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Health Info
3 Type Of Honey : Which One Is Fake?
Even PURE HONEY sometime has no benefit for your health.
Yes, you read that right. PURE HONEY not necessary is healthier honey, it could simply just an expensive sweetener & have ZERO vitamins, healthy enzymes & nutrients inside. But, how can it be???
Most of the honey in the grocery stores isn’t exactly what the bees produce but fake and impure honey. Because of the high demand for pure honey resulting from its medicinal and nutrient value individuals and companies have taken advantage of this (high demand) in a move to make an extra buck by selling fake honey.
(KKM reported that 80% of honey sold in Malaysia was a Fake Honey)
TYPE OF HONEY
Without distinguishing the difference between pure and fake honey, you will end up buying bad products. So, as we go details into this, first we need to know what is the type of honey that they sell to us today.
In general, we can group these honey into 3 categories:
- PURE & RAW HONEY (ORGANIC/ORIGINAL)
- PROCESSED/PASTEURISED HONEY (PURE BUT NOT RAW HONEY)
- ADULTERATED HONEY (NOT PURE & NOT RAW HONEY)
1) RAW & PURE HONEY
Raw honey is exactly what bees put in the cells of the combs. It is what they eat. The beekeeper would simply cut down the caps of the cells and let the honey pour down by means of gravitational force. Or put the frames into a honey extractor, which spins them so that most of the honey is removed by centrifugal force.
Once extracted, the resulting honey will contain bits of wax and must be passed through a strainer so that a clean liquid honey results. The beekeeper will usually just filter the honey to remove small bits of debris, including pollen, beeswax, and parts of dead bees.After that it should be directly sealed into jars. They do not pasteurize the honey.
2) PROCESSED/PASTEURISED HONEY
It is still pure honey, but not raw. Because Raw Honey is unappealing and crystallises quickly, and people may not buy it because it contains “impurities”, so the big producers pasteurised it using intense heat to make it look like PURE GOLDEN LIQUID, perfectly clear and easy to spread – And invented “PURE” honey, also known as “clear”, “regular”, “commercial”, “processed”, “pasteurized” honey.
All nectar (the source for all honey) contains osmophilic yeasts, which can reproduce in higher-moisture content honey such as Heather Honey and cause fermentation. Pasteurise using high temperature will kill any latent microorganisms that responsible for spoilage and retard fermentation process.
Pasteurised honey also will last longer in its liquid state than unpasteurised honey, which makes for a more appealing-looking product for both retailers and consumers (most people has wrong perception that crystallised honey is Fake Honey because it been mix with sugar syrup, but actually it was opposite)
However, this process will deteriorating the honey: its delicate aromas and partially or completely destroyed the enzymes which are responsible for activating vitamins and minerals in the honey (1)
3) ADULTERATED HONEY
This is neither PURE nor RAW honey. Some call in “Fake Honey” some call it “Impure Honey”. “Adulterated” usually refers to mixing other matter (substance) of an inferior and sometimes harmful quality with food or drink intended to be sold. Honey can be adulterated in various ways.
One of the adulteration methods is the addition of different sugar syrups during or after honey production. Starch-based sugar syrups, high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), glucose syrup (GS) and saccharose syrups (SS), which are produced from beet or canes, can be used for adulterating honey.
Those sugars was from a type of plants known as C4 plants as opposed to pure honey, which is made from the nectar of flowers from a different group, called C3 plants. Some operators adulterate honey with rice sugars that enable them to avoid the C4 test. Some rice syrup producers openly advertise that their products will not cause adulterated honeys to fail the C4 test.
WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT
1) NUTRIENTS CONTENT
Raw honey contains a wide variety of nutrients. It has approximately 22 amino acids, 31 different minerals and a wide range of vitamins and enzymes. What’s most impressive about raw honey is that it contains nearly 30 types of bioactive plant compounds. These are called polyphenols, and they act as antioxidants.
Processed honeys may contain fewer or no nutritious destroyed during pasteurising process. For example, one study compared the antioxidants in raw and processed honey from a local market. They found that the raw honey contained up to 4.3 times more antioxidants than the processed variety. However, it consider still safe to eat.
Adulterated honey however can increases the consumer’s blood sugar, which can cause diabetes, abdominal weight gain, and obesity, raise the level of blood lipids, cause high blood pressure and demonstrate toxicity effect as published in this review. The most common organ affected by honey adulterants is the liver followed by the kidney, heart, and brain, as shown in several in vivo research designs.
2) THE LOOK
Raw honey is naturally cloudier than regular honey due to honeycomb debris that is too small to be filtered out. Raw honey tends to have more variation in color (depend on flower type) and texture than regular honey. It inherited aroma from the flowers that the bees pollinated.
Processed honey & Adulterated honey is clearer and smoother. The pasteurization process improves the honey’s appearance & they will not crystallized.
3) THE PRICE
It is obvious that cost for pure & raw honey significantly more expensive compare to adulterated honey since cost to produce it is more. Cost to produce honey also might vary depend on which country it been produced. For instance, cost to produce honey in Europe is far more costly compare to China or Middle East due to labour cost & bounded by tight regulation by EU to protect the industry from fake honey & to ensure legacy of the bee ecosystem.
For special type of honey like Monofloral honey (Manuka, Heather, Leatherwood, Lavender & etc), that will cost even more since those type of flower not available throughout the year. It only blossom during specific season/month & only blossom for only few weeks (1 or 2 week).
Unless you don’t care about implication from eating adulterated honey, it is advisable to not eating honey at all unless it is pure.
SUMMARY
For those who eat honey for health reason, you should totally avoid consuming adulterated honey as it could cause more damage to your body.
All honeys – as long as they are pure & raw – have their own unique holistic qualities and each are unique and worthy in their own right. So the remaining question now, how can we detect which honey is Raw, Processed & Adulterated honey? You might find the answer HERE…
p/s: Did you know that Europe is consider among world best honey producer? Check this link for #6 Interesting Fact Of European Honey & why they are consider best honey in the world.
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