Due to the variation of botanical origin honey differs in appearance, sensory perception and composition. The main nutritional and health relevant components are carbohydrates, mainly fructose and glucose but also about 25 different oligosaccharides. Although honey is a high carbohydrate food, its glycemic index varies within a wide range from 32 to 85, depending on the botanical source. It contains small amounts of proteins, enzymes, amino acids, minerals, trace elements, vitamins, aroma compounds and polyphenols. The review covers the composition, the nutritional contribution of its components, its physiological and nutritional effects. It shows that honey has a variety of positive nutritional and health effects, if consumed at higher doses of 50 to 80 g per intake.

Honey for Nutrition and Health: A Review

Pollen analysis of honey, or melissopalynol-ogy, is of great importance for quality control.Honey always includes numerous pollen grains(mainly from the plant species foraged by honeybees) and honeydew elem ents (like wax tubes,algae and fungal spores) that altogether providea good fingerprint of th e environment where thehoney comes from. Pollen analysis can thereforebe useful to determine and control the geograph-ical and botanical origin of honeys even if sen-sory and physico-chemical analyses are alsoneeded for a correct dia gnosis of botanical ori-gin. Moreover, pollen analysis provides someimportant information about honey extractionand filtration, fermentation (Russmann, 1998),some kinds of adulteration (Kerkvliet et al

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Harmonized methods of melissopalynology

The objective of this work is to review all known physico-chemical methods used for the determination of the botanical origin of honey. In earlier works special attention is ascribed to the classification power of different classification methods (Persano Oddo et al., 1995b, 2000; Anklam, 1998; Molan, 1998; Bogdanov and Martin, 2002). This review gives a critical evaluation of all physico-chemical methods, which have been used up to the present time for the classification of unifloral honeys. The review is divided into two parts. The first one provides a general survey of classical physico chemical methods. These methods are mostly validated and widely used in the routine control of honey. In the second part the utility of new methods for authentication of botanical origin is discussed. In most cases, these methods are not yet harmonised and validated for routine use. The principle of each new method is briefly discussed, without going into details, which can be found in the cited references.

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Physico-chemical methods for the characterisation of unifloral honeys: a review

Our manuscript shows that honey has a variety of positive nutritional and health effects. It contains at least 181 substances, is a supersaturated solution of sugars, and contains small amounts of proteins, enzymes, amino acids, minerals, trace elements, vitamins, aroma compounds and polyphones. This article reviews reports on the use of honey in the treatment of human disorders, which are supported by clinical tests and published in medical journals. First, the composition of honey is described, followed by its physiological and nutritional effects. Finally, the influence of honey on gastroenterology and cardiovascular effects is illustrated.

Contribution of honey in nutrition and human health: a review

In view of the expanding global market, authentication and characterization of botanical and geographic origins of honey has become a more important task than ever. Many studies have been performed with the aim of evaluating the possibilities to characterize honey samples of various origins by using specific chemical marker compounds. These have been identified and quantified for numerous honey samples. This article is aimed at summarizing the studies carried out during the last 2 decades. An attempt is made to find useful chemical markers for unifloral honey, based on the analysis of the compositional data of honey volatile compounds, phenolic acids, flavonoids, carbohydrates, amino acids, and some other constituents. This review demonstrates that currently it is rather difficult to find reliable chemical markers for the discrimination of honey collected from different floral sources because the chemical composition of honey also depends on several other factors, such as geographic origin, collection season, mode of storage, bee species, and even interactions between chemical compounds and enzymes in the honey. Therefore, some publications from the reviewed period have reported different floral markers for honey of the same floral origin. In addition, the results of chemical analyses of honey constituents may also depend on sample preparation and analysis techniques. Consequently, a more reliable characterization of honey requires the determination of more than a single class of compounds, preferably in combination with modern data management of the results, for example, principal component analysis or cluster analysis.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1541-4337.2010.00130.x

Floral Markers in Honey of Various Botanical and Geographic Origins: A Review.

Livia PERSANO ODDOa*, Roberto PIROb with the collaboration of: Etienne BRUNEAU, Christine GUYOT-DECLERCK (Belgium); Tzeko IVANOV (Bulgaria); Ji ina PISKULOVA (Czech Republic); Christian FLAMINI, Joel LHERITIER, Monique MORLOT (France); Harald RUSSMANN, Werner VON DER OHE, Katharine Von der OHE (Germany); Panagiota GOTSIOU, Sophia KARABOURNIOTI, Panagiotis KEFALAS, Maria PASSALOGLOU-KATRALI, Andreas THRASYVOULOU, Angeliki TSIGOURI (Greece); Gian Luigi MARCAZZAN, Maria Lucia PIANA, Maria Gioia PIAZZA, Anna Gloria SABATINI (Italy); Jacob KERKVLIET (Netherlands); Joana GODINHO (Portugal); Antonio BENTABOL, Alberto ORTIZ VALBUENA (Spain), Stefan BOGDANOV, Kaspar RUOFF (Switzerland)

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Christian Flamini

Papers

Main European unifloral honeys: descriptive sheets