How to Check if Honey is Pure or Adulterated? – Real vs Fake Honey Purity Test

Knowledge and awareness about authentic honey purity testing methods among honey consumers are needed ever more than before. The reason is, that due to the high demand and limited natural honey production, even big commercial brands tend to adulterate honey.

Therefore, If you remain unaware of modern honey mixing methods and still believe in old and outdated home testing methods, you are fooling yourself and consuming adulterated honey, which will harm your immune system.

There are many conventional simple methods of testing original honey, but are they reliable?

Most of the so-called Home testing methods aim to test only the physical nature or density, if these density tests are to be believed then you may end up proving some thick sugar syrup as pure honey.

So, how do we identify pure honey? Or how to make sure the honey you are consuming is pure?

Here you will find helpful and practical knowledge of how honey adulteration is advancing and what one must look for in honey brands to get pure honey.

Let’s dive into all aspects related to honey adulteration and methods to know the purity of honey:

1) How Is Honey Adulterated?

Usually, honey is adulterated with cost-effective, easily available materials that pass the testing parameters in practice.

Molasses:

Molasses is made by boiling sugar cane juice until it becomes thick and viscous. In earlier days, it was a common adulterant. Furthermore, it is turbid and dark in colour and tastes sweet as honey.

Liquid Glucose:

Factories make this thick, shiny solution for the baking and confectionaries industry. In addition, it is easily available in the market and cost-effective.

Invert Sugar:

It is a thick, shiny liquid. Factories manufacture it by processing refined sugar (through acid hydrolysis). Similarly, inverted sugar has extensive use in confectionery, bakery and culinary industries too.

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS):

HFCS is an advanced honey adulterant. It is the product of the processing of sweetcorn. Both its consistency and composition are similar to honey. Thus, making it a suitable adulterant for big honey brands.

Rice Syrup:

It is manufactured through the unique processing of rice. It is the most advanced and most common honey adulterant in the world.

For details refer to our blog post Types of adulterants in honey

2) Honey Testing Methods At Home: Let’s check a few home honey testing methods and their importance:

Solubility Test:

Take a glass of water and add honey slowly. If honey reaches the bottom of the glass without dissolving, then it is believed that honey is pure.

But the fact is that except for molasses, all other adulterants are dense enough to behave like pure honey. The adulterants were made deliberately thick to appear like pure honey.

Note: Unripen honey is less dense (thin consistency). Therefore, it may dissolve faster in water. Hence, it can give false-negative results.

Flame Test:

Take a matchstick, dip its tip into the honey and finally strike the stick on the matchbox to light it. If honey is pure it will light, If impure it will not light.

It depends on the presence of water (moisture) in honey. Ripe honey has lesser moisture and so as thick adulterants. Hence it can give false-positive results.

Burn Test:

First method: Dip a small cotton ball in honey and shake off excess honey and dry it to burn on flame. It is believed that if the cotton ball is burnt it is considered pure. Second method: dip currency notes in honey and try to burn them. If the currency note doesn’t burn, honey is considered pure.

Note: Both tests are baseless because the burning tendency depends on the moisture level or thickness of the given product.

Blot Test or Flowing Test:

Take a cloth or blotting paper and pour a few drops of honey over it and make it flow. If it flows without wetting, honey is considered pure. If it wets or gets absorbed, honey is considered impure.

Again, it depends on the water or moisture present in honey. Adulterants also flow on the cloth as pure honey because their density is similar to pure honey.

Honey Comb Pattern Test:

Take a little honey in a bowl, add water to it and shake it clockwise. The general belief is that pure honey forms a hexagonal shape or honeycomb-like pattern on the bottom of the container.

This is a baseless and unscientific test because all thick adulterants behave in the same manner.

Thumb Test:

Put a small drop of the honey on your thumb. Check if it spills or spreads around on your thumb. If it spreads then the honey is impure since pure honey will stay intact on your thumb.

This test can just differentiate between thin and thick honey, not its purity.