Is It Possible to Determine Artificial or Adulterated Honey?: A Preliminary Study
Abstract
Honey is one of the most important natural products that is produced by honey bees. Due to its complex matrix, it is possible to produce artificial and adulterated honey. Artificial honey is produced by using glucose and fructose syrups, starch-based sugars, and flavoring agents. Adulterated honey is produced by feeding honey bees with various sugar syrups. As a result, these honeys lack key quality parameters, such as proline and bioactive compounds. The honey should be analyzed according to standard guides. In this preliminary study, artificial and adulterated honey samples were examined and evaluated through two honey samples by jointly evaluating honey’s key parameters, such as electrical conductivity, proline content, sugar composition, phenolic content, and enzyme activity. The moisture content was calculated to be 20% for artificial honey, whereas adulterated honey had 18%. The amount of fructose was determined as 15.48 g/100g and 32.98 g/100g for artificial and adulterated honey, respectively. It was clear that carrying out the standard analyses with a guide's help makes it easier to distinguish between different types of honey and a dataset for machine learning research could be obtained by increasing the number of samples analysed.
Keywords
Honey, Food quality, Characterization of honey, Adulteration, Artificial honey
Supporting Institution
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Ethical Statement
References
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