The composition of honey

 

Honey is made by bees, a superfood with multiple benefits for human health. Some studies suggest that eating raw honey helps with seasonal allergies, can also help with the healing of wounds and burns, prevents acid reflux, is antiviral, antibiotic, and anti-fungal, and never spoils.

Bees use floral nectar to produce honey. Floral nectar is a type of mucus released by plants or other forms of secretions from insects. Bees use this nectar as food, but they store the majority.

The process is as follows: The bee sucks the nectar into its honey stomach (They have a separate food stomach), and they need nectar from a thousand flowers to fill it. Then, the sugars from the nectar get broken down by enzymes and proteins from the saliva, then bees return to the hive and transfer the nectar to the hive bees, who digest it. 

It is a teamwork that ends with the nectar reaching the honeycomb cells taking the form of honey.

Honey is available raw or pasteurized and in a variety of colors. But do you know what honey is made of? In this article, we will discuss the composition of this marvel of nature.

Honey is composed of about 80% sugar and is between one and one-and-a-half times sweeter than table sugar. The composition is 40% fructose, 30% glucose, and 17% water.

Honey is a naturally occurring sugar, and it is also considered an added sugar. This is confusing, but although honey is made by nature, if it is used to cook or is eaten directly, it contributes added sugars to the diet.

It is important to know that honey reflects the chemical components of the plants from which the honeybees collect pollen, so the composition of this wonderful food varies greatly according to the type of soil in which the plant and nectar were found.

We can analyze different honey batches to determine their botanical origin, which is amazing. As a matter of fact, recently, there was an incident in Mulhouse, France, where bees started to produce blue and green honey.

After inquiring, it was determined that a nearby biogas plant processing residue from containers of M&M’s candy accidentally poured dye that honeybees carried back to the hives causing the strangely colored honey.

This shows us how important is the protection of ecosystems where honey bees live because their honey production can be affected by reckless pollutants such as these candy dyes.

Enjoy your organic honey and contribute to protecting the bees.

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