9 ways you can test whether your honey is real or adulterated

Honey is known to be one of the most beneficial natural foods on earth!

It contains essential nutrients for the body, is rich in antioxidants, keeps your body in an alkaline state, improves the quality of your skin and hair.

But, these are the health benefits of ‘authentic’ and ‘raw’ honey. If you consume adulterated, sugar added, or moisture added honey, you are probably never going to enjoy these benefits. 

Today, almost every brand claims to be selling unadulterated, raw, and authentic honey. But let’s accept it, all of us have, at some point of time, been tricked into buying adulterated honey. 

So how do we differentiate between the two? Here are 9 ways you can test for authentic honey at home:

1. THICKNESS

Authentic honey is thick, and is never runny. To check for its thickness, take a spoonful of honey in your mouth. Is it forming layers? If yes, it is authentic. But if it’s runny, your honey is adulterated. 

2. COLOUR

Authentic honey is usually darker in colour than adulterated honey. However, this test may not be reliable because a lot of brands these days make sure that their honey is dark in colour. 

3. CLOUDY

If the honey is raw and authentic, it will be a little cloudy because it has not been filtered or processed. 

4. SEASONAL

If the honey is available all year round and looks the same, then it is not authentic. The honey production depends on the flowering season of the plants which happens only in specific seasons. For example, our mustard honey is only available in the season when mustard grows and not all year round. Also, ideally, the honey will have a different texture/color every season.

5. THE WARM WATER TEST

To check for the authenticity of your honey, take a transparent cup full with warm water. Add a spoonful of honey into it. If the honey is pure, it won’t dissolve as soon as the spoon goes into water. It will look like a blob in the beginning and will only dissolve after a few seconds, and that too if you keep stirring. Honey that is mixed with sugar usually dissolves as soon as you put it into warm water because of the sugar content.

6. THE THUMB TEST

This test will check for the viscosity of honey. As we’ve mentioned above, real honey is thick and less viscous than adulterated honey. Take a few drops of honey on your thumb and try pressing it against your middle finger. Does the honey spill or spread? If yes, your honey is adulterated.

7. THE FLAME TEST

Did you know that authentic honey is flammable? You can take the flame test to check if your honey has moisture added to it, something which a lot of companies add to their honey. There are two ways to this test.

First, take a matchstick and dip it into honey. Now, try to light the matchstick as you normally do. If the matchstick catches fire, your honey is authentic. If not, you know why!

Alternatively, take a cotton wick and dip it into honey. Now try lighting it. Again, if it catches fire, your honey does not have moisture content. 

8. TISSUE PAPER TEST

This test again checks for moisture content in your honey. Take a tissue paper and put a few drops of honey on it and leave for a few seconds. If you can see a wet mark on the other side of the tissue paper, your honey contains moisture.

9. THE HEAT TEST

Take some honey in a bowl and try to heat it. Does it form bubbles? If yes, your honey is not authentic because real honey, upon heating, caramelizes but does not get bubbly.

So, the next time you buy honey, take some of these tests at your home and check for yourself.