Quality Assessment and Detection of Adulteration Using Several Analytical Approaches in Commercially Available Honey Samples from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2020-12-12
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Honey is one of the most commercialized bee products. The study was carried out keeping in
view the recently emerging concern of low quality and adulteration of natural honey with
various substances to increase volume on the honey markets. This research was designed to
evaluate the quality and detect adulteration from commercial honey available in the Addis
Ababa market. For this purpose commercially available and deliberately adulterated honey
produced by direct incorporation of different proportions of commercial adulterants were
used. Preliminary quick test, characterization of physicochemical parameters, biochemical
properties, and screening of spectrum by FTIR coupled with multivariate analysis were tested
as alternative analytical methods for honey authentication and adulterations detection. The
HMF, free acidity, and ash content of all commercial honey samples were found within the
limit of the standard for honey. Except for the honey samples collected from processers
(19.48±0.4%) and retail stores (20.49±0.13), the moisture content of other commercial honey
samples didn’t fulfill standards (≤ 21%). The level of proline for honey samples collected from
the street (67.1±0.52 mg/kg) was found below the required limit. The fructose, glucose,
sucrose, maltose content of the commercial honey samples were found to be in the range of
33.85±0.65 to 48.61±0.51, 33.07±1.58 to 44.3±0.82, 0.91±0.05 to 6.23±2.49, and 0.51±0.14 to
2.4±0.44 respectively. The TPC, TFC, and antioxidant activities of commercial collected
samples are in a good quality. Deliberately adulterated honey has lower proline
(213±9.43mg/kg) than marketed honey (270.83±14.18mg/kg) and pure honey (381mg/kg).
Sucrose (5.23±2.23) and maltose (4.09±1.00) for deliberately adulterated honey was higher
than pure and marketed honey. Preliminary quick test methods were used to detect
adulterated honey, but these methods were found specific to adulterants materials. The
proline and pH levels decreased as molasses, sugar, and banana adulterants increased, while
increased as melted candy and shebeb adulterants increased. Moisture content decreased as
sugar, melted candy, and shebeb adulterants were increased, while decreased as molasses
and banana adulterants increased. HMF content increased as molasses, melted candy, and
shebeb adulterants were increased. The sugar compositions are key differential criteria to
detect the adulteration of honey with sugar. Another scope of the study was to differentiate
adulterated honey samples from the natural one using FT-IR spectra coupled with principal
component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis (CA) and discrimination of sample groups
was achieved successfully with clustering. In conclusion, it was observed that the results were
in agreement with standard values (Codex Alimentarius, EU, and Ethiopia Standard agency).
But, some of the quality parameters of honey has deviated from national and international
standards. This study successfully demonstrated a method to rapidly and accurately classify
and authenticate honey. Accordingly, it is recommended that frequent training for
stakeholders on adulteration detection methods should be carried to avoid adulteration of
honey from the markets.
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Keywords
Biochemical, Commercially Available Honey, Deliberately Adulterated, Detection of Adulterations, Multivariate Analysis, Physicochemical, Quick Test