How can you identify if the honey is pure or adulterated?

Have you thought of the possibility that the honey you use on daily basis is adulterated or impure? If so, how could you determine whether it’s pure or adulterated? Is there any simple methods that you can follow at your home to determine the purity of honey?

From ancient times, honey has been our natural source of a nutritious sweetening agent. In recent years, there is a growing speculation about the purity of the honey that we use at our home. If you would need to enjoy the real nutritional benefits of honey, you would have to use 100% natural and pure honey. Some of them have a view point which goes by this way, “As the demand for honey increased and the production haven’t increased accordingly, how is it that we all get honey from our nearby shops? So some of these honey presumed to be original and pure, has to be fake or adulterated”. If so, will it be possible for us to find out the adulterated honey?

Honey is subject to fraud by adulteration with low price invert sugar syrups. Saccharine is a syrup derived from cane, corn or beet sugar are difficult to distinguish from those in pure honeys. Impure and adulterated honey has become a major place in the shops, markets etc.. Fake honey implies that the honey has been mixed or added molasses, syrups like corn sugar, invert sugar, flour or any other similar products. Unfortunately, it is incredibly difficult to tell genuinely pure bee’s honey from those that claim to be.

This article would take you through some simple methods to determine the purity of honey. All of these methods can be done at your home. Also, keep in mind that these tests are not 100% accurate. While the following tests are based on true principles, in practice your results may be inconclusive. Try several of these tests to see if the honey fails or passes consistently. In many cases, you can get nothing more than a good guess.

Mix a spoonful of honey in a glass of warm water

Take some warm water in a glass and add a spoonful of honey. Stir it slowly or refrain from mixing the solution. If the honey is adulterated or mixed with some kind of sugar solutions, it will dissolve in water. Almost all varieties of natural honey and some of the adulterated honey would stay together, sink as a solid lump and lay at the bottom of the glass. Pure and natural honey would form a layer beneath the water and could be seen from outside. Thus, this test will enable us to identify whether the honey is adulterated with some king of sugar syrups or sugar solutions.

Drop some honey on a paper towel

Take out some honey in a spoon and spill out few drops on to a paper towel. Wait for few minutes, if the honey has been diluted with water, it would be absorbed by the towel or we could see a wet mark on the paper towel. Pure honey would never be absorbed by the paper as it is devoid of water content and thus we would be able to identify the adulterated honey.

Try out the flame test

Take one cotton piece or candle wick and dip in honey. Try out lighting the cotton piece or candle wick. If it burns out smoothly, without any disruptions, we can conclude that the honey is pure from any water content. If it doesn’t burn or makes a crackle sound while burning, we can conclude that the honey is mixed with water. If adulterated, the presence of water will not allow the honey to burn, If it does, it will produce a cracking sound. Thus the flame test and paper towel test will give away the adulterated honey mixed with water.

The thump test

Place a small drop of honey on your thumb. Check whether if it spills or spreads around. If so, the honey is impure and if it stays as it is, then we could conclude that the honey is pure from any diluting agents like water. But this test will not give away the 100% purity of honey.

Good quality natural Stingless bee honey or Cheruthen is available for sale on natureloc.com

Buy online Natureloc Stingless bee honey – Cheruthen – Small honey 

Stingless bee honey – Cheruthen  small honey health articles

• What makes stingless bee honey more valuable than normal honey?
• How honey and cinnamon really work in diabetics?
• How can you identify if the honey is pure or adulterated?
• What is Cheruthen/Stingless bee honey (Small Honey/Wild Honey) ?
• Honey Uses – Home Remedies-How to use honey in your daily diet
• Honey- The liquid Gold – No added preservatives,no added flavorings
• How can you tell if honey is pure?
• Stingless bee honey – Natural medicine with a sweet taste
• Honey – The Sweetest Health Tonic From Nature
• Warm water with honey and lemon juice
• Gooseberry (Amala-Nellikka) Recipes – Honey gooseberry-gooseberry pickle