La Abeja Prodigiosa. Tienda online de miel y productos apícolas

The positive effects of honey on people?s health are well known. These are due to honey?s high contents of minerals, vitamins, and oligoelements. However, sadly, there are a number of adulterated honey products in the market today.

Many of these are mixtures of honey with glucose solutions, or even low quality honeys with a high content of water, because they have been extracted from cells that have no operculum (not clogged with beeswax).

Fortunately, there are some simple tests that you can do at home in order to find out whether the honey you hav purchased is pure and high quality, or else, it has been adulterated, or has too much water.

Read the label.

The first thing you should do before buying a jar of honey is read the label, and check that the list of ingredients does not include ?fructorse syrup? or commercial glucose. These are two additives frequently used to dilulte honey and avoid its solidification.

All honey is liquid, but in time it will solidify or become sugary. If you buy a jar of honey that has already crystalized, it will be pure honey. If you have a jar of liquid honey, you can wait a few days to see if it solidifies. Also, you can put it in the refrigerator to accelerate the process. If that honey never becomes crystalized, there is a high chance that it is adulterated honey.

These are a few simple tricks that can help you see whether you have purchased pure honey, or if it has been adulterated in any way, or else has a high humidity.

• Take a teaspoon of honey and put it inside a glass of water. If the honey dissolves, it is not pure honey. Pure honey must stay together, as if solid, when submerged in water.
• Take a little honey and mix it with water. Put four or five drops of vinegar into the solution. If you see bubbles or foam forming, that honey may be adulterated.
• Take a portion of honey with you spoon and put the spoon horizontally with the honey facing down. Very humid honeys will fall off the spoon quickly. Mature honeys, good quality ones, will either stay on the spoon or fall very slowly.
• Light a match and try to burn some honey. If you see that the honey lights up and burns, it is pure. Impure or low quality honey has water, and that keeps it from burning.
• If you have iodine at home, take a little honey and mix it with water. Add a few drops of iodine. If the solution turns blue, that honey has been adulterated with flour or starch.
• Take a piece of old, hardened bread and submerge it in honey. If it is still hard after 10 minutes, it is pure honey. If there is a lot of water in the honey, the bread will become soft.

As you can see, these simple tests can help you corroborate the quality of the honey you are buying, and that way you will be able to choose the purest honey, so that you can take maximum advantage of all the benefits of including honey in your diet.