Honey is something almost everyone has in their home. It is bought from stores or people who produce honey themselves. However, many of you aren’t aware that there is real honey and fake honey. You can’t know which honey is which without checking the purity of the product.
That’s why we’re here! This article is going to show you how to perform a home test that will help you recognise real honey as well as how to recognise it in stores!
Why’s factory produced honey not good for you?
The manufacturing process makes processed honey with nutrients and bad quality. The food industry uses ultrafiltration of honey in order to prevent the tracing of the geo source of the honey. This honey is usually low in quality and is imported illegally from China or India. An expert in the field called Professor Vaughn Bryant, claims that 75% of the honey found on the market contains no pollen.
Here are some simple tricks that will help you learn how to recognise organic and factory produced honey.
What is fake honey?
Fake honey is the one often mixed with sugar syrups, molasses, corn syrup and other flavours and additives. Many tests have been made to prove this and it was discovered that most of the “pure” honey products you buy have corn syrup in them.
What is pure honey?
Organic or raw honey doesn’t come from the factory. It’s hard to find this type of honey in the stores even if it is labelled as real or organic.
Checking the honey purity at home
The honey products bought in stores are often mixed with molasses and sugar syrup because that boosts the producers’ profits. To make it thicker, they also add flour, sand, sawdust or even ground chalk! So, here we’re presenting you a home test to discover honey purity! Take a look!
The thumb test
Put a little honey on your thumb. Check if it spills or sticks. Real honey should stick your thumb instead of the spill.
The water test
Fill a glass with water and add a tablespoon of honey in it. If it is fake, the honey will dissolve fast, while the real honey will drop to the bottom of the glass.
Real honey is flammable!
Dip a dry match in the honey and then strike it to see if it lights. If the honey is real, the match will light up easily, and the flame will keep burning off the honey. If the honey is fake, the matchstick won’t light up because it contains impurities.
The purity of honey can also be checked by adding some water and 2-3 drops of vinegar in a small amount of the honey. If the honey is fake, the mixture will foam easily.
How to tell the difference between real and fake honey?
If you try to examine the physical qualities of the honey, they will easily show you the difference between real and fake honey, but to notice impurities, you need to have some practice first.
Fake honey properties:
- Foams
- It has runny texture
- Has clumps
- Separated into layers
- Has a sour smell or doesn’t smell at all
Real honey properties:
- It has a soft texture
- Doesn’t separate in layers
- Doesn’t make foam
- Trickles in a stream and is always thick
- Has the usual honey aroma
Not knowing the differences can easily make you buy artificial honey, without any of the qualities or properties of real honey, because it’s a synthetic preparation easily absorbed by the body.