Determination And Application Of Floral Origin Markers Of Acacia Honey Rape Honey And Chaste Honey

As a kind of natural health product with high nutritional value, honey is very popular for consumers. In recent years, the quality of honey from market varies greatly, such as adulteration and fraud, which is fraudulent and unfair to consumers. Honey has been reported to contain up to200substances. Phenolic compounds are recognised as natural antioxidants, which are used as the indicators in the studies of the floral origin of honey. The composition of honey can vary due to different floral and geographical origins, as well as some seasonal and environmental climatic variations. Consequently, the identification of floral origin and authenticity of honey becomes a current research focus for processors as well as regulatory authorities. With the development of modern instrument analytical technique, the method of high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) fingerprint combined with chemometry has become a new direction for the quality control of honey, In this study, the HPLC fingerprint of acacia honey, rape honey and chaste honey was developed to identify the phenolic acids as floral origin markers of three unifloral honeys. The floral classification and adulteration of honey were analyzed by the methods of chemometrics. The study may save as reference for the identification of floral origin markers and adulteration of honey. The paper consists of four parts, every contents of which one as follows:1. We determined the physicochemical characteristics of acacia honey, rape honey and chaste honey, including diastase activity,electrical conductivity, free acidity, fructose, glucose, HMF, moisture, sucrose, and pH. The results indicated that all physicochemical values were in agreement with the European limit, and there was some difference of physicochemical properties of three unifloral honeys because of different floral and geographical origins.2. A reliable and simple method of HPLC-ECD was developed to determine simultaneously ten phenolic acids, which included caffeic acid, chlorogenic acid, ellagic acid, ferulic acid, gallic acid,p-coumaric acid, p-hydroxybenzoic acid, protocatechuic acid, rosmarinic acid and syringic acid in honey samples. At the same time, HPLC fingerprint of acacia honey, rape honey and chaste honey was developed. The results revealed that chlorogenic acid, ellagic acid and caffeic acid could be considered as possible floral origin markers of acacia, rape honeys and chaste honey respectively. The research could be applied to determine the floral origin markers and adulteration of honey.3. Three unifloral honeys were classified by the method of HPLC fingerprint combined with chemometrics. The results of classification were satisfactory and correct rate was100%. The method was also applied to determine the adulteration in acacia honey added rape honey at different levels, and could be undoubtedly detected down to the10%level. The method of HPLC fingerprint combined with chemometrics could be used for quality control of honeys.