Pure honey is a natural food of excellent quality in terms of benefits and nutritional properties. But how to know if the honey that we have bought is actually pure? We discover it in this article.
The honey is characterized as a product of natural origin, with a viscous characteristic texture and taste very sweet. It is produced by bees from the nectar of flowers and secretions of living parts of plants, as well as from excretions of plant-sucking insects. It is a popular product of bees, who collect it, transform it and combine it inside. This involves a very important enzyme known as inverses, which contains the saliva of bees. Inside, the nectar is condensed through the action of kneading the product and a certain series of ferments. Once produced, they store it in the combs, where it matures.
Depending on the flower or plant from which the bees originate, we can find different types of honey, all of natural origin and origin: the most popular -or known- are rosemary, orange blossom, eucalyptus, thousand-flower honey, palm and heather. However, there are also other lesser known ones, such as: lavender, dandelion, acacia, pine, and oak, chestnut and linden honey. Therefore, it is common for both its organoleptic characteristics (in terms of texture, aroma and flavor) to vary, as well as its different properties and benefits.
Despite the fact that it is a product as natural as it is popular, unfortunately today we can find adulterated honeys on the market, which although its labeling specifies that they are pure honeys, in reality we are faced with a product that is not is. Obviously, in this case we must differentiate between that honey that is not really of quality because it contains a lot of water, and that which, knowing its products is not pure, sells it as such. Precisely for this reason, we explain below some useful tips to know if you are facing a pure or adulterated honey.
How to know if it is pure honey before buying it:
It is clear that, if we want to be sure that we are dealing with a type of quality honey, it is not the same to do some tests after having bought it, than before. In this sense, it is clear that we cannot open a packaged honey for sale before having bought it to carry out the relevant tests, so in the first place the key is to read the product labeling well.
For a honey to be pure and of quality, you must make sure that its label does not include “commercial glucose” or “high fructose syrup”. These are two additives widely used when producing and packaging honey, which precisely prevent the honey from solidifying.
How to know if honey is pure after you have bought it:
Once we have made sure that none of the two additives mentioned appears on the label, more specifically in the list of ingredients for honey, we can go on – at home – to carry out some basic checks. First of all, you should look at the following characteristics:
- Pure honey has a characteristic aroma.
- When served it does not tend to separate into layers.
- It has a smooth, thin texture.
- Its drip is stringy.
- It does not present or generate foam.
- It has natural impurities, such as proposes, pollen and wax micro particles.
- Tasting and consuming it causes a burning sensation in the throat.
Once we have taken these characteristics into account, we can perform the following home tests:
- Keep a match lit and burn the honey a little. If honey is “lit” and melts or burns, it is pure honey.
- Mix the honey in water. If the honey does not dissolve in the water it is pure.
- Put honey in a spoon and add 2 or 3 drops of iodine. If the solution does not turn blue it is pure.
- Add a little honey to a piece of paper. If a wet patch doesn’t form around it, it’s sheer.
- Put honey in a spoon and add 2 or 3 drops of vinegar. If the mixture is not frothy, the honey is pure.
- Add a piece of stale bread to the honey, and allow 10 minutes to pass. Honey is pure if the bread is still hard and has not softened.
It is evident that finding out if the honey you have bought is pure or not is very important, mainly because the quality of a product as beneficial as honey will depend on whether or not it has been adulterated, so that both its properties and its nutritional richness it would really have nothing to do with it.
