First, true and false honey and identification
What is honey? Let's look at the original definition in the dictionary:
Honey: The honey juice made from the sweet liquid in flowers is thick, edible and can also be used as medicine.
Let's look at the key words, bees, nectar (that is, nectar), brewing, honey juice, that is, honey juice brewed by bees with nectar. Bees collect nectar (mainly composed of sucrose and water), decompose sucrose into sugar and glucose by invertase secreted by themselves, and then evaporate excess water to form mature honey with little water content. This is the main chemical and physical process of making honey from honey. Honey is a pure natural agricultural product without any artificial traces. With this standard, we can understand what real honey is.
Let's look at the requirements of national standards for honey. Probably, everyone can understand the following points:
1. Honey source is nontoxic.
2. Fructose and glucose/(g/100g) ≥ 60
Sucrose/(g/100g)
Eucalyptus honey, citrus honey, purple alfalfa honey, litchi honey,
Wild osmanthus honey ≤ 10
Other honey ≤ 5
Zinc (Zn)/(mg/kg) ≤ 25
3. Microbial limits of pesticides and veterinary drugs
The national standard clearly quantifies and limits the standard of honey. The national standard is the law. What is the law? Law is the lowest standard of morality. In other words, this is the minimum standard for honey. As long as the indicators meet the requirements of the national standard, it is qualified honey. After reading this standard, people who really want to make high-quality honey cried. On the contrary, companies and counterfeiters who make honey put their hands in their pockets and smiled. Honey itself is a natural mixture, which is influenced by uncertain factors such as honey source, climate and environment, making it impossible for honey itself to have uniformity. The specific quantification of ingredients is nothing more than an open-book exam for those counterfeiters.
According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the annual output of honey in China in recent five years is about 500,000 tons, ranking first in the world, and the global honey output is about 1.85 million tons. At present, there are 93.2 million bees (boxes) in the world, and there are about 9.2 million bees (boxes) in China, accounting for about one tenth of the global total. The global average honey production per box (excluding China) is about 16.5kg, and that of China is about 55 kg. The above data has vaguely explained some problems, and everyone should have a general understanding of the current situation of the honey market.
So what is real honey? There are already two standards here, one is the definition of honey that conforms to the original interpretation of honey, and the other is the definition of honey that conforms to the national standard. According to the national standard definition of honey, more than 90% of honey on the market is true honey. According to the definition of original honey, more than 90% products on the market are fake honey. Here, friends who don't know honey should have a new understanding of honey. To sum up, most people think that true honey is the honey defined in the dictionary, so what we say later is true or false, which shall prevail.
How to tell whether honey is true or false? The answer is sad. All identification methods can only identify some honey with poor counterfeiting methods. If the counterfeiting technology is good, the public simply can't tell it apart, including beekeepers and most professional testing institutions. Next, let's explain why honey can't be identified by common methods.
1. Clear water identification method
Shake a certain amount of honey and water in a bottle and look at the bubbles (active enzymes) on it. (This method can only detect blended honey without real honey, fake honey with mixed authenticity, and concentrated honey without heating technology, so it can't be identified! )
2. Turbidity identification method
Pure honey contains a lot of biological enzymes, protein, minerals, pollen and so on. So honey doesn't look very transparent, and it will be a little cloudy (this method can only detect blended honey without real honey, but can't distinguish fake honey from fake honey).
3. Bubble identification method
Shake the bottle hard a few times, it is real honey that can produce many tiny bubbles, and it is fake honey that can't produce many bubbles. The principle is that real honey contains a kind of protein called glucose oxidase, which can decompose unstable hydrogen peroxide and easily decompose oxygen to generate bubbles under shaking. (This method can only detect blended honey without real honey, but fake honey mixed with authenticity cannot be identified. )
4. Crystallization identification method
False honey does not crystallize, and crystallization does not exist.
This identification method is the most nonsense, even the most basic blended honey without any honey ingredients can not be identified, and at the same time, some liquid true honey that is difficult to crystallize is vilified.
5. Smell recognition method
Really pure honey must have the fragrance of natural plants and flowers, and it smells very refreshing. Fake honey has no natural floral fragrance, but some are sucrose and essence, which smells pungent and disgusting. (In this way, the fake honey with rough fake technology can be identified, and the problematic honey can be directly smelled, and the cost will not exceed 3 yuan, so this method is also invalid. )
6. Drawing identification method
Good honey wire drawing is very long, and the top will bounce back soon after cutting. If it is fake honey or inferior honey, it will not rebound soon. (9.9 Buy 10 piece of honey per catty to get the desired effect. )
The above simply lists several identification methods that ordinary people can come into contact with honey. Of course, there are many more, but the meaning is basically not great. So, can the testing organization identify it? The answer is as pale as fake honey. It is not difficult for people who have studied chemistry to refer to the parameters of the national standard. The current counterfeiting technology is completely beyond the imagination of ordinary people. What those of us who are not profitable can think of, will those who are profitable not think of it? Now fake honey is very good. I can show you everything you want through technology. Besides nutrition, the taste may be better than real honey, and the price is the same as real honey. True and false, false and false, and fake honey are detected by consumers, which is a shame for honey counterfeiters and an insult to the counterfeiting industry. Although this sentence sounds ridiculous, it is a reality. Sadly, we know it's false but we can't prove it's false. So, that's why 9.9 packages of honey you saw on the Internet dare to give you a fake one and lose ten.
Second, our common honey.
1. Earth honey
Native honey is honey produced by China native bee species (Chinese bee). The honey brewed by Chinese bees from honey sources such as trees and wild flowers is not called earth honey as some people think. Earth honey contains a variety of trace elements that can be directly absorbed by the human body and is the first choice for drug introduction. Originally, it was widely distributed in China, but because the economic benefits it can produce are too low compared with Italian bees, the number of breeding bees is less than one tenth of the total number of bees in China, so the honey production is also plummeting. For example, if the probability of buying real honey is 1%, then the probability of buying real honey is less than one thousandth.
2. Italian honey
Honey produced by Italian bee species usually takes about 10 days to mature. Italian bees have become the mainstream of our beekeeping industry. Italian bees are gentle in temperament, easy to manage, large in colony and high in honey production, and are deeply loved by beekeepers. Its nutritional value is comparable to that of natural honey. Like earth honey, it is difficult to find a mature honey, and the real honey on the market is far less than 10%.
Concentrated honey
Honey can meet the national standards by processing honey. Water honey is honey with low maturity produced by Italian bees, and its main components are sucrose and water. Normal and mature honey takes about 7- 15 days to brew, but water honey doesn't need it, as long as there is honey, and even bees don't need to brew. Almost all honey manufacturers you can see, Shang Chao, sell this concentrated honey. Concentrated honey can best reflect the chaos in the honey market. Mature honey, the main process is that bees decompose sucrose in water honey into fructose and glucose which can be directly absorbed by people through transaminase, and dehydrate it, which contains a variety of active enzymes and trace elements. Concentrate honey, artificially convert sucrose in honey into fructose and glucose and dehydrate. Both results are the same to get honey products, but will they be the same? A natural one and an artificial one. As for the special ingredients that honey should have without adding anything, we dare not jump to conclusions. There are still some enterprises with conscience, but certainly not many.
Mixed honey
What has the rapid development of science and technology brought us? Convenient lifestyle, comfortable living environment and many other things that nature can't give us, but it is also quietly stealing our most important thing-health. Blending honey is the product of pure technology and hard work. From the initial white sugar, to the later sucrose, and now to the preserved fruit syrup (the main components are basically the same as honey), honey counterfeiting technology can always surprise us at the first time. No matter what we expect from honey, they will always give us the most satisfactory answer in the continuous growth. How much is the blended honey market? This answer is unknown, but it is definitely not in the minority. Do you think it's safe to eat honey like this?
5. Honeycomb honey
Honeycomb honey may have existed since the discovery of honey, that is, honey with honeycombs, but it is definitely a commodity that has been madly sought after by our people in recent years. With the prosperity of people's lives and the emphasis on health, more and more people begin to hold the attitude that they would rather not eat honey than buy fake honey. Dear, if you are afraid of fake, I will sell you the hive together! As a result, honeycomb honey became popular! How many friends who bought honeycomb honey bought it for this reason? The answer is definitely more than 99%. Hearing is false, seeing is true, and capital and counterfeiters have seized our psychology. Honeycomb honey, you haven't bought anything cheap, have you? It's worth at least 30 kilograms? What? It's too cheap. Will the buyer doubt it? Then 69 kg, 88 kg, buy 2 kg to get 1 kg! No problem, the price is not important, I want real honey ... Honeycomb honey is the most profitable thing in honey, which is much higher than the profit of most direct selling fake honey, so it is destined to become the hardest hit area for counterfeiting. As for how to fake it, everyone searched on various platforms, and some friends wrote it in detail. So what are the chances of buying real honeycomb honey? I can only say that the probability of buying real honey is lower! Honeycomb honey just makes you feel that honey is real, and nothing else is good. All the honeycombs with neat and clean appearance, smooth surface, attractive color and full honey juice. Real honeycomb honey is basically fake. Normal people will never have any appetite or even nausea. Moreover, the honey in the honeycomb can't be drunk with water, and you have to spit it out after chewing. What's the point of buying honeycomb honey? Real honeycomb honey will not taste good, except for a few people who need Chinese medicine!
The domestic honey market is rotten to the root. The current situation is that in the eyes of buyers who want to buy real honey, those who sell honey are fakes. In the eyes of beekeepers who sell real honey, those who buy honey are ignorant of the goods. I can't even sell real honey. Can I still pretend? The other two kinds of people, mixed between these two kinds of people, have been buying fake honey to pay IQ tax and selling fake honey to sleep and wake up, which is the mainstream of this industry. They never hurt each other emotionally and lived the most comfortable life. And those of us who are more serious are always fighting for our own principles and bottom line. Beekeepers who sell honey may have the same dream as us at first, but they have to bow to the capital in the face of life.
3. How to buy real honey?
I really don't know how to answer this question! Perhaps, the only thing I can do is to reduce your chances of buying fake honey through elimination.
1. Don't buy honey from all formal manufacturers. Honey is 99% concentrated, and 100% is not native honey.
Showstopper in the whole honey market is the producer of these honey and the initiator of fake honey. In order to reduce the cost, mature honey and water honey are basically treated differently, which leads to more beekeepers not selling mature honey, resulting in a vicious circle, which leads to the situation that it is difficult to find real honey in the honey market now.
2. Don't buy 30 yuan less than a catty of honey online.
Honey below 30 yuan has the highest market share, but all of them are fake honey. It is impossible for anyone other than the beekeeper to sell real honey at a price lower than this. Their honey is not real honey, let alone local honey. Real honey, about 50- 100 yuan per catty, earth honey 80-200 yuan per catty. (Of course, even if you spend real honey, you can't guarantee that 100% is true. )
Don't buy those with high online sales or poor evaluation.
The monthly sales volume is tens of thousands, and the market share of real honey determines that this sales volume is basically impossible. Sales are not very high, but you can't buy many bad reviews. Few people give bad reviews after buying real honey, which will not exceed 1%, and the bad reviews of fake honey will be at least 3%.
Don't buy these bee products at the same time.
Royal jelly, pollen, all kinds of single honey. All kinds of earth honey are fake. There are only flowers honey, earth bee pollen and royal jelly, which are not enough for your own consumption and will not be sold.
Don't buy honey in all supermarkets (big or small)
For the same reason as the first one.
6. Don't buy honey from these flowers.
Osmanthus fragrans, honeysuckle honey, Rose Honey, Peach Honey, Saussurea involucrata Honey, Ginkgo Honey, Grape Honey, Pine Flower Honey, Scrophularia Honey, Ginseng Honey, Gastrodia elata Honey, Saussurea involucrata Honey, Aloe Honey, Coptis chinensis Honey and Camellia Honey. These nectaries don't exist.
7. Don't buy all online celebrity live rooms.
Tens of thousands of sales are concentrated honey except concentrated honey.
8. Don't buy wild native honey.
People who can eat don't have to buy things that money can't buy (this is panda blood in honey)
Having said that, I feel that I can't buy any honey. Haha, what kind of honey can I buy?
1. Roadside beekeepers can buy it.
This may be the closest you get to real honey. Although it may be fake honey, you have more than half the chance to buy real honey.
2. Some can be bought on the shopping platform.
Baby, there are simple words or some unprocessed photos. The storefront is not decorated, and the packaging is a simple three-no product. I didn't reply for a long time after consulting. Let's start with this. Most of them sell real honey.
3. Some live broadcast rooms can be bought.
There is no background decoration in the live broadcast room except the honey juice of the three products. I can't say clearly about long coarse ore. I bought it at buy buy.
I can buy local honey here.
I don't keep bees. My uncle's family has 45 boxes of bees, which are collected once a year, with an annual output of about 500 kilograms of authentic local honey. The address is in Dingzhanghu Village, Hongqingshan National Forest Park, branch of Mount Lishan, Qinling Mountain, Shaanxi Province. If you go to Mount Li near Xi on weekends, it's very convenient, so you don't have to make a detour. You are welcome to taste it on the spot, and then decide whether to buy it after you are satisfied.
These are the original handwriting that I spent a few days writing, and this is the first time for me to write this kind of thing. The purpose is to help those friends who don't know honey at all to step on the pit less and help my uncle sell honey. If there are any shortcomings or mistakes, I hope you will forgive me and thank you.