Honey belongs to the category of food, which are often forged. If there is no opportunity, it is guaranteed to know the quality of the goods, purchased, nothing remains, how to take matters into your own hands and test honey yourself.
It is not necessary to speak for a long time about the reasons of falsification. Sweet mass is popular with buyers. The desire to obtain financial benefits from unscrupulous producers will be higher than elementary decency. That's inventing new ways to increase the output of marketable products is not quite natural.
fake honey
It is important for the consumer, to product, for which he pays money, was natural, useful and high quality. in addition, honey is often bought for medicinal purposes. This is not about the possibility of using counterfeits. Artificial product or poor quality can not be used for treatment. It does not contain nutrients, the use of such a component in the composition of the drug will not bring the expected healing.
Sweet mass can be bought in the markets today, agricultural fairs. It is also sold in stores. In the retail network, the quality and variety of the product can be judged by the mandatory labels, which each jar is marked with. The manufacturer is responsible for the accuracy of the information, the content is subject to veterinary and sanitary control.
Those, who buys honey from private individuals, trying to buy it from one owner. And rightly so - the seller is a proven buyer does not deceive. But what to do, if the product is purchased for the first time from a stranger?
Nobody wants to honestly admit to counterfeiting their goods, will persuade, that the product is natural. There are many ways to find out if there is real honey before you buy it. When in doubt, you can conduct a series of simple inspections of the house, which will clearly show the presence or absence of counterfeiting.
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The right honey: selection criteria
Here's how to check the quality of honey. It is necessary to begin with external signs. This is the first, that catches the eye and can say a lot about honey. When choosing a product, pay attention to its color.
Each variety has its own shade. It can be different from light, almost white, to yellow and even brown. It depends on the honey plant, from which bees collected nectar.
The light species include linden, crimson, acacia, apple and other varieties. Buckwheat honey has the darkest color. Sunny yellow color in a sunflower product.
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Polyfleur honey, collected from various honey plants, may have a tinge of light yellow, to yellowish-brown. If you know the color scheme, inherent in the norm of a certain variety, then it is easy to determine, what to offer to buy - real bee nectar or fake.
Fresh honey is always liquid. But such a product can be seen on sale only in summer. It is transparent and has no sediment. By autumn, almost all varieties thicken and crystallize. Pure acacia or chestnut honey remains unchanged, which can retain a liquid state even in winter. May honey also behaves. The rest just warmed up.
When checking honey, the consistency of the sweet mass is also important. Natural mature new material is viscous, viscous. If you lower the spoon into the jar and lift it up, the liquid will flow back in a uniform continuous stream.
If the mass is left alone, soon its surface will be smooth, and the formed tubercle will disappear. Eventually, the right product is sweetened, which is considered a sign of natural honey. You can buy it without fear, to falsify this characteristic is difficult and such a "quality" forgery - a rarity.
Liquid, transparent composition, which splashes and spreads like water is immature honey, which has not undergone fermentation. Its bees are not sealed with lids, and the beekeepers have already taken it. This product does not last long and sours quickly.
The naturalness of the product is indicated by its aroma. Artificial honey does not smell. Substance, prepared by bees from nectar, retains the inherent aroma of honeydew. If you smell a jar with the proposed mixture, the real product must smell accordingly.
Very strong smell of lime, buckwheat honey. Some varieties are not as fragrant and their aroma is weak, after saccharification it can become almost imperceptible. But this is not a vice, and feature, which should be known in advance.
All varieties of honey have a sweet taste, but each has its own unique differences:
- Notes of bitterness may be present in lime, willow and chestnut products.
- Tartness is known for heather honey. If you swallow a small piece, good honey dere throat.
- Other flavors indicate the presence of impurities or suggest forgery.
- Acid and alcoholic odors appear during fermentation, after several unsuccessful attempts at heating, you can catch the taste and smell of caramel.
- Frank bitterness arises in the product, which was stored improperly.
Features and properties of honey clover
And the last way to learn natural honey. It should be applied to the skin or rubbed in the fingers. The substance of natural origin has a pleasant texture, tender. The composition is absorbed without residue, does not leave visible ??traces. The structure of the artificial counterfeit product is heterogeneous, rudeness, you can easily visually and tactilely spot a fake.
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How to check honey at home
If the sweet mass has passed preliminary tests, more than likely, that it is natural honey. But do not buy a large batch of goods at once. First, take a small jar and take it home. Here the content must be checked for the presence or absence of components, not typical for this type of product. Foreign substances can be added to honey, which do not make its use useful. It will not be possible to recognize these inclusions in the market. The next test buyers will have to arrange in the kitchen.
There are several ways, how to determine the quality of honey at home. Let's focus on the simplest and most affordable options. It is not necessary to conduct complex chemical experiments here, there are enough improvised means for this.
- Foreign sediment in the product when checking any variety is determined as follows. A spoonful of honey dissolves in a cup of warm clean water. If it is natural, the solution will be clear, homogeneous. Foreign substances will settle when diluted to the bottom of the vessel. This is unacceptable for quality honey.
- Mixed with chalk or not, show acetic acid. For this test, honey is diluted with water, defend, until the sediment settles. The liquid is carefully drained. In you, what's left, add acetic essence. When the reagent interacts with the chalk, carbon dioxide begins to be released, the mixture is taken in bubbles and hisses. If the experiment ended positively, the purchased product was clearly counterfeit.
- The presence of flour or starch, which normally does not happen in honey, can be set with iodine. The inspection is carried out as follows. A spoonful of sweet mass is laid out on a saucer. A few drops of iodine tincture are added to it. If the color remains the same brown - everything is fine. The counterfeit will give a change of color from a normal shade to blue.
Linden honey: all about the sweet product
Real honey bees make only from the nectar of flowering plants. But sometimes they are fed sugar syrup or molasses. In the absence of bribes for insects, it is also food, basis for the preparation of stocks. That's the only difference, that in such a product there is nothing but carbohydrates. Eat it, Of course, it is possible, for medicinal purposes it is better to find another option.
The presence of sugar in the honey mass is checked by diluting a small amount of the substance in a glass of warm milk. Coagulated liquid will indicate the artificial origin of the composition. In completely sugar honey is white, it does not crystallize or smell. Ammonia will help to determine molasses. IN 50% honey aqueous solution need to drip a little of this remedy. Brown and sediment at the bottom of the tank will indicate this, that bees were fed homemade nectar.
Padeva honey does not belong to high-quality varieties, although it has a completely natural origin. It has few useful qualities, so you don't need to buy it either. You can recognize this species, putting the next experiment.
In a cup you need to dilute the sweet mass in half with water. Take 10 parts of alcohol and add to it 1 part of an aqueous solution. Stir or shake the contents well. Severe turbidity of the liquid will indicate the presence of a pad. Pure pad product will react by precipitating white flakes. Exceptions to the rules are buckwheat and heather honey, with whom this experience cannot be carried out.
There are other ways to check the quality of beekeeping products. But they are more complex and spend them at home does not make sense. If all the tests indicate that, that the purchased substance is natural honey, you can safely go to the same seller and buy from him the required amount of sweet product.