Beware! The local honey you bought may just be syrup! This article teaches you how to distinguish

Audit expert: Wang Guoyi

Postdoctoral fellow in Nutrition and Food Safety, China Agricultural University

Recently, Sichuan police seized a fake honey production den and seized more than 100 kilograms of fake "earth honey". The method of counterfeiting is very simple: boil sugar, corn flour, edible essence, etc. with water, and a bottle of "earth honey" that looks real can be made in a hotel. The cost of fake honey is only a few yuan per kilogram, but it can be transformed into dozens of yuan per kilogram, which is a huge profit.

Sources of raw materials for producing fake honey | News photos

It is not difficult for us to understand the "good intentions" of unscrupulous merchants in counterfeiting native honey. In pursuit of health, people are seeking products that are original and pollution-free . The more "native" the product is, the more popular it is. This is the case with "native honey". Therefore, in order to cater to market demand and seek profits, merchants began to produce a large number of native honey products. When supply is insufficient to meet demand, some unscrupulous merchants may counterfeit and produce adulterated native honey.

What kind of honey is native honey? In the eyes of many people, native honey is honey produced in the countryside without any additives, while foreign honey is imported honey. How should we define native honey and foreign honey?

Local honey vs foreign honey

In fact, honey is a natural sweet product produced by bees collecting nectar, endocrine secretions or honeydew from flowers and carefully brewing. Therefore, whether it is local honey or foreign honey, they are all natural products, but both have certain requirements for bee species and production areas.

"Local honey" is the honey collected by wild or domesticated Chinese honeybees in the mountains from various pollens and nectars. It is collected and filtered once every October or November. Chinese honeybees are also called Chinese honeybees or native honeybees. They are a subspecies of the Oriental honeybee and are a bee species that is unique to China. Foreign honey generally refers to honey produced by a bee species from Italy (Italian honeybees).

Source of worker bees and queen bees of the Chinese honey bee 丨 Wikipedia/Azman

Chinese honey bees make honey by collecting nectar from scattered plants. Although their collection ability is weak, they can last for a long time, have strong disease resistance, and consume less feed, making them very suitable for fixed-point breeding in some mountainous areas of China. At the same time, native bees have strong disease resistance, and the honey they produce has almost no antibiotic residues. Italian bees have strong reproductive ability and weak swarming (bees multiply their colonies by swarming. The weaker the swarming, the stronger the honey colony, that is, the stronger the reproductive ability and collection ability). They use live frame breeding methods and perform well in collecting large quantities of nectar. However, Italian bees are weaker in disease resistance than Chinese bees, are more susceptible to mites, and are more likely to use antibiotics, resulting in a higher antibiotic residue rate in foreign honey than in native honey.

Therefore, we can conclude that native honey has low yield and high price, and is a multi-flower honey with higher environmental requirements. Italian bees are easier to breed, and the yield of foreign honey is naturally high. It is generally a single flower honey. The common acacia honey, vitex honey, jujube honey, litchi honey, etc. are all foreign honey.

Honey and honeycomb source 丨pixabay

Local honey is viscous and dark in color. It is often mixed with pollen, propolis, beeswax and even royal jelly. In addition, its nectar source plants may contain some Chinese medicinal materials, so it tastes sweet but not strong, and has a Chinese herbal flavor. Foreign honey is mainly made from single nectar, so each type of honey has its own unique color and taste.

In order to buy authentic local honey, many people will make appointments in advance with farmers they frequently purchase from. They believe that local honey is more nutritious than foreign honey. Is this really the case?

The Hard Work and Selection of “Uncultivated Honey”

According to the Compendium of Materia Medica, authentic native honey is the first choice of honey for medicine, which has the effects of eliminating fatigue, improving sleep, improving gastrointestinal function, nourishing and protecting the liver, etc. It can also effectively promote breast milk secretion and increase the immunity of mother and baby. "Native honey" is also called "herbal medicine" by people. It is particularly suitable for treating trauma such as knife wounds, burns, scratches and abscesses. It can also treat asthma, protect the liver, beautify, and improve physical health, etc.

However, regardless of whether it is wild honey or not, honey itself is a beneficial food . It can nourish the body, warm the spleen, moisten the intestines and relieve constipation, relieve cough and moisten the lungs, clear away heat and detoxify, etc. It's just that different bee species have different effects. For example, the main effect of linden honey is diuretic and detoxification, while vitex honey is suitable for strengthening the spleen and appetizing, and jujube honey has the effect of relieving fatigue and sterilizing. Bees in the beehive Source: pixabay

But we should not blindly promote "earth honey". First, although earth honey has good health benefits, it should not be exaggerated. The health of the body is by no means assured by drinking earth honey. It also requires reasonable rest, exercise and regular diet. Second, although honey is good, it should not be consumed in excess. After all, the sugar content of honey is not low.

Whether you are buying local honey or foreign honey, you should choose real honey! However, there are so many kinds of honey on the market, and the prices are also very high. How can we distinguish the authenticity of honey ?

Today, I will teach you the simplest method to identify honey!

Prepare a clean and transparent bottle, put some honey into the bottle, add some clean water, tighten the bottle cap, and shake the bottle vigorously. Whether it is real honey or fake honey, honey will produce some bubbles. But if the bubbles do not dissipate for a long time, it is real honey.

Honey source: pixabay

The active substances in real honey will produce a large number of bubbles that are difficult to dissipate after being melted in water and shaken vigorously. The bubbles produced by mixing fake honey with syrup will naturally dissipate quickly in the absence of active substances or with a low content of active substances.

Everyone knows the benefits of honey. Don't be easily deceived by merchants. Choosing pure honey that suits you is the way to stay healthy. Have you learned it?