In this post & video I am going to speak about various aspects of honey starting from the history to the manufacturing process and the nutritional aspects.
Contents
History | Why do bees make honey | Production process of honey | Nutritional comparison of honey vs. table sugar | Minor constituents of honey | Quality of honey | Sensory properties of honey |
About me
Prashanth Cheruku
Hello!!! Thanks for stopping by.
I am the founder of this platform & a qualified Food Technologist. I have more than 10 years of Research & content creation experience in the field of Food Science.
I hold a Master of Technology degree in Food Process Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.
History of honey
Honey is being used in many parts of the world for thousands of years for its medicinal effects.
The therapeutic uses of honey were mentioned in Greek, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian, and Islamic texts.
Human use of honey dates to at least 8000 years as suggested by the cave paintings in Spain.
Why do bees make honey?
Did you ever wonder why bees work so hard to make honey?
It’s for food security.
Bees produce honey so that they can use it in the future when there are not many flowers or when the weather is adverse.
In the northern and temperate countries very few plants produce flowers between October and March. When the weather outside is very cold, when it’s raining or when there is drought, bees feed on their stored honey.
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Production process of honey
Now let us look at how bees produce & process honey in the wild.
Commercial production of honey is also similar to this process with minor changes here and there.
Foraging honey bees visit flowers & collect nectar.
Then they fly back to their nest or inside a man-made hive in the case of commercial production.
(Regurgitating is bringing swallowed food up again in to the mouth)
The bees regurgitate the nectar & pass it through their mouth to other house bees.
The house bees also do the same. During this process bees add enzymes and the moisture content of the fluid is reduced. The enzymes breakdown & convert the sugars in the fluid to other types of simpler sugars.
The liquid is then placed in to the honeycombs.
Bees fan with their wings and ventilate to evaporate the moisture. The temperature around the nest (which is generally around 35°C) also helps in this process. Removal of moisture increases the life of honey.
Once the bees feel that the honey is ripe, they seal the cells of the honeycomb with wax capping. Generally, the final moisture content of the honey at this stage is less than 20%. At this level the honey will not spoil by fermentation and is stable for a very long time.
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Nutritional comparison of honey vs. table sugar
The chemical composition of honey varies greatly depending on the variety and the source. The major constituents of honey are glucose and fructose. Fructose percentage varies from 21.7-53.9% and glucose percentage from 20.4-44.4%. The mean percentage of fructose is 39.3% and that of glucose is 32.9%.
Sucrose and other sugars are also present in honey. Their percentage also varies depending on the variety of honey. The mean percentage of sucrose is 2.3% and that of other sugars is 8.5%.
Another major component of honey is water and the mean is around 17%.
Protein, fibre, and fat are almost negligible.
Honey is moderately high in its calorific content. Two table spoons (US, 30 g) of it contain 90 kcal. It must be consumed in moderation to avoid weight gain.
Table sugar contains 99.8% sugar which is sucrose.
Honey is definitely better compared to table sugar nutritionally. Sugar can be replaced with honey in several drinks and food products. Sugar generally provides only sweetness whereas honey provides its characteristic aroma, colour, and flavour.
Honey also provides its antioxidant effect, minerals, and other nutrients. But we must remember that ultimately both are 100% sugary foods.
Minor constituents of honey
Honey contains several chemical compounds in small quantities. They are minerals, organic acids, enzymes, volatile organic compounds that are responsible for aroma, antioxidants, and others.
Minerals include calcium, magnesium, iron, manganese, potassium, sodium, phosphates, silicates, etc.
Dark honeys are often richer in their mineral content.
Quality of honey
Honey quality does not depend on the place of collection of honey. Whether in the wild or at the commercial production sites the bees store high quality honey.
At the end of the production process of honey, bees fan and ventilate the honey to reduce the moisture content. If for some reason the honey is collected before this step the honey may get fermented and get spoiled. This can happen especially in the wild when people forcefully scare off honey bees and collect honey before it is ripe.
The possibility of spoilage of honey by fermentation increases in the following circumstances.
The moisture content of honey is greater than 20%
Honey is stored at high temperature and
Honey has high yeast count (greater than 10/gram)
Even in the cases where the honey is ripe and of great quality, subsequent handling by people may reduce its quality. In places where the food safety norms and enforcement are not very strict the adulteration of honey is quite common.
Sensory properties of honey
The important sensory properties of honey that consumers expect are colour, flavour, aroma and consistency. All these characteristics vary from one type of honey to the other.
Generally dark coloured honeys have stronger flavour compared to the light coloured ones. Some varieties of honey are naturally darker. For example, bees foraging on avocado trees produce darker honey.
The aroma of honey is one of the most important determinants of choosing the variety of honey by consumers. Volatile organic compounds contribute majorly to the aroma of the honey. Volatile organic compounds quickly vaporise in to the air to provide the aroma.
Some varieties of honey contain even up to 100 compounds that are responsible for their unique aroma.
Depending on which flowers are chosen by the honey bees for collecting nectar the flavour can vary. Chemical compounds in honey such as organic acids, aldehydes, ketones, esters, and alcohols contribute to the flavour of honey.
These compounds start to evaporate when honey is heated beyond 35°C.
This is one of the reasons why the flavour and sensory quality of honey is reduced by heating.
I hope the information presented in this post & video is useful to you. Let us know if you have any questions.
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