How Can You Tell The Difference Between Real And Fake Honey?

The fact that Ukraine has an extremely wide range of honey types, while many countries produce only 1-2 varieties, is an established fact; you won’t find imported by weight in the markets. But you can add water to it, replace the nectar product with regular sugar syrup, or sell 2-3-year-old honey that has been repeatedly overcooked and is no longer useful.

What to look for to distinguish real honey from diluted or artificial honey:

The density of the honey

The best honey is so thick that it literally forms a slide when poured from jar to jar, which takes time to spread. That’s because it contains no more than 17-20% water, which is the consistency of a syrup that contains 4 cups of sugar and 1 cup of liquid. A bona fide seller in the market will allow you to check the consistency of the product with a stick or spoon: if the honey stretches thinly with a thread, it is of high quality, and counterfeit honey drips from the spoon and instantly drowns in the mass. Real mature honey is wound on a spoon (if you turn it) in folds, like a ribbon, flowing down in continuous threads.

The weight of honey

You can tell if honey is not diluted with water by its weight: a kilogram of honey is contained in a 0.8-liter container, and a liter jar of normal honey weighs almost one and a half kilograms.

The consistency of honey depends on the season

By autumn, if it is not chestnut honey or white acacia honey, which can remain liquid all year round, then the delicacy should be crystallized. But there’s a catch: honey obtained from bees that were simply fed sugar syrup will also crystallize. However, such a product will not bring any benefit to the body. The crystals of counterfeit honey are larger and harder, and the more sucrose there is, the coarser the crystals.

Foam and other inclusions in honey

Quality honey does not foam. Otherwise, it is unripe or has already begun to ferment. If there are bee corpses, pieces of wax, or grass particles floating in the honey, it does not mean that the honey is one hundred percent natural. Often, sellers add all these components on purpose to convince naive buyers of the authenticity of the product. There should be no stratification in the jar of honey.

Store-bought honey

Store-bought honey is attractive on the outside and absolutely dead inside. After all, to make the product look marketable, it is heated at high temperatures, and after heat treatment, all the nutrients evaporate, and almost pure glucose gets into the container. That is why honey should not be added to hot tea if its temperature is above 37 degrees. Boiled honey is transparent, with a bright amber luster.

Methods for identifying real honey

Manufacturers of a “fake” product hone their skills in disguising a fake every year better and better. Let’s see what other methods can be used if you can’t identify natural honey by eye.

• The method is with glass, water, and iodine. Here’s the first and easiest method – pour a little honey into a glass, and then add a small amount of water. As the honey dissolves, all the additives will sink to the bottom. If you drop a few more drops of iodine into the glass and the mixture turns blue, this will indicate the presence of starch.
• The spoon method. This method can be used only if the room is warm enough (about 20 degrees). Take a spoon and start winding honey on it, rotate it quickly. If the product is natural, then it will behave like caramel – swirl around the spoon and not drain. Otherwise, the product may drip off the spoon, bubbles may appear, or you may see specks of a different color.
• The method with blotting paper. How to determine the naturalness of honey using paper – put a little honey on the paper and wait about 5 minutes. If there is no wet spot on the back of the paper, then the honey is of high quality and undiluted. This is a good way at the fair – you can take honey on a disposable spoon or stick “to try” and then put it on the paper.
• The method with fire. This method is only suitable for already crystallized honey. Set a piece on fire and watch it burn. If the product is natural, it will melt calmly. A fake product will show itself by crackling and hissing (foreign components will appear).
• The method with bread. This way you can check whether the honey is diluted with sugar syrup. Take a small piece of bread and dip it into the honey. Wait about 10-15 minutes. Then take it out and look at it. A good and high-quality product will not soften the bread, but if there is sugar and water in it, the bread will soften.