Fake Honey? Honey-flavored corn syrup
FAKE HONEY? honey-flavored corn syrup
The term “adulterated honey” implies that the honey has added glucose, dextrose, molasses, corn syrup, sugar syrup, invert sugar, flour, starch, or any other similar product, other than the floral nectars gathered, processed, and stored in the comb by honey bees. A “pure honey” label doesn’t guarantee at all that it is not diluted with water and further sweetened with corn syrup, it just promises that there is real pure honey inside, with no suggestion of its amount. The law does not require a “pure honey” label to say how much pure honey is in the bottle.
According to the FDA (and the food safety divisions of the World Health Organization and the European Commission), the one test that authenticates honey is the presence of pollen. If the liquid gold doesn’t contain pollen, it isn’t honey.
This prompted Food Safety News to test more than 60 different samples of store bought honey for pollen. The results were damning:
76% of grocery store “honey” had no pollen in it!
Chinese honey frequently has all of the pollen pasturized and or filtered out of it to disguise its origin, and it’s then cut like with cheap corn syrups and artificial sweeteners. The FDA says that a substance can’t legally be called “honey” if it contains no pollen, and yet most of the honey tested from the main retailers contained not a trace of it.
Honey bought at most grocery stores were treated with a process called “ultra-filtration,” which removes not only impurities like wax, but also all traces of pollen. the biggest reason to avoid ultra-filtered honey is that pollen is the only sure-fire way to trace the source of honey to a geographic location. As a result ultra-filtered honey is often used to mask the shady origins of certain kinds of honey — especially Chinese honey, which is subject to heavy import tariffs on account of its frequent contamination by heavy metals and illegal antibiotics. The problem, according to the Food Safety News report, is that there is no way to tell if honey is really honey except by looking through a microscope at the pollen grains imbedded in it. Commercial honey manufactures say that they ultra-filter it because shoppers want honey that is crystal clear and devoid of impurities. But there are other reasons the pollen gets removed, including the desire to conceal where it comes from, and lace it with cheap additives. Since pollen’s sourcse are local blossoms, the type of pollens found in honey tells botanists where the honey originated, and whether it is authentic or not.
Honey Purity Tests from around the world. (these tricks are an easy way to spot most fake honeys)
-Read the label, don’t buy brand name or pasteurized and filtered honey.
-Pour some honey in a small glass of water. Real honey will drop to the bottom of the glass and not dissolve. Fake honey will start to dissolve and mix with the water very quickly if not instantly. You can also try adding 2-3 drops of iodine to the solution. It will not turn blue is real.
-Put some honey on a piece of paper. If a damp patch spreads around then it is diluted
-Dip a piece of stale bread into honey. After 10 mins it should still be firm and not soft.
-Real pure honey’s freezing point is low .If you put pure honey into the freezer it will not freeze and will remain runny.
-Use a MATCH stick: just dip a match stick in some honey and allow it to soak for a few minutes, then bring it out and try spark it, if it sparks, it is the real one.
– This is the test I was told to use – leave a grain of cooked rice in the honey for 12 hours, if the honey is pure it will become “uncooked” as the pure honey will draw the moisture from it, whereas if the honey has water added it will remain soft.
-Pour your honey from a height of two feet or so and watch closely. Pure honey will spin clockwise. (Fake will spin anticlockwise like other liquids) This is a result of the non-symmetrical structure of honey molecules that gives it a right-hand bias.
-Pour a thin layer of honey over a metal plate or bowl. Let it spread all across. Then pour some water gently into the plate/bowl. If it is real honey, you will see honey the honey form the honey comb shape. Having said that, when preparing honey for consumption, DO NOT use Metal spoon!
*Only chemical analysis that can accertain the authenticity of pure honey.