Honey is a kind of common health food, honey soaking in water has a lot of effects! Honey has the effect of prolonging life, beauty, sterilization and anti-inflammatory, so many people like it very much, so how long is the shelf life of honey? Can expired honey be eaten?
How long is honey shelf life commonly
Honey has no shelf life, the premise is that honey must be pure enough. American archaeologists found a jar of honey more than 3000 years ago in the pyramids of ancient Egypt. This jar of honey has not deteriorated or dried into lumps, so it is still edible. So honey has no shelf life.
However, honey has a shelf life. In 2006, the state implemented the "GB 18796-2005" honey production standard, which required honey enterprises to mark two years on their bee products. Most enterprises also target two years. Some honey enterprises target 18 months. If you see honey crystals, there is nothing to eat. Crystallization is only in different states and does not affect the quality. If your honey is pure enough.
Why can honey be preserved for a long time? According to nutrition experts, bees only take away the sugar from flowers in the process of collecting nectar, so the moisture content in honey is very low, which is a kind of sugar solution with extremely high concentration. Generally, natural mature honey only contains 18% water, and the main components of honey are fructose and glucose.
When the concentration of a solution reaches a certain value, the osmotic pressure inside the solution will become very high. The solution with high osmotic pressure is not suitable for cell growth, because the solution with high osmotic pressure will absorb the water in the cell body under the effect of osmotic pressure, and the cell will die after dehydration. Therefore, the vast majority of microorganisms are difficult to survive in honey, and honey without microbial damage is difficult to deteriorate.
In addition, honey is also rich in glucose oxidase, when it reacts with glucose, it will produce a lot of hydrogen peroxide. Hydrogen peroxide, also known as hydrogen peroxide, has the function of disinfection and sterilization, which also prevents the breeding of bacteria in honey, so as to ensure that the honey does not deteriorate.
Although honey can be stored for a long time, it's best to eat it according to the shelf life on the honey can. Don't eat expired honey.
What kind of honey put long cannot eat?
Honey with high moisture content and sour or alcoholic taste after fermentation in hot weather is not edible. If your honey has no strange taste, you can continue to eat, even after the shelf life is not a problem, if it is high-quality honey, there is no problem.
6 tips to distinguish the quality of honey
1. If you twist it with your hand, the honey that sticks to your hand and sticks to your hair is real honey. If you twist it with your hand, you will find that it has more sugar.
2. Taste and smell the honey to see if it has oil or odor. The honey with good quality is sweet and has the same smell as the fragrance of flowers. If the aroma is too strong, it may be mixed with essence. The poor quality honey is bitter, astringent, sour and even stinky.
3. Good quality honey has low water content and high viscosity. When the honey is lifted with a sterilizing stick, the honey will be filiform and extremely long, while the honey with high water content will feel very thin.
4. Take a small amount of honey to drop on the test paper or toilet paper, and observe if there is any wetting ring on the edge of the honey drop. If the high-quality and high concentration honey has no water seeping ring around the honey drop, if there is seeping ring around the honey drop, it is proved that there is high water content.
5. Observe whether there are bubbles in the upper layer of honey. If there are bubbles, it means that the water in honey is large, the concentration is not enough or the storage time is too long, which leads to the fermentation of honey. Such honey has a short shelf life and is easy to deteriorate.
6. Many people think that crystallized honey is not good. In fact, in addition to Sophora honey and jujube honey, most processed honey is easy to crystallize at low temperature. Instead of crystallizing, it may be fake honey.