Honey is a balanced food containing sugars, vitamins, minerals, protein, amino acids, and enzymes. The extracts levels differ from season to season and from one location to another. The colors also differ. In wet seasons/regions, the honey tends to be lighter in color, and in dry seasons/regions the honey tends to be darker in color but what really determines the quality of honey is the harvesting, processing, refining, and packaging process.
Real honey and the one we produce use centrifugal force as a method of extraction without heating, therefore, retaining its full nutritional benefits.
Our honey comes from natural and organic range lands primarily acacia carefully refined to retain its nutritional benefits.
HONEY CHEMISTRY
It is becoming very difficult to get real honey these days, this is because people have divulged from making honey for medicinal purposes to purely economical reasons. The current honey you find in the market has no medicinal values and it’s adulterated with the method of preparation adding to affecting the end product.
So how do we differentiate purely honey from the “fake honey”
- Moisture content. It is the major factor considered in determining the quality of honey. Moisture content varies between 13% to 26%. The honey we produce has an average moisture of 17% carefully selected and measured by a refractometer. Why? honey with more than 20% moisture content tend not to stay for long as it has more water content hence ferments.
- Heating. When refining honey, the highest temperature it should attain is 45 degrees. Heating honey beyond 45 degrees denature all the proteins, enzymes and changes the structure of sugars found in honey (high temp. turns the sugars into HMF Hydroxymethyl. in excess of 40mg/kg indicates overheating)
- Pure honey crystallizes. Little is understood about The crystallization of honey. Many assume that crystallized honey is adulterated or ‘spoiled.’ This is not so. Real, raw honey crystallizes.
The crystallization process is natural and spontaneous. Pure, raw and unheated honey has a natural tendency to crystallize over time with no effect on the honey other than color and texture.
What’s more, the crystallization of honey actually preserves the flavor and quality characteristics of your honey. Many honey users prefer it in this state as it is easier to spread on bread or toast. Indeed, some raw honey recipes can be easier to make with partially or fully-crystallized honey and, the taste is richer.
Some honey crystallize uniformly; some will be partially crystallized and form two layers, with the crystallized layer on the bottom of the jar and a liquid on top.
Honey also vary in the size of the crystals formed. Some form fine crystals and other large, gritty ones. The more rapid honey crystallizes, the finer the texture will be. And crystallized honey tends to set a lighter/paler color than when liquid. This is due to the fact that glucose sugar tends to separate out in dehydrating crystals form, and that glucose crystals are naturally pure white. Darker honeys retain a brownish appearance.