We will not talk now about the benefits or the dangers of a source of pure glucose and fructose. Everyone has heard about this for a long time. But not everyone knows how to determine the quality of honey.
Let's start with the states of honey: liquid, stone, crystallized.
Stone honey is the rarest. It is collected by wild bees that settle in the mountains, in hard-to-reach crevices. Honey is really hard as a stone, because its moisture content is scanty.
Liquid honey (fresh "pitching") is always especially fragrant, viscous and similar to amber. Of course, the taste, aroma, and color depend on where the collection took place.
Soon, honey crystallizes, becomes loose (moisture evaporates). By the way, it does not change the composition and remains as useful. And faking it is harder. That is why do not be tempted by liquid honey in the winter - there is a high probability of an unscrupulous fake.
It may turn out that honey seems to be natural, but instead of benefit, it will only bring harm. The catch lies in the heat treatment of this product: to give a “seductive” look, the crystallized honey is heated, as a result you get either destroyed enzymes or carcinogens.
And honey can be mature and unripe (immature).
How to determine the quality of honey in this case? Actually, the very phrase "immature honey" itself makes you wonder: is it worth it to buy? Bees do not immediately seal their stocks in combs with peculiar wax caps. Nature laid in them the ability to “feel” the moisture content and wait for its evaporation, simultaneously supplying the product of activity with substances that kill microorganisms and bacteria, increasing the shelf life of sweet reserves. It is this process that beekeepers call ripening. Market conditions (or rather, thirst for profit) force unscrupulous beekeepers to disrupt the maturation process for the sake of earlier implementation. The quality of honey, of course, suffers. As a result, fermentation, loss of both taste and healing qualities. Therefore, the shelf life, of course, is minimal. Immaturity of honey is determined after heating to 20 ° C. If you remove and rotate the spoon, the honey will not wind up (too liquid).
Mature honey with the continuous rolling of a spoon, even slow, is screwed up and almost does not drain. And when transfused, it forms a kind of slowly spreading little hill, flowing down in thick, wide ribbons. But immature honey spreads out very quickly.
Any (stock, mixed, flower) honey can be checked for naturalness and improvised ways. Going for a purchase, grab water, iodine, vinegar.
Now for the details.
1. How to determine the quality of honey using vinegar? Dissolve a little honey in water (by the way, it should dissolve without residue, the presence of a precipitate already indicates poor quality) and drip vinegar into this solution. The chemical reaction will make a verdict: the appearance of foam is an undeniable sign of the presence of chalk.
2. How to determine the quality of honey with iodine? Put iodine in the same solution - the blueness indicates the presence of starch or flour.
Weight is also very important: a liter jar filled with honey should not weigh less than 1.4 kg (minus the weight of the jar itself).
If you don’t have vinegar, iodine or scales on hand, use second-rate paper (for example, a piece of newspaper). Drop honey on it. A blurry drop that forms a wet border will indicate the presence of water.
Now look at the jar of honey. Bubbles, the presence of foam, sour smell, stratification indicate fermentation (and therefore, immaturity).
The coarsest fake is “sugar honey”, a few drops of which will make boiled milk “curl up”. Actually, this is the simplest molten sugar with the addition of "garbage": pieces of honeycombs, paws of bees and even dead bees themselves. For the smell, some natural honey is sometimes added. In any case, you will immediately identify this fake (if, of course, you have tried real honey at least once): no aroma, no taste (just sweet), no color. And the consistency is not that ...
Honey in honeycombs is simply impossible to fake.
Want to avoid fakes? Find your "regular" seller. Perhaps even in the market, in a permanent place. It is on permanent. After all, reputation is expensive. And that means there is no point in faking, otherwise the seller will lose the buyer. Avoid spontaneous markets, grandmothers at the porches, gypsies, etc. Take the time to search, because you buy honey for health.