Some honeys might not drip at all, especially varieties that are known to crystallize fast (example: rapeseed honey, sunflower honey, aster honey). If you tilt an emptier jar of honey, it should resist flow and move along the sides with slow, thick motions.įake honey has a lighter, quicker flow. Honey that has been processed, adulterated with corn syrup or other sweeteners, will flow more like a liquid, continually and swiftly, in a thinner stream. Although technically a liquid, when you let it drip from a dipper, real honey will have a certain resistance to flow and will look thick and stretchy as it pours in a heavy, dense, almost lush flow. It’s called viscosity and it’s the characteristic that makes honey resist flow. Real honey is over 80% sugar, sometimes more (some varieties have only 13% water), and, as a result, has a distinct thickness to it. If it’s been adulterated, it will feel sticky to the touch, similar to a cheap, sugary syrup. In fact, if you touch honey or rub some between your fingers, it’ll feel soft, almost velvety, but not sticky like a cheap sugary syrup, for example.

Real honey is not sticky as you’d expect. But you would have to have had some experience with the real thing to be able to know the difference.įor the most part, you shouldn’t need to run sophisticated laboratory tests to tell the difference between pure honey and a fake, adulterated honey-like product.įind out below what you should look for in your honey. Real, raw honey can be easy to tell apart from fake honey, just by how it looks, how it tastes, how it flows and general appearance and behavior, clear markers of purity. It has become so common to fake honey, that consumers are becoming accustomed to processed honey-like products and looking funny at the real thing. Honey is one of the most commonly counterfeit food products.

Honey viscosity