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 mastering a few tricks. Read about how to distinguish real honey from fake and what methods to use for this, in our material.

Any buyer should be able to recognize real honey and be able to distinguish it from a fake one. 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. A natural bee elixir must meet several mandatory points. How exactly, see below:

1. First of all, you need to determine if there is a persistent smell. The aroma coming from the can will always tell you which product is in front of you - real or fake. Honey, in which there are no syrups, which has not been boiled or mixed with various additives, smells like honeycomb from a beehive - wax, nectar, pollen, sweetness, honey itself.
2. Natural sweetness is stored for a very long time without changing the taste, while counterfeit goods almost always deteriorate, either begin to ferment, or stratify and acquire an ugly forked texture.
3. The consistency of liquid bee gold is always quite thick, even if the mass has been collected recently. Too liquid texture indicates that the substance was diluted or collected too early.
4. The present condition is tasty, 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 large enough. But the bee mass should not contain too large sugar "snowflakes".
5. Mature honey weighs at least 1.4 kilograms per liter.

How not to be confused with a fake?

So how do you know if you have a counterfeit product? Notice how the honey is in the jar. This product must not delaminate. The homogeneity of the mass without sediment and foam, uniform color and the absence of large bubbles inside the jar indicate that the honey was stored in the right conditions.

Don't be afraid to taste or even rub the mass between your fingers. A real treat sticks well and forms a sticky film, but a fake leaves a feeling of excess moisture.

Honey should not splatter when dropped from a whisk or spoon. Distinguishing a watery substance from a fake is simple - put a small drop on a napkin. If a wet track 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 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 sugar layer below (if the container is opaque). If the bottom is thickened, and the top is liquid, it may not be a fake in front of you, but a mixture of several varieties.

Taking such a product is also not worth it, 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 fake, it will also take ordinary observation.

If you cannot distinguish a fake from an 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 allowing the purchase of counterfeit. These tips and secrets will help you buy a truly worthwhile product, the taste of which is unmatched!

There are so many useful properties of honey that you can list them for a long time. Honey is eaten and used in the cosmetic field, preparing various masks with it. With the help of it, they treat the throat and get rid of hematomas, bruises, and are used as an additional remedy in the fight against many diseases.

Such versatility and popularity attracts many fraudsters and speculators who sell a fake product. Let's try to figure out how to distinguish honey from a real fake.

How to distinguish real honey by group

Honey is classified into three different groups based on different parameters.

1. Origin. If the product is from a single plant, it is called monofloral. It happens that they get it from different flowers, those growing in the garden or in the meadow. Then honey is polyfloral. In addition, it is collected either only from the nectar of flowers, obtaining a high-quality, tasty product that has many useful properties, or from the juice of leaves, as well as aphids and other insects, obtaining thick, dark and bad-smelling honey. The latter type should not be used, since it is not useful, but it can also harm a person.
2. Mode of production. Depending on this parameter, it can be gravity flowing from the honeycomb, pressed or squeezed out and centrifugal, that is, pumped out by a centrifuge. It is the latter method that is used more often and transparent pure honey is obtained.
3. Visible differences. In consistency, it can be liquid or thick. The color varies from light yellowish to brown, depending on the nectar of the flower used by the bees.

There are several ways to distinguish real honey, which we will look at a little later. Indeed, even the appearance of the product can alert an experienced connoisseur. Let us first examine what kind of fakes are.

How to distinguish a fake

To identify a fake, you need to know what they are.

Dealers often dilute natural honey with additives. This is sugar syrup with tea leaves, starch, chalk, sand and more. Additives may appear unnaturally light or too dark, or have a caramel-like consistency. The honey becomes cloudy or has sediment.

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

A completely artificial product is also made. Then, just boil the sugar syrup with acid and clean it with soda, add starch and various flavors. "Honey" tastes sweet and may flake or have lumps.

Of course, the low price is also a sure sign of a fake. Having found honey at a tempting cost, it is better not to rush to get it as soon as possible, but first think about why a beekeeper, having spent so much effort on obtaining honey, sells it so cheaply? It is highly likely that this is a substandard product, consisting of additives to natural or, even worse, completely artificial.

How to distinguish real honey from fake

Every year the qualifications of unscrupulous manufacturers and resellers are only growing. Therefore, it becomes more difficult to distinguish a natural product from an artificial one. Often it is even impossible to do this visually. Therefore, other ways have been invented how to distinguish real honey from fake.

You can simply "calculate" a fake using a glass of water and iodine. Add a little honey to the glass, then water, stir it. The additives will then settle to the bottom. And if you drop iodine, the appearance of a blue color will tell you about the starch in it.

If the room is twenty degrees and above, then use the method with a spoon, quickly winding honey on it. The real product will become caramel-like, curling and not dripping. And if it flows, and even blowing bubbles, you can see a different color, which clearly says about additives.

You can, on the contrary, let the honey drain from the spoon. Natural, will create a ribbon without interruption, and will go down the hill.

Put some honey on the paper and leave it for five minutes. If a wet spot does not appear on the back, then it is a real undiluted product.

The honey is sprinkled with starch - the formation of a white film will show that it is real. Absorption will reveal the counterfeit.

Crystallized honey is sometimes tried to set on fire. Normal melting will show good quality, while hissing and crackling will indicate the presence of additional components.

After smearing a small piece of paper with honey, they set it on fire. A good product will not burn, melt, or brown.

If you add vinegar to a spoonful of honey, the added chalk will foam in it. A drop of added iodine will show the presence of starch if the color turns bluish.

A good way to tell natural honey from fake honey is to use a slice of bread. It is dipped in honey for ten to fifteen minutes. If after this time, the bread remains not softened, then everything is in order. When sugar water is added, it will soften.

How to distinguish real honey from fake honey by sight

Some rare types of honey by their name should cause alertness. Consider a few non-existent varieties.

• Chamomile - the variety does not exist.
• It is very difficult to make it from royal jelly, and it is almost impossible to sell it. Real honey from whitish royal jelly must be very expensive.
• Maisky - a real beekeeper will not collect the product in May, since the bees are only feeding at this time.
• From blueberries, strawberries, blackberries - the plants contain very little nectar, so it is very difficult to make it for sale. But if you feed the bees with juice, then the product is of poor quality and it is better not to buy it.
• From rose hips, corn, hazel, lupine. These plants simply do not contain nectar in flowers, so it would be nice to ask the growers how they are made.
• You can make honey from pumpkin, but due to the presence of pesticides in it, it can be dangerous.

It is worthwhile to be wary if they talk about the so-called "wild" honey and the seller's availability of a wide variety of varieties.

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

Here we want to talk about how to identify real honey and distinguish it from a fake. The choice in this case should be approached very responsibly, since a poor-quality product can cause significant damage to health. To avoid unpleasant consequences, we recommend that you adhere to the following rules when buying.

How to choose honey

When buying honey, pay attention to its color, consistency, smell, taste and weight.

By the color of honey

If it is not important for you which sort of honey to buy, then you should not pay attention to its color. If you want to acquire a certain look, then you should familiarize yourself with the type of product and their features.

• Acacia honey has a light yellow hue.

• Mountain honey is found in yellow to light brown color. Has a fruity taste.

• Buckwheat is usually dark. This variety is characterized by a sharp and spicy aroma and taste.

• Clover light, transparent. Its difference is its snowy aroma and unique taste.

• Herbal honey is found in golden yellow and yellow-brown colors.

• Sunflower has a light amber hue and a tart taste.

• Linden, slightly yellow in color.

By the consistency of honey

Unscrupulous sellers often put various impurities in honey. For example, to increase its amount, starch, sugar syrup, flour, chalk are added to the container. Their presence can be determined by the consistency of the mass. If honey at the bottom of the container seems denser, but on the surface it is liquid, then this is a sure sign of a fake.

In addition, fake honey foams. Foam on its surface indicates the fermentation process, which occurs when the volume of water in the product is more than 20%.

The natural product will be heterogeneous, it should contain particles of wax, pollen.

After collecting in liquid form, honey remains for about 1 month, then it thickens and crystallizes. As a rule, it is harvested from mid-July to late September. Therefore, do not trust liquid products on store shelves in late autumn, winter and spring. Such a product is a fake.

By the smell of honey. Before you buy honey, smell it. A natural product has a characteristic aroma. If you did not feel any smell, then honey was obtained artificially.

To the taste of honey. Each type of honey has a characteristic taste, as mentioned above. Natural honey often burns the throat and melts quickly in the mouth. A counterfeit or hot product often tastes like caramel. After its use, insoluble particles may remain.

By the weight of honey. Remember that a liter jar with real honey will weigh at least 1400 g (buckwheat - 1300 g). 1 liter of bad products weighs lighter than 1400 g.

How to determine the quality of honey

To buy real honey, in addition to evaluating its physical properties, it is recommended to resort to the following tricks.

1. Rub the honey between your fingers. The natural product will be completely absorbed into the skin, the fake product will remain in the form of grains - the fingers will become sticky.

2. Put honey on a piece of paper. A high-quality one will remain a dense drop, a fake will spread over its surface, leaving a damp spot.

3. Spoon the honey. The real product will run down in a continuous thread and "stack" in layers, and the last drop will be pulled back to the spoon. The fake one will be sprayed.

Honey is a unique product. It strengthens the body and heals diseases. But the benefits can only be obtained from a natural and quality product. Therefore, try to buy it from trusted sellers. Also an important point is the dishes in which it is sold. Always give your preference to a glass or wooden container.

Do you like honey? What is important to you when buying it?

Many people know about honey only that it is a very useful product, it is made by bees and collected by beekeepers. And the fact that there is a lot of honey in Russia, so everyone and sundry sells it. In many retail outlets, this product is sold by bees with the label "natural", which does not always correspond to reality.

Very often on the shelves of shops you can find a lot of fake honey or diluted with various impurities. So how to distinguish natural honey from fake?

What should real honey be like?

• Honey of liquid or thickish consistency - natural, freshly pumped, not exposed to overheating. Real bee honey has a pleasant floral scent. Liquid honey is clover, fireweed or white acacia honey. This happens in July-August, immediately after pumping out. After two months, the honey begins to crystallize.
• Crystallized - real honey. Crystallization is a natural process that does not in any way affect the content of useful substances in honey. The exception is acacia or chestnut, these are varieties that do not crystallize at all, heather honey, bypassing crystallization, turns into jelly.

Attention! It must be remembered that adulterated honey does not crystallize.

Fake honey

Fraudsters prepare forgeries in various ways. For example, sugar hydrolysis is carried out with acetic or citric acid. Or watermelon, grape or melon juices are evaporated, bringing to the desired density. The resulting mixture is very reminiscent of honey in smell and color, in the presence of fructose and glucose in it, but it does not contain the active components that natural honey possesses.

When buying, be sure to pay attention to the packaging. As a rule, with small packaging, honey heats up above 40 degrees and loses its beneficial properties.

You need to be very careful when purchasing honey with pollen. This is a very expensive product. Pollen retains its beneficial properties for only six months. And what kind of pollen is added to honey, nobody knows. It is correct to buy pollen separately, granular, not diluted in anything.

When creating falsifications, to increase the mass of the product, components such as sugar, molasses, chalk, starch, flour, gelatin, etc. are added to honey.

Overheated natural honey that has lost its nutritional value is considered counterfeit.

Unripe honey is also not real. The maturity of honey is related to its viscosity and moisture. Unripe honey foams - this is a characteristic sign of the presence of excess water in its composition. Such honey quickly sours, its taste deteriorates, and its nutritional qualities decrease. In mature honey, the water content should be no more than 20%.

How to distinguish honey from fake?

Traditional methods of distinguishing natural honey from fake:

• First, dip a spoon or wooden stick in liquid honey, rotate it a little and lift it up. If the honey is real, then it will be drawn by a long thread, which, when broken, forms a turret. The fake one will just drip and drip.
• Secondly, real honey can be recognized by its smell. Fake honey does not smell, but real honey has a pleasant floral-meadow scent.
• Thirdly, a wonderful indicator of the naturalness of a bee product is taste. If honey is real, then it irritates the pharyngeal mucosa, causes perspiration. After swallowing, the irritation increases slightly. If honey is diluted with sucrose, then this sensation is reduced and with complete falsification it is completely absent.
• Fourthly, you need to know what honey should be at different times of the year. If the liquid is sold in the spring, then it is a fake or it has been heat-treated.
• Another way to distinguish real honey is to stir a spoonful of honey in boiled water. Real, genuine honey will completely dissolve in water, a sediment will remain from the diluted one, or a white film will appear on the surface of the water.
• Sixth way. To select mature honey and not confuse it with unripe honey, you can wrap liquid honey on a spoon and raise it slightly, continuing to rotate. In this case, unripe honey will drain from the spoon, and mature honey will wrap.
• How else can you tell if honey is real? Visually. Fake honey is transparent, natural honey is cloudy due to the presence of proteins in the composition and becomes even more cloudy during crystallization.
• Another way to find out if honey is fake or not is to evaluate crystallization. If, when crystals fall out in the jar, delamination is visible, uneven layer-by-layer crystallization occurs, then this is a fake.
• Often honey is diluted with starch. There is a simple way to distinguish real bee honey from diluted or fake honey: dissolve the honey in water and add a few drops of iodine. If there is an admixture of starch, then it is a fake.

Conclusion

Still, folk methods cannot give an accurate idea of \u200b\u200bwhether there is really a natural beekeeping product on the shelf or its fake. How to correctly distinguish honey from fake, only laboratory tests can tell. There are currently about thirty of them. These are various tests for the presence of sucrose in honey, reactions for dextrins, qualitative reactions for the presence of gelatin, and many other studies.

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

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

What about a simple man in the street who would be happy to pamper himself with a healthy sweet, but is afraid of running into scammers? After all, it turns out that even buying honey directly from beekeepers, we are not immune from deception. You should not despair and get upset: beekeepers know a lot of ways to recognize real, natural honey. By adopting them, you will be more confident and not let yourself be fooled.

Scales to help

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

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

Taste and color

There is a saying that there are no comrades for taste and color. Beekeepers agree with it only partially: the taste and color of honey can be very different and it depends on the food base. The nectar collected from acacia will have a faint yellow tint; buckwheat has brown tones; the product collected from herbs will sparkle with green-yellow colors.

What should be alerted when buying honey? Product colors are too bright, unnatural. Remember that this is a marketing ploy, the purpose of which is to make you make a purchase, and in this case there can be no question of naturalness and benefits. The same applies to the aroma: an unnatural and very pronounced smell indicates that aromas were used. Flower honey does not need amplifiers, it is fragrant on its own.

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

Video "How to choose honey?"

You will learn even more secrets on how to distinguish natural honey from fake honey from the following video (author - Everything will be fine).