Real or fake: How to spot the purity of honey
Honey is one of the favorite consumable items in Qatar and everyone loves to use it in different forms. It magnifies the taste of many dishes and its demand in festive seasons is at absolute peak level. But being a honey lover you must have faced a dilemma time and again as to whether your honey is real or not. There are so many suppliers of honey in Qatar but the attractive packaging may be a disguise to fool you, so that you cannot tell whether it is natural honey or fake. It is important to identify that the honey you are consuming is real, and not just for financial or culinary reasons. China, whose food merchants often seem to have no regard for human health and safety have in the past flooded supermarkets with cheap, processed honey whose valuable friendly bacteria, vitamins and enzymes have been totally removed in processing. Much of this supposed ‘honey’ has been so heavily filtered that illegal contaminants and the crucial pollen that not only identifies its status as honey but also its country of origin is totally absent. Which is bad news for you, the consumer as fake honey can also have been contaminated with animal antibiotics and heavy metals.
Here are some handy tips to help you identify whether the honey is pure or fake.
Read the label carefully
The label will tell you whether additional substances have been used to complement or ‘pack’ the volume of the honey like artificial sweeteners, preservatives, or other chemical based
compounds. Go through the label carefully and you will get more than a hint about its purity.
Try the thumb test
Apply some honey to your thumb. If it spreads or spills then it is not pure. And if the honey remains intact with your thumb then it is an indication that it’s in a more pure organic form.
Think about doing a flame test
You need to dip the tip of a matchstick into honey and then try to ignite it by striking it on the matchbox. If flame is produced then honey is pure and if not, the honey is impure. Impure honey contains a lot of moisture, which is why the matchstick will not light up.
Explore the water test
You have to take one tablespoon of honey and simply add it to a glass of water. Impure honey will dissolve in water easily whereas pure honey will be settled at the bottom of the glass.
Vinegar water test
Take a little water and add around 3 to 4 drops of vinegar. Now in a bowl take a little of the honey and add this water vinegar mixture to it. If, after a time, the solution turns out to be foamy it is an indication that the honey is impure.
Taste It!
All the tests above will help separate the pure from the fake, but the best way to tell is by the taste. Can you taste more than one flavor, like different flowers, or herbs? That’s real honey. If it’s fake honey it just tastes sweet, with barely a trace of honey flavoring. So try these tests to find out whether the honey on your shelf truly is your sweetheart, and enjoy the heavenly taste of pure honey!
