Honey is a common food in daily life with high nutritional value and beauty benefits, but do you know how to choose it? Honey is nutritious, and there are clever tricks for selecting it.
The nutritional value of honey
Honey can promote digestion and absorption, increase appetite, calm the nerves and aid sleep, and improve the body's resistance. It also plays a positive role in promoting the growth and development of infants and young children. For the elderly with high blood pressure, drinking a glass of honey water in the morning and evening is very beneficial. The potassium in the honey helps excrete sodium after entering the body, maintaining the balance of electrolytes in the blood. Patients with chronic hepatitis or poor liver function can improve their liver function by regularly eating honey. For patients with chronic diseases such as tuberculosis and gastrointestinal ulcers, honey is a good nutritional supplement that can enhance physical fitness.
Simple methods for selecting honey:
Look at the luster and color
For real honey, a light white color is considered good, followed by light yellow or amber, with a lighter shade being preferable. The luster is not very bright. Artificial honey has a bright color; it is made from boiled sugar or syrup, so it looks very clear and bright, usually in light yellow or dark yellow. In addition, pure honey is colorless. The color of honey is caused by the pollen of different plants it contains. Therefore, dark honey is more nutritious than light honey, but it often has a stronger aroma, such as buckwheat honey. Light-colored honey generally has a delicate fragrance, such as lychee honey or acacia honey.
Identification of impurities
You can insert a red-hot iron wire into the honey. If it steams, it's real honey; if it smokes, it's fake. If it's pure honey, the iron wire will be very smooth after being pulled out, with no impurities attached. When you pick up honey with a chopstick, it should be able to form a long thread that doesn't break easily, and when the thread breaks, it should automatically retract into a ball. This is a sign of high quality. Mix honey and water in a 1:5 ratio and let it sit for a day. Honey with no sediment is of high quality.
Identification of water content
Drop honey on white paper. Pure honey will form beads and not spread, while honey mixed with water will gradually spread. The faster it spreads, the more water it contains.
Identification of heavy metals: Take a tablespoon of honey and add it to a small cup of strong, cold green tea. If the honey is contaminated with heavy metals, the tannin in the tea will chemically react with the heavy metals in the honey, forming gray, brown, or black salts. The darker the color, the more severe the heavy metal contamination.
Identification of starch: Put a small amount of honey in a cup, add an appropriate amount of water and bring to a boil. After cooling, add a few drops of iodine and shake well. If the solution turns blue, red, or purple, it means the honey is mixed with starch.
Identification of sugar: Honey mixed with sugar has poor transparency and is not clear; it appears cloudy, and its floral aroma is also inferior. Honey mixed with brown sugar is darker in color, while honey mixed with white sugar is lighter. You can rub it between two fingers; a sticky feeling is good, while a grainy texture indicates the presence of sugar.
Identification by taste: Real honey is sweet and delicious with a slight sour taste. The crystallized block is crispy when bitten and melts in the mouth. Artificial honey has a bitter or astringent taste. The crystallized block is crunchy like granulated sugar.
Identification by smell: Real honey has a faint, floral, plant-like aroma. Artificial honey has a pungent, strange smell or a fruity, sugary smell.