So you thought the pure honey you eat every day was pure, right? Think again, because that bottle of honey might have more to it than meets the eye.
Advertisements on TV and in print can say whatever they want about how pure the honey is, but what the customer actually gets is a different story. When we don’t know enough, we end up buying what companies want us to believe is the truth, only to find out much later that it was all just a sweet lie.
So, is there a way to tell the difference between real honey and honey that has been tampered with? Without knowing how pure the honey is, it can be hard to come to any conclusion. Honey purity tests can be done easily at home to find out how good the honey is.
Whether honey is real or not
Not all honey is made the same. Raw honey is the purest and most natural form of honey. It is made by bees from the concentrated nectar of flowers. It comes straight from the source and has not been heated or processed in any way. The bees’ nectar goes through three steps of processing before it gets to the person who will use it.
In the first step, the honey is processed, and enzymes are added to make it thicker. The process also helps the nectar ferment. Once the honey has been fermented, it is changed in other ways to make it thicker. In the third and final step, water is taken out of the honey, which causes it to lose 80% of its water content, become thicker, and turn a deep, rich golden brown color.
Fake honey is honey that has been mixed with sugar syrups, molasses, corn syrup, dextrose, and other flavors and additives. It is also called adulterated honey or artificial honey. It might look nice, but during the manufacturing process, all of its nutrients and nutritional value are taken out.
Want to know how to tell if honey is pure? By looking at the way honey looks, it is very easy to tell if it is pure or not. Watch out for these:
Pure honey smells sweet, while fake honey smells sour or, most of the time, doesn’t smell at all. When you eat pure honey, it burns a little in your throat. But this doesn’t happen with fake honey. Pure or raw honey doesn’t separate into layers. But that’s not the case with fake honey, which always has layers. Raw honey might have natural impurities like pollen, bee bread, and tiny bits of wax, but these things are safe to eat and won’t hurt you. On the other hand, there are none of these things in fake honey.
– Raw honey is smoother than fake honey, which tends to be on the rough side.
Raw honey usually has a thick texture and drips down in a thin stream. On the other hand, fake honey is very thin and spreads across the surface right away.
How to Tell If Honey Is Pure?
With so many choices at the grocery store, it’s easy to get swayed by things like price, packaging, brand, etc., when picking the right honey. Sad to say, there are a lot of honey brands that have been tampered with and are being sold for less money under the name of natural and organic honey. So, it’s important to know that most of the honey on the market isn’t exactly what the bees make naturally. Instead, it’s made in factories with lots of chemicals.
Before choosing a honey brand, you should think about things like quality, health, and trust if you want to get all the benefits honey has to offer. Yes, it’s not easy to tell if something is real or fake. But you will need tests to tell the difference because most of the products you see in stores are not the organic ones you want.
Here are a few simple honey purity tests you can do at home to answer the age-old question of how to tell if honey is pure.
a) The thumb test: Put your thumb in a jar of honey. If the honey sticks to your thumb and doesn’t run off, you know you have pure honey.
If it leaks or gets all over, too bad. What you have is a bottle of honey that has been tampered with.
b) The test of water:
Fill a glass with water and put 1 tablespoon of honey in it. Honey that has been tampered with or isn’t real will dissolve in the water and spread out. Pure honey, on the other hand, will sink to the bottom of the glass.
c) The fire test: Take a dry matchstick, dip its tip right into the honey, and strike the stick on the matchbox as if to light it. If the honey is pure, the matchstick will light easily, and the flame will keep burning off the honey. However, if it has impurities, it won’t light because fake honey has moisture as one of the impurities.
Aside from these tests, a common way to tell the difference between pure and impure honey is to mix some water and two or three drops of vinegar essence into the honey and stir well. If the solution starts to foam, that is definitely honey that has been tampered with.
Honey is nature’s sweetest gift to people, and it has a lot of good things for your health. Honey is thought to be one of the best foods for your health all over the world. It is full of antioxidants, flavonoids, and substances that fight bacteria and germs. Honey in its purest form is like a miracle food that can be eaten every day to stay fit and healthy. It can give you more energy, help with stomach problems, and soothe a sore throat or cough.
Honey can do amazing things for your skin, hair, weight, and overall health.
