Honey: Pure vs Fake

“I shouldn’t think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.” 
― Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle

Honey, loaded with nutrients, minerals and living enzymes is a very good alternative to refined sugar. We have long been reading about the benefits of honey not only in health care like treating cold, cough etc. but also skin care.

Read: Effect of sugar on kids

Honey is that one ingredient which never goes out of my kitchen shelf as I usually keep a lot of bottles in stock beforehand. But, it’s quite a challenge to find good, pure honey in the market. With so many options and brands available in the market, honey can easily be adulterated without you knowing it.

Recommended breakfast recipe: Overnight Oats

So, today, at besties, we are covering on how to check if the honey you are using is pure or not with some simple methods at home.

Before buying

• It is next to impossible to find “organic honey” as bees usually fly a couple of miles away from the hives and there are many non-organic farmers and neighborhoods to guarantee whether a particular honey is pesticide-free or not. So, ‘organic’ is just a label and nothing else.
• Avoid the ones which has ingredient, HFCS. High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is made from genetically modified corn and has been linked to diabetes, obesity, hypertension and liver damage, and leads to plaque buildup and narrowing of blood vessels. [Source]
• Always choose raw unfiltered honey which contains bee pollen. (Filtered honey increases the shelf life but most of the nutritional benefits are lost due to filteration.)

TESTS AT HOME

There are several methods to check if that honey you purchased is pure or not so that you have a better know-how when you are deciding upon your next bottle.

Thumb Test

Pure honey is always thick and will not drip when applied to a surface compared to impure honey. So, for this test, put a drop of honey on your thumb, if it spills or drips away like any other liquid then its impure. Pure honey will stick to the thumb and not drip.

Water Test

Take a glass full of water and put a teaspoon of honey. Leave it for a few seconds, pure honey will settle down at the bottom due to its density while impure honey will dissolve in the water.

[Recommended read: Daily mistakes that are causing back pain]

Matchstick Test

Take a dry matchstick and dip it in honey. Now, try to light the matchstick. If your honey is not pure, the matchstick will not light as impure honey contains some moisture.

These are some simple tests, which can easily help us check if the honey we are using is pure or not.

We have always believed in “Eat healthy, stay healthy”, and knowing our product well surely contributes to eating healthy. Please let us know in comments if you would like for us to cover products that we use daily and how to select them!

Until then..

Love,

V|XOXO