How to choose honey?

Going to the market or to the store for a useful bee product, you need to know how to choose honey, because it is very easy to face a fake now. Unscrupulous beekeepers interfere with a natural product with various additives to increase its original volume. And often you can find repeatedly heated and melted honey 2-3 years ago or a product created not from nectar, but from sugar syrup. And if knowledgeable people are sure to find falsification, the bulk of consumers will take the seller’s word. This article will tell you how to choose the right honey and buy a really fresh and healthy product.

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How to choose honey? - Basic selection criteria

If at first glance the fake and natural product look identical, then having examined in more detail, you can still find significant differences. What should I look for when buying? Consider the main factors with which you can convict falsified goods.

Important! Ripe high-quality honey will drain from a spoon with viscous continuous threads, go to the bank with a slide. 1 liter of such a treat will pull at least 1.5 kg.

Taste characteristics

Natural amber dessert tastes tart, viscous and slightly sugary. Depending on its type, the taste may have its own shade:

• Acacia variety - caramel flavor.
• Buckwheat is a sweet-astringent.
• Linden - tender.
• Sunflower - bright and slightly bitter.

But, despite all the varieties of taste, the product should not have acidity.

Important! Sugar-based nectar or fake to taste resembles regular sugar syrup and does not leave a light burning aftertaste characteristic of a quality product.

Scent

Before choosing honey for purchase in the market or in the store, you should definitely smell it. The natural product has a distinct specific aroma, even in a thickened state. While sugar syrup has a sour smell or almost no smell.

Product consistency

Fresh bee honey has a liquid consistency.

Important! Real honey does not foam. The foam that is on the surface of the product indicates immaturity or fermentation.

After a few months, the consistency changes, the honey thickens and the crystallization process begins. This is a natural process for a natural product. Therefore, if in autumn and winter honey is sold in liquid form, it means that it is diluted with some kind of impurity.

Important! To identify a natural bee dessert, rub it between your fingers. It should be easily and evenly rubbed and absorbed into the skin. The fake forms clots, and is felt on the fingers lumps.

Product color

How to choose honey by color? This symptom is the most difficult to determine a fake. Sugar honey usually has a too light shade, close to white, in it you can often notice turbidity and a little sediment at the bottom. The natural product is always quite transparent and homogeneous.

Even knowing all these signs of a quality product, people often make a fake purchase. Therefore, it is recommended to always buy a small jar first. Thus, you can test the goods at home and identify the presence of certain impurities, or confirm its naturalness.

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How to identify impurities in honey at home?

There are several good methods by which you can evaluate the presence of the most common additives in the composition of a bee product.

How to detect starch in a bee delicacy?

Simple school experience will help to detect unnecessary impurity in the composition - starch. Put a few drops of iodine in a product jar. If starch is present in the product, then a bluish smudge will appear on the surface of the honey.

Revealing sugar in a bee product

Dipping a piece of bread in the amber mixture and holding it there for ten minutes, you can determine whether sugar is added to the bee treat. Having taken out the bread, evaluate its condition:

1. If it hardened, it means high-quality honey.
2. If softened - it means the product contains a large amount of sugar syrup.

We determine the presence of water in honey

Water will certainly prove itself if you drip the purchased bee dessert on a piece of paper. A quality product will remain a drop on paper, and the fake product will start to leak or form liquid stains.

How to detect chalk in a bee delicacy?

It is not surprising, but unscrupulous beekeepers often add chalk to the finished product. This is carried out, first of all, in order to make it more dense and dense. To identify such an impurity, it is necessary to drip vinegar essence into a spoon with a treat. If a chemical reaction occurs with a hiss, then there is chalk in the product.

Important! Another way to check the quality of bee delicacies is to put a red-hot wire in a jar of amber mixture. If after removing it there are traces - in front of you is a fake. Quality honey never sticks to hot metal.

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How to choose honey? - A few more important aspects

To summarize what has been said and voice a few more rules that you must strictly follow in order to choose the right honey:

• Amber dessert should be purchased only in trusted stores and from familiar beekeepers, whose decency is beyond doubt.
• The lid and packaging of the goods must not be swollen and leakproof.
• When buying a product in a store, make sure that the packaging shows the date and place of collection of honey, ISO 22000: 2005 certification, which indicate food safety, as well as compliance with GOST.

Important! If the abbreviation “TU” is indicated on the label, it is better not to buy such a product. Carefully read the composition, sugar should not enter there.

• Do not buy honey that has delamination or even a small amount of liquid on the surface. This may indicate either a fake or improper storage of the product.
• Be sure to sniff and try the product.
• Refuse to buy a mixture with light veins or foaming. Such a dessert is inedible.
• If the layers of honey differ slightly in color, then this indicates a natural process and the product is suitable for use.
• Edible and goods with small white spots, which simply indicate the release of glucose.
• Bee dessert should not have too low a price.

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The beneficial properties of bee treats have been known for a long time. But it is curative only in the case of the use of a truly natural and high-quality product. Knowing what impurities may exist in honey and the criteria for choosing the right dessert, you can easily find a 100% natural product from a large number of jars offered in the store and on the market.