Adulterated honey?Adulterated honey?Adulterated honey?AduAdulterated honey?Adulterated honey?Adulterated honey?AaañdkfñldskfñldskfñladskfñlkdsñsflñsdlfkadslkfdAaAdjjjAdultered Honey? It’s well known that honey is beneficial for human health, as it is high in minerals, vitamins, and trace elements. It’s a product with multiple properties, perfect for sweetening our drinks, preparing recipes, and using it in homemade tricks.

The problem is that we don’t always buy the honey we expect, and sometimes, without realizing it, we buy adulterated honey. The easiest way to find out is by analyzing the label when purchasing it, but sometimes even that isn’t clear.

If you want to know what adulterated honey is and how to identify it to avoid consuming it, we invite you to read this post.

Pure Honey VS Adulterated Honey

Honey is the most natural and healthy product we can obtain from bees. However, many of the honeys sold on the market have been processed and modified. These alterations to honey not only mean that it loses its properties, but also contain chemical substances.

It’s advisable, as we mentioned before, to pay attention to the labeling. However, if it’s not clear, or if we purchased honey from a farm and it was sold to us without a label, there are some tricks that will allow us to detect whether the honey is pure or adulterated.

Pure Honey

Pure honey is the product produced by bees and has no additives or processing. It’s basically honey collected as is from the hive and subsequently packaged for distribution. Honey’s properties include antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal properties, so it’s important to ensure that the honey we consume is pure.

It’s worth mentioning that this honey can be pasteurized at 63 degrees. When this occurs, it’s known as pasteurized honey and cannot be used for therapeutic purposes.

When purchasing honey at the market, it’s best to look at the label. If you see terms like “high fructose syrup” or “commercial glucose,” it indicates that the honey has been treated and additives have been added to prevent it from solidifying. It may also include water, artificial sweeteners, or sugar.

Adulterated Honey

Adulterated honey consists of a combination of pure honey with corn syrup, sugar cane syrup, or other low-quality honeys with a high water content. This type of honey lacks nutrients and only provides the body with empty sugars.

Adulterated honey is much more liquid than pure honey and, depending on the additives used in its production, it can be a honey with a strong odor or one with almost no odor.

Homemade Tricks to Recognize Adulterated Honey

It’s not easy to know for sure whether the honey we are going to consume is pure or adulterated. However, there are several home tricks that can help us identify whether the honey is of good quality or not.

Read the label to know its ingredients

The first thing we should do when buying a jar of honey is to read the label and check that it doesn’t include the terms “high fructose syrup” or “commercial glucose.” These are two additives that cause the honey to stretch and not solidify. Other ingredients to look out for are water, sugar, and other additives.

Crystallization Test

When pure honey reaches temperatures below 25°C, it solidifies due to its high sugar content. The trick is to place the honey in the refrigerator, let it sit for several hours, and then check whether it has solidified.

With water

In a container, place a tablespoon of honey and spread it superficially over the base. Next, add a little water to the honey and make circular movements with the container.

If the honey is pure, a pattern similar to a beehive will appear. If the honey is adulterated, nothing will appear.

With your thumb

Place a little honey on your thumb and check if it stays put or slides off your finger. Adulterated honey has a higher water content, so if the drop of honey you placed on your finger slides off, it indicates that it’s not pure honey.

With fire

For this trick, we must be careful and take precautions. Pure honey is flammable, so simply soak a cotton ball in a little honey and place it in contact with the fire. If it catches fire, it’s pure honey.

With vinegar

Mix a tablespoon of honey with a little water and add two or three drops of vinegar. You’ll know it’s adulterated honey if, when you mix this mixture, some foam forms.

With heat

If you heat pure honey, it will caramelize immediately. If it’s adulterated honey, it will begin to boil and evaporate.

Conclusion

It’s a real benefit to be able to take advantage of a product as natural and full of properties as honey. It’s also important to support the work of all those beekeepers who are dedicated to producing pure, high-quality honey. Therefore, we encourage you to follow these simple tips so you can choose the purest honey and reap its benefits.

Of course, at GOinsitu we support small producers of pure, raw, and organic honey.