How the honey turned into poisonous?

In most Vietnamese families, honey has become essential part in everyday life; it is used as medicine in treatment of cough, asthma, stomach ulcers, infected wound, and burn. In addition, honey is widely utilized in food as a sweetening agent and as additive in soaps and cosmetics.

Honey contains vitamins B9, B12, iron, copper and other vital factors that helps to enhance the amount of red blood cells, promotes beneficial bacteria in the colon to prevent constipation. Furthermore, honey also provides nutrients and energy for muscle activity. Antioxidant agents in honey also supply natural defenses against cell damage, cancer, heart disease and degenerative diseases.

However, storage and usage of honey in right way play an important role in ensuring its high efficiency and avoiding harm to the health. Honey is susceptible to change in physical and chemical properties, especially after storing in long time. For practical, honey has a shelf life about 2 years. Over this time, honey will be altered, reduce in nutritional value and even harmful.

The wild honey usually possesses a poison called Hydroxy Methyl Furfurol (HMF), at HMF concentration of 200 mg/kg causes the death of bees, changes gene characteristic of mice, and increase risk of cancer diseases, the higher storage temperature, the larger HMF generation. Harvested honey contains 1-5 mg/kg of HMF, after 100-200 days storage at 30-35 degrees Celsius, HMF increase to level of 200-300 mg/kg. Notice that the imported honey standard of European countries and the United States only allow containing 40-80 mg/kg of HMF (depend on honey origins from European countries or tropical countries). Importantly, with high humid and hot weather at Vietnam, honey is more easy to generate poisonous as storage.

How to evaluate the quality of honey:

- Color: normally honey appears in yellow color, the longer storage time, the darker in the color or even change to black color, in that case you should throw away the honey.

- Honey scent: after a long time, honey will lose the sweet characteristic and appear uncomfortable smell.

- Taste: honey has a sweet taste, day by day the sweetness decreases and the sourness increases. When the honey was fermented, white foam appears on the surface and alcohol smell, you should not use that honey anymore.

You should keep in mind the right way to preserve the honey, it should be kept in closed jars, store in a dark and cool place, and avoid water penetration.

soure: http://moitruong.com.vn - Khampha