Does Fake Honey Contains Hydrogen Peroxide ?

jamhuery(61)

Published in

#science

Words

935

Reading

5 min

Listen

Play

Hello dear steemian, in this opportunity i will tell you something about bee and honey have been much discussed. so i will explain about honey base on chemistry science.

^{Source :}^pixabay

The people wish to find real honey, but they were difficult to distinguish real and fake honey, real honey was widely used for natural supplements and remedies, so i will explain into this post about bee and honey.

Honey is a viscous liquid that resembles a syrup or in chemical terms we can call as sol solution (36% more viscous than water) The original honey contains glucose levels of about 31% and contains moisture about 17.2%, a lot of honey circulating in the market is honey engineered with a mixture of sugar water (fake honey), while the original one is a honey produced by the bees in its nest, the original honey can be identified by several ways such as, not frozen in the refrigerator, no needles, no ants, water tests, fire test, and not seep on tissue because the original honey contains less water. Several chemical contained in honey are :

Chemical	Percentage
Fructose	38.2%
Glucose	31.3%
Maltose	7.1%
Sucrose	1.3%
Water	17.2%
Highest Sugar	1.5%
Ash	0.2%
Others	3.2%

^{Data Source :}^wikipedia

How Does Honey Produced?

^{Source :}^bee-careful

Honey is a viscous liquid produced by bees, The process of honey production done in 3 stages they are; Bees, Queen bee, and Infertile bee. The queen bee works to spawn, a male bee marries the queen bees so the queen bee could to lay, and the infertile bee is a female bees who produce the honey, The infertile bee also known as worker bees that looking for nectar flower and water for spare food, the flower nectar undergoes regurgitation and converts saccharides into monosaccharides through hydrolysis process in the digestive tract of bees.

Then, the young honey which still contains water substances placed in the nest, the evaporation process and enzymes transformation make honey seed to be the honey, Therefore the seed looks like a dilute liquid, after evaporation process the water reduced, so the seeds of honey be as honey with high sugar concentration (Fructose, Glucose) or sweeter honey. The levels of fructose and glucose of honey may have variation, this due to nectar object of different flower.

How Can I Know Fake Honey ?

^{Source :}^ketkes

Due to high demand of original honey, A lot of fake honey circulate in the market, the fake honey was made with a mixture of sugar water so the honey tastes constantly sweet, even myself have found honey mixed with pineapple liquid, however the original and fake honey can be distinguished with several way, among others :

1. Water Test
The original honey is a viscous solution and contains less water, so the original honey was difficult to dissolve into water in a short time, The fake honey is a honey that has been mixed with sugar water so that more dilute, a dilute solution more soluble in water than a thick solution. If the original honey dipped into a glass filled with water, it will fall to the bottom of glass and not dissolve. While fake honey will dissolve in water.

2. Fire Test
Because the original honey contains a little water substance, it has low humidity, so when it brought near the fire, the fire will die slowly as absorbed by honey, How to do ? the honey filled into the glass and then the fire inserted into the glass and brought it closer to the honey, if the honey die slowly it mean the honey was original, because the fake honey mixed with sugar water has high moisture, so the fire can die quickly.

3. Crystal Test
The Enzymes of honey can be crystallized when the water substance has evaporated, usually this happens when the honey stored for a long time, The enzymes in honey can be crystallized when the water substance has evaporated, usually this happens when the honey is stored for a long time, the original honey will thicken to form the crystal at the bottom of container.

Which Chemical Occur in Honey?

Although the formation of honey process occurs naturally, but the honey can undergoes chemical processes such as osmotic effect due to the mixing of monosaccharides and low water content, this may affect the proliferation of microorganisms, the release of glucose enzymes can form the hydrogen peroxide in the honey, this occurs when honey diluted, where oxygen involved in this reaction. Chemically, the formation of peroxide in the honey can be formulated as follow :

C₆H₁₂O₆ + H₂O + O₂ → C₆H₁₂O₇ + H₂O₂

The reaction of glucose oxidation occurs when the honey was diluted then form hydrogen peroxide and the honey also can to deactivate free metal which will not catalyze the oxygen radical formation of hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) and antioxidants of honey could help to cleanse free radicals.

Conclusion

The original honey is a viscous solution that was difficult to dissolve in water and has little water content, The fake honey is The honey has been mixed with water and sugar, so the honey has dilute, if we look at the chemical formula, The fake honey has first formed hydrogen peroxide goes through dilution process when it was processing (faked), So this honey can't be made as antiseptic because the oxygen has been released during dilution process.

Source :

^{Source :}^Honey
^{Source :}^{Real and Fake Honey}
^{Source :}^{Honey Process of Bee}
^{Source :}^{How Does Honey Produced}