heat the honey in a water bath for more long time, about an hour. If the studied honey begins to exfoliate, then it is natural, otherwise it is a fake.

You can determine the quality of honey at home by weighing its density. Pour 1 liter of water into the vessel and mark its level with a marker. Pour out the water, dry the jar. Fill the jar with honey up to the mark. Weigh the jar with honey very accurately, to the gram. Subtract the weight of the jar, get the exact weight of a liter of honey. Divide the weight of the honey by the weight of the water, i.e. per 1000. The accepted standard of honey density in Russia is 1.41 kg / l.

High-quality mature natural honey has a density in the range of 1.4-1.6 kg / l. If the density is below the permissible minimum - immature honey, poor quality, above the upper limit of the range - an error in calculations or when weighing.

Checking honey at home using unconventional methods

Even quality honey when purchased can show signs of a fake. It is very difficult to distinguish natural honey from counterfeiting. Most the best way not to be mistaken in honey sweetness - take it from trusted beekeepers. There will always be friends who will advise this. But, if there are no reliable beekeepers, and you want honey, then use the unusual methods of checking honey at home:

1. The authenticity of honey can be established by burning it. Spread honey on a piece of paper and light it. Observe the reaction. Natural honey will become slightly liquid from high temperature - and that's it, no more changes will happen to him. It will not burn or change color. The product would melt if the bees were fed sugar syrup instead of nectar. The brown color of the product indicates the presence of sugar in it.
2. Pour a spoonful of honey on a plate, add three times more water and begin to shake the cymbal vigorously in a horizontal direction. A honeycomb-like pattern forms on the surface of a natural product.
3. Put a slice of bread in the honey, wait a while. After 10-15 minutes, check its condition. In good pure product the bread hardens, if the bread has softened, it means that sugar syrup has been added to the honey.
4. You can check honey with stainless steel wire. Heat the wire over a fire and dip in honey. Take it out and inspect. If the wire is clean, then everything is fine, if any particles have adhered to it, then this indicates the presence of impurities that make honey of poor quality.
5. The easiest method to test honey for water is with loose-textured paper. Take a napkin, blotter, or piece of newspaper and put honey on it. There should be no moisture around the drop, the paper should remain dry.
6. The most difficult thing is to independently determine the impurity of inverted sugar that is used to create artificial honey... To conduct the experiment, you will need drugs sold in a pharmacy - ether, resorcinol, concentrated hydrochloric acid. Rub some honey with ether. Filter the resulting solution, evaporate. Make a 1% solution of resorcinol in hydrochloric acid. Mix a few drops of the resulting solution into the mass left after evaporation of the essential honey. Obtaining a color from orange to bright red indicates the presence of inverted sugar in honey.

Knowing the basic properties and characteristics of honey will most likely help you avoid buying low-quality or artificial honey. Checking honey at home can be done without the use of special preparations.

Determination of the naturalness of honey and the presence of impurities

It is possible to determine the naturalness of honey with 100% certainty only in a laboratory, but only a few people donate honey for research. "Home" methods of determining the naturalness of a honey product do not always give an absolutely error-free result, but sometimes they help to distinguish a good product from a fake.

Let's consider how to determine the presence of impurities in honey:

• Consider a solution of honey with water to light: if honey is of high quality, natural, then it will be cloudy or iridescent. Impurities will create sediment.
• Place a drop of honey on your palm and run over it chemical pencil... If there are impurities or water, then the trace will be greenish or purple... In honey high Quality the chemical pencil will not leave a mark. The test is not 100% reliable. Excess moisture can be found in natural young honey.
• When long-term storage in honey, light crystals can form, and an unsugared brown mass will remain in the center - this is a sure sign of the presence of impurities.

So that honey is not only tasty, but also has medicinal properties, be sure to check its authenticity on a small volume, only after making sure of its quality, take honey for future use.

How to test honey for sugar

Mixing in honey sugar syrupfeeding bees with sugar are the most common ways of falsifying bee product... When determining naturalness " liquid gold»Buyers want to receive accurate information about the absence of sugar in it, which is added by unscrupulous beekeepers:

1. Adding sugar to honey gives it a sweet water smell, without the pleasant honey scent. Such honey tastes sugary sweet, the color is suspiciously white.
2. During storage, liquid honey with the addition of sugar syrup becomes gelatinous, does not crystallize. "Sugar" honey has no astringency, it is perfectly transparent, without aroma.
3. Sucrose ( cane sugar) is detected in a honey solution with lapis (silver nitrate). The honey solution for this experiment should be 5-10 percent. Falling out of a white silvery sediment is a sign of honey falsification.
4. Put a spoonful of honey in a cup of loosely brewed black tea, stir until it is completely dissolved. If the tea becomes cloudy, it means that there is sugar in the honey. High-quality honey does not sediment, the tea will only darken slightly.

Methods for checking honey with additional substances

The most common methods for testing honey for naturalness are based on a solution of honey in water and some additional substances such as iodine, vinegar, ammonia, milk. Mix 2 to 1 distilled water with honey to create the stock solution.

Checking honey for flour with iodine

Unscrupulous beekeepers add flour or starch to honey to increase its mass or density. The admixture of starch, starch syrup, flour in honey is determined by adding iodine tincture to the original solution. Natural honey contains no elements that react with iodine.

Checking the quality of honey with iodine is the most common and is performed as follows:

• 3-4 drops of iodine are enough for the solution of fake honey to turn blue if starch or flour is present in it due to a chemical reaction.
• Increase the amount of iodine in the honey solution - and the intensity of blue color will also increase. The more intense the color, the more starchy impurities in honey.
• Any change in the color of the honey solution when tested with iodine, with the exception of yellow, indicates the presence of additives that are not bee-like. The natural product does not react to iodine, its color will not change.

Acetic acid for the determination of chalk crumbs in honey

Admixture of chalk chips increases the weight of the product, masks its poor condition. Such honey is counterfeit. Falsification of honey with chalk chips is easily detected by using the usual table vinegar or vinegar essence. Chalk reacts with acetic acid, it is accompanied by the release of carbon dioxide.

Add a little to the original solution acetic acid, a couple of drops are enough. The presence of chalk in the honey will cause foaming and sizzling. Sometimes chalk is added in small quantities and the reaction will not be noticeable unless the acid touches the chalk. In this case, for express analysis, it is better to use vinegar essence.

Let the original solution settle, carefully drain the water, a layer of chalky sediment will remain at the bottom, which can be examined with acid.

Ammonia for the detection of starch syrup

Starch syrup added to honey impairs its most valuable properties. Honey "flavored" with molasses has a high viscosity, has a pronounced smell of molasses, and has a reduced content of reducing sugars. Residues in counterfeit sulfuric acid formed in the process technological processing molasses, precipitate under the influence of certain reagents, for example, ammonia.

Drop 5-10 drops of strong ammonia into the honey solution. A brown precipitate may form. The solution itself will also turn brown. This effect is provided by starch syrup. A solution of natural honey will not become cloudy when 96? alcohol. A solution with low-quality honey will turn whitish, like adding milk.

Testing honey for sugar with milk

If the bees were fed sugar, then, like any unnatural honey product, it does not have medicinal properties... It does not contain the useful components of natural honey: vitamins, organic acids, aromatic substances, protein, mineral salts. It is possible to determine "sugar" honey without complicated experiments, by using milk.

Add honey to hot cow's milkif it is curdled, then the honey was forged using burnt sugar. Real honey dissolve in milk, gently sinking to the bottom of the dish.

The main component of unnatural honey is silicon, there are practically no other salts. In natural honey, the opposite is true.

How to determine the quality of honey - watch the video:

These "home" methods of checking are simple and affordable, but they do not give 100% confidence in the correctness of the results of an experiment to determine the quality of honey. Do not buy from an unfamiliar beekeeper right away big jar honey, first take a small one, examine the honey for quality and authenticity.

16.11.2016 0

Everyone knows that honey is valuable productpossessing not only great taste, but also a number of useful properties. This is a great medicine, the basis for various masks, and simply tasty treat.

Benefits and signs

The following medicinal properties of honey are distinguished:

• strengthening of immunity;
• fight against viruses, bacteria;
• saturation with vitamins and microelements;
• cleansing the blood, removing toxins;
• fight against various inflammations;
• establishment of metabolic processes in the body;
• positive influence to work the cardiovascular system;
• normalization of bowel function;
• stimulation of reproductive functions;
• awakening a healthy appetite;
• strengthening hair and nails.

But for honey to benefit us, first of all, it must be natural and of high quality. We can buy it in almost any store food products, and we are given a choice of different varieties. But can we be sure that we are buying a quality product and not doubt its authenticity? How do you recognize it? Have all the requirements for honey quality been met? First, let's figure out how to check honey when buying, distinguish a natural product and not buy a fake?

Appearance

Honey of any kind should generally be transparent and have a uniform consistency. These are indicators of the quality of honey. If the consistency is not that, it means that the product contains various impurities.

In no case should there be foam or bubbles on the surface of the nectar. This indicates the fermentation of the product, and hence the addition of water to it. In natural - only natural elements can be present - wax, pollen, honeycomb particles. The color depends on the variety, but must also be uniform.

It is important to know!

Many vendors use a method such as melting candied honey. There can be no question of any benefit here, moreover, such a procedure can lead to education harmful substances... In autumn or winter, do not buy a product with a liquid consistency, most likely it was melted, since at this time of the year the late varieties are already crystallized.

You can ask the seller to dip a stick made of wood into it and lift it up to show how the liquid flows. The trickle of natural honey will be continuous, and a poor-quality product will create splashes. You can also check the quality of the product by rubbing a drop between your fingers. If you don't feel lumps and it is easily absorbed into the skin - this product is fresh and natural.

Taste and smell

Natural honey is moderately sweet and has a slightly tart taste. After trying it, you will feel a slight sore throat. If you feel a caramel aftertaste, it means that it has been melted.

High-quality honey has a bright, fragrant aroma, while counterfeit honey has practically no smell. However, it should be noted that there are varieties that themselves have a faint smell, so you need to take this point into account when buying.

The weight

What about weight? For instance, liter jar honey will weigh about one and a half kilograms. If the jar is very light, it is likely that water has been added to the honey product.

Brief description of honey varieties

1. Buckwheat - in most cases, the color is rich brown or amber. It has bright taste with bitterness, intense specific aroma. It contains a lot the most useful microelements... It is used to treat various heart diseases, normalize blood pressure. A very valuable variety.
2. Maisky - it has a yellow color, it tastes pleasant and sweet. The product does not crystallize for a long time. Has healing power. Considered as a medical one, it is used to treat many diseases.
3. Linden - light yellow color... Transparent. Considered to be helpful in fighting colds. It is classified as a valuable variety. Increases endurance, develops memory, has immunostimulating properties. This type of bee collects during the flowering period of the tree.
4. Sweet clover - it belongs to the white varieties, it is almost colorless. It has a vanilla smell. Helps with infectious diseases, normalizes blood pressure.
5. Mustard - this variety has a rich gold color and an almost imperceptible smell. Heals joints, is used for diseases internal organs... Also given view honey benefits the skin.
6. Acacia - the color is almost transparent. In a candied form it gets white color... Has a special bright aroma, the most delicate taste... Almost never causes allergies, has a powerful tonic effect. This is nectar tested over many years. It is also used for diseases nervous system... It is considered one of the most valuable varieties.
7. Raspberry - light colors are present in this look. It contains many vitamins and has great nutritional value.
8. Clover - Its colors range from light amber to rich. Has a very persistent aroma. It is used as a preventive measure for colds, as well as a general tonic. Helps in the treatment of burns.
9. Chestnut - can be light or dark. Contains various nutrients... Has an expressive aroma and slightly bitter taste. Very beneficial for blood circulation. Also, where else can you apply it? Used for diseases of the stomach and kidneys.
10. Sunflower - has a bright yellow color, sometimes greenish. It contains a large number of glucose. Thick, sweet and slightly sour. Good for the heart, for strengthening the walls of blood vessels. Used for neuralgia, and also used as a diuretic.
11. Fireweed - transparent, has a greenish tint. Rich in many vitamins. Used for nervous diseases, for colds.
12. Hawthorn is dark variety... It has a bitter taste and a very specific aroma. Rare view. The use is indicated for intense mental and physical activity, for diseases of the heart and blood vessels, to stabilize the pressure.
13. Motherwort - This variety is golden in color with a pungent aroma. It is used for neuroses, insomnia, as well as for violation metabolic processes in the body.
14. Burdock - This species has an olive color, a fragrant aroma and original taste... Differs in highly effective medicinal properties. It is used as a strong antiseptic, as a diuretic. It should be noted that this product is able to prevent the development of cancer. Effective for dermatological diseases.
15. Wild - unfortunately this is a rarity. Bees that extract this product can be found most often in nature reserves.

You can more carefully determine the quality of honey at home. First, it should be said about what this valuable product consists of.

Composition of honey:

• water;
• glucose;
• fructose;
• sucrose;
• vegetable protein;
• enzymes;
• essential oils.

Home methods of determining the quality of honey

1. Water. Put some of the composition in warm water. If the product immediately melted and did not remain a lump at the bottom, it means that it is natural. You can also add a spoonful of honey to tea - the color of the natural product will become darker.
2. Milk. Everything is simple here: milk will curdle if you add low-quality honey to it.
3. Iodine and vinegar. Pour into a glass warm water, then add a spoonful of nectar. Then add two drops of iodine there. If after a few minutes the water turns blue, it means that starch has been added to it. The richer the color, the more starch in the product. Instead of iodine, you can add vinegar to the water and find out if the honey contains chalk. When present, the water will usually sizzle. It should be noted that an admixture of chalk masks not the best state of the sweet product, and also increases its weight.
4. Bread. Spread honey on a slice of bread. The product will lie in an even layer, and will not drip from the edges, and the bread under the layer quality product will become harder. You can also put some bread in a bowl. If the bread softens a couple of minutes later, your product is not of high quality, sugar syrup has been added to it.
5. Paper. Take a piece of toilet paper, napkin, or newspaper and place some honey on it. After a few minutes, turn the paper over and take a look. If a wet footprint is found, it is unnatural.
6. Indelible pencil. Put a drop of honey on paper (not too thick) and spread. Take a chemical pencil and run over the area where honey is applied. If bluish streaks appear, your honey contains starch or flour used to increase its density.
7. Hot wire. Dip the wire into the composition and remove it back. If the wire remains clean, then there are no foreign impurities in the honey. If sticky accumulations remain on it, this suggests the opposite.
8. Ammonia. It will be checked like this. One part honey must be mixed with two parts water. Then you need to add a couple of drops of ammonia there and shake the mixture well. If it turns into brown color, which means that starch syrup has been added, which significantly takes away its most valuable properties.
9. Heating test. Hold a tablespoon of honey over the fire. Product containing impurities will ignite or char. If the product melts evenly, then this will speak of its authenticity.

Video: how to check the quality of honey at home, methods of checking honey at home.

In more detail I would like to touch upon the topic of checking honey for sugar. Unscrupulous beekeepers often feed the bees with sugar or resort to adding sugar syrup to honey. There are also several ways to test for sugar.

• if sugar is added to the honey, it will give it a sweet water smell. The taste will be sugary and the color unnatural;
• honey with added sugar syrup is not tart, without aroma, perfectly transparent. During storage, it is gelatinous;
• if you add a "sugar" product to tea, the tea will become cloudy. When adding high-quality honey, the tea will only slightly darken. Natural bee product does not sediment;
• in hot milk, honey without added sugar should dissolve and sink to the bottom of the container.

Checking the naturalness of honey by its consistency also deserves special attention.

1. Dip the spoon into the bowl of honey and turn it several times. High-quality honey will not drain from it, will not spread over the surface, but will easily wind up. It will drain gradually, forming an even hill.
2. Dip a teaspoon into the honey, then remove and watch the honey drip from it. Natural should flow in large drops, and most of it will remain on the spoon. Natural mature is very viscous, while immature is liquid.
3. If the candied honey is divided into a crystallized part and a liquid one, this also indicates its immaturity.

Thus, several signs of low-quality honey can be distinguished.

• crystal transparency;
• bright shine;
• bitter, sour, or caramel taste;
• foam and bubbles;
• lack of aroma;
• unnatural white color;
• bundle.

Now you know how to determine the quality of honey at home. If for some reason you do not want to resort to the methods described above, then just wait a few months - time will put everything in its place.

Honey is a real treasure for the body. It contains beneficial minerals and vitamins that have a positive effect on health. Moreover, it is also a very tasty delicacy. The scope of application is very diverse. It can be used to cook cosmetics, as an additive in food or for the treatment and prevention of all kinds of diseases. Every person needs to know how to determine the naturalness and quality of honey in order to avoid buying an artificial product substitute.

Honey: what is it like?

There are several main types of honey:

• May. This is the name of the product obtained after the first pitching. It should be noted that the name has nothing to do with the characteristics of the honey itself, but is purely philistine in nature.
• Honeydew honey... It is a product that bees make from the sweet secretions of certain insects, not flowers. Honeydew honey vegetable origin can also be obtained from the honeydew of trees such as maple, linden, spruce, fir, hazel.
• Monofloral honey. This product got this name for the reason that bees collect it from the flowers of one type of plant.
• Polyfloral honey. A product that bees produce from nectar collected from several plant species.

We figured out the types of product, it remains only to understand how to determine the quality of honey at home.

How to choose natural honey on the market?

Today on the market it is very often possible to encounter the fact that sellers are trying to sell an unnatural product to the consumer. Such honey may have been pumped out earlier than expected, diluted with water or starch. Sometimes sellers even melt it on purpose to make the product look more presentable. All these actions lead to the fact that honey is losing its beneficial features... And its heating leads to the formation of harmful substances in the composition. How to check honey? Is the product real or not? it actual question today. Knowing just a few simple rules, you can easily distinguish artificial product from natural.

What you need to know:

• To avoid purchasing ghee, never search late fall or winter liquid consistency... Even the latest varieties crystallize by this period. If you go to the market in January and see the seller demonstrating that honey is flowing smoothly from a spoon, never buy such a product, because most likely it is melted. Unfortunately, sellers do this very often in order to generate more profit.
• Have you noticed that honey is sometimes sold with a foam on the surface? This does not mean that it is fresh. Such a product was either pumped out ahead of time, or simply diluted with water, and this already significantly reduces the percentage useful substances in the composition.
• When purchasing honey in combs, you also need to be very careful. The main thing is to pay attention to the fact that the cells are tightly sealed. Beekeepers do this in order to preserve the beneficial properties of the product.

How to determine the quality of honey by external signs?

Before you can determine the quality of honey at home, you first need to buy it. At the bazaar, it is not always possible to figure out whether a natural product is in front of you or not. But there are several signs, paying attention to which, you can buy good honey.

What to look for?

• Color. The first thing a person is interested in looking at the counter is the color of the honey. Of course, depending on the varieties, the shades may differ. However, there is general rule... If the honey is fresh, then there will be no sediment in it. If the product is cloudy, it means that there are some impurities in the composition. If you notice several dark spots, it means that the honey has been heated, perhaps even more than once.
• The consistency of natural honey should be slightly viscous. If you twisted the jar in your hands and noticed that the product pours too quickly, this means that it is either diluted or melted.
• Weight and taste. It is known that a jar with one liter of honey weighs about 1.5 kilograms. If you notice that it is much lighter, then the product has been diluted with water. Now for the taste. Honey itself is sweet, but some vendors add extra sugar to it. Try the product on the tip of your tongue. If it's sugary, then the seller sweetened it.

Checking honey at home by dissolving the product in water

If you are interested in how to determine the quality of honey at home, then one of the most effective ways will dissolve it in water.

Take a small mug of boiling water, add some honey there. After it dissolves, the liquid will become slightly cloudy. It is important to know that this should not leave sediment. If it appears, then there are impurities in the product. If, after adding honey, the water remains clear, then sugar syrup has been added to it.

A sheet of paper is an easy way to check the quality of honey

In order to conduct this test, it is better to take low-grade paper, rather than heavy white. Even a thin tissue or regular toilet paper will do. Drop a small amount of honey on it and watch carefully how it behaves. If honey starts to spread or seep through the napkin, then the product is unnatural or diluted. Good product there will be one after which no wet spots will remain on the napkin around the drop.

This method is great for determining the quality of honey at home. The test is carried out very quickly and gives you a clear answer whether the product is natural or not.

Homemade quality test using vinegar

Vinegar is in the arsenal of every housewife. Are you wondering how to determine the quality of honey at home using it? In fact, everything is very simple. Take some honey and dilute it with water, then add vinegar there. Now let's see what happens next. If the consistency begins to bubble or foam has formed, then this is a very bad sign, which makes it clear that there is chalk in the composition.

Iodine test

Now we check the quality of honey at home using iodine. This test will help you find out if there are additional impurities in the product, namely flour or starch.

Take a small amount of honey and dilute it in water. The water should not be hot, let it be boiled room temperature... Mix everything well so that the honey dissolves. Then add a few drops of iodine. If the solution turns blue, it means that the product contains flour or starch.

Wire method

Do you know how to check honey? Whether the product is real or not, the usual copper wire... This test involves performing two simple steps:

• Heat the wire until it turns red.
• We put it in a container with honey and keep it there for literally 10-15 seconds.

After you take out the wire, see if it remains clean. If so, then this is a truly natural product. However, if a sticky mass remains on the surface, then there are impurities in the honey or it has been diluted with water.

Bread dough

Checking the quality of honey at home does not take much time, but you can be completely sure which product you are using: natural or not.

One of the most effective tests is the bread quality test. Pour enough honey into a bowl to cover the piece white bread, then lower the bread itself. Leave it there for about 10 minutes. If you see that the bread has softened or began to creep, it means that there is sugar syrup in the honey, and this already indicates that the product is unnatural. Present, pure honey promotes hardening of bread.

Now you know how to test honey at home. All possible ways, which give a clear result, were presented above. Never buy a large jar on the market at once, take a little for a sample first. Spend at home simple testsand you will see what you have purchased: a fake or a natural product. If it turns out that honey is good, then you can already buy large quantity, but you will be sure of its authenticity.

Absolutely everyone should know how to determine the quality of honey at home. Don't be fooled, always check the product for quality and impurities. And the above methods will help you make the right choice.

Honey is a medicinal product that honey bees give us. It is surprising that its composition has not yet been fully understood. There are about a hundred types of this delicacy, but in our area three types are traditional: buckwheat, linden and acacia. They all differ in their color and taste. Honey is famous for its anti-inflammatory, bactericidal, antibacterial properties. The natural product has an amazing and unique taste and color.

In order to fully enjoy all the flavors and healing qualities golden honey, you need to be able to distinguish real honey from fake. Not only sugar is added to the counterfeit, but also starch, flour and even chalk. If honey crystallizes, this does not mean that you bought a fake. On the contrary, a natural product will be sugared in 1-2 months. This is due to the fact that natural honey contains a lot of pollen. If it does not crystallize, most likely it was subjected to heat treatment, as a result of which all the useful properties of the product were lost.

All varieties, without exception, lend themselves to crystallization, beekeepers in this case use the concept of "shrunken honey". The properties of the product are preserved after sugaring. It's hard to counterfeit, so don't buy it in winter liquid product, because you can buy honey that has been melted on steam bath... And in summer, candied honey may not be the first freshness.

It is best to buy honey directly from beekeepers. But if you do not have such an opportunity, and you buy it on the market, make sure that the product is not exposed to direct sunlight, which destroys all vitamins and enzymes. Be sure to ask where the honey was stored. It cannot be stored in aluminum, copper dishes, since the acids that make up honey react with metal, which then accumulates in the body and can cause various diseases... Ideal if you buy honey in glass, clay, wood or plastic containers.

If you doubt the quality of the purchased honey, do some simple experiments at home:

1. Add a couple of drops of iodine to a cup of honey. If the product turns blue, starch was added to it so that it does not become sugared.
   
2. Add a few drops of vinegar. If the honey sizzles, chalk has been added to it to increase the viscosity.
   
3. Dip a spoon in the honey and slowly raise it. Real mature honey will be pulled by a thread and, going down, will create a slide, and the thread, breaking off, will stretch up. If the product is not yet ripe, it will instantly spread and form a funnel.
   
4. Rub a drop of honey between your fingers. If it is natural, it will be instantly absorbed into the skin.
   
5. Dip a piece in honey fresh bread... If the bread gets wet, this is a fake or spoiled product.
   
6. Dab some honey on absorbent paper. If after 3-5 minutes you see a watery speck on the back of the paper, you bought a fake.
   
7. Put some honey on paper and light it. If the honey began to melt, the bees were fed sugar syrup, and if it turned brown, sugar was added to it. Real honey will not burn and change color.
   

Keep in mind that natural ripe honey will not just taste sweet, it should be slightly pungent and bitter. Do not buy honey from apiaries, which are located near roadways, as well as in areas with an unfavorable environmental situation.

It is best to buy honey during the season; it usually begins to be harvested in mid-August. Try to purchase this healing product from a trusted friend of the beekeeper with a stock for a year in advance.

To buy a really high-quality bee product, and not a fake, it is important to know how to test honey for naturalness. This can be done with equal success both in the laboratory and at home. To the cunning folk ways includes checking with iodine, chemical pencil, water, vinegar, milk and other improvised means.

What is counterfeit

Natural honey is usually mixed with sugar syrup, beetroot or starch syrup, saccharin, chalk, flour and other impurities.

Attention! Liquid honey sold in winter time, testifies:

• falsification of the product;
• about deliberate removal from a crystallized state by heating, which deprives it of all healing properties.

You should also be wary of candied honey in the summer, as this means that it is last year.

How to check honey for naturalness

The quality and naturalness of a bee product can be determined in two ways: "by eye" and using special means... Let's consider the first method in more detail.

Checking honey "by eye"

Taste

Checking honey at home begins with a taste of the product. Natural taste amber dessert - pleasant, tart, with a floral or herbal sound. It should melt on the tongue, covering with a tingling, slightly pungent aftertaste. It does not leave behind sediment, solid particles and crystals. Warm honey gives out a light shade of caramel, and an admixture of sugar gives a sugary sweetness.

By color

Knowing the types of honey will help you easily identify a fake. As you know, each type of bee product has its own characteristic shade. For example, the lime variety is amber, the floral variety is golden yellow, the mustard variety is creamy yellow, and the chestnut variety is dark brown. But all of them, regardless of color, are transparent and clean. The counterfeit honey is a little unclear and has a sediment.

By smell

The quality of honey can be easily identified by its aroma. A natural product smells of floral or herbal notes, while a dessert mixed with sugar, starch or flour does not have any smell - neither pleasant nor sharp.

By density and viscosity

Dip a thin wooden stick into the honey, and then slowly pull it out. Real honey will follow her with a long thread. Having broken, the thread forms a turret on its surface, which is then slowly absorbed by the product. If honey acquires a resemblance to glue and drips from the stick in small splashes, then you have a surrogate in front of you.

By consistency

When making demands on the quality of honey, pay attention to its consistency. The natural product of beekeeping is distinguished by its thin, viscous, delicate structure... It grinds well between the fingers, melts and is absorbed into the skin, while a fake leaves lumps on the hands, characterized by a rough texture.

We attract improvised means

Attention! Foreign substances are mixed into honey for three reasons:

• to hide the signs of spoiled goods;
• to give it a natural and appetizing look;
• to add weight.

However, bring unscrupulous sellers to clean water pretty simple. Checking honey can be done with iodine, chemical pencil, vinegar, alcohol, paper, hydrochloric acid and other items.

Determine the impurity of molasses

Mix one part of honey with 2 parts of distilled water and add a few drops of ammonia. Shake the mixture. If the solution turns brown and precipitates the same color, then the product is mixed with starch syrup.
You can determine its presence in another way: dissolve honey in two parts of water and add 2-3 drops to the mixture of hydrochloric acid and 20-30 g of wine alcohol. Cloudiness of the solution indicates the presence of molasses.

Detecting the presence of flour or starch

Consider how to check honey with iodine for the presence of flour or starch impurities. Dilute the product with distilled water and add a few drops of ordinary iodine to the solution. Blue composition - clear sign the fact that flour or starch is mixed into the amber dessert.

Attention! The darker the color, the more starch the bee product contains.

Checking for chalk

Dissolve honey in water and add a few drops of acetic acid (essence) to the mixture. If the solution boils, emitting a characteristic hiss and emitting bubbles of carbon dioxide, your dessert is "stuffed" with chalk.

"Expose" sugar

In connection with the increasing cases of falsification of bee products, many people are interested in the question: how to test honey for sugar? This can be done in several ways:

• The sugar product gives off its suspiciously white color with its head, the taste resembling sweet water, lack of astringency, weak smell.
• Add it to hot milk, and if it curdles - in front of you is a fake with an admixture of burnt sugar.
• Dissolve 1 teaspoon of honey in a cup of weak tea, and then examine the liquid. A sediment on the bottom of the cup is a sign that the quality of the honey is poor.
• Dip the crumb of bread into the dessert and leave in it for 10 minutes. Then take out and inspect. Softened bread indicates the presence of sugar syrup, hardened bread indicates a quality product.
• Put some amber dessert on a piece of paper (newspaper or toilet) that absorbs moisture well. If it "smears" on the paper, leaving wet traces, or seeps through it, you bought a surrogate mixed with sugar syrup or water.

How to test honey with a chemical pencil

A chemical pencil is an effective tool that you should definitely take with you to the market or beekeeping fair. Its peculiarity is that it changes color when it comes into contact with moisture. Immerse the tool in the honey before purchasing. If it changes color, it means that they are trying to sell you a product diluted with water under the brand name of natural. Checking honey with a chemical pencil is also carried out in order to identify the impurity of sugar syrup.

The easiest way to check quality

1. Dissolve in a glass with warm water 1 teaspoon honey and let sit for 1 hour. Sediment or flakes formed on the bottom of the glass that float to the surface indicate an unnatural bee product.
2. Put honey on paper and light it. If the product is of high quality, only the paper will burn, and the honey will remain intact - it will not char, burn and darken. The counterfeit will turn brown and slightly melt, leaving the characteristic smell of burnt sugar in the air.

On honey, sometimes there are vivid proofs of its naturalness - particles of pollen or wax, bee wings. However, this fact cannot be an absolute guarantee. When buying, pay attention to the main indicators of honey quality - color, smell, viscosity and consistency. Subject it to all of the above methods of testing and enjoy the great taste of a natural product.