Sugar composition and sugar-related parameters of honeys from the northern Iberian Plateau

• Published in: Journal of food composition and analysis 2018-12, Vol.74, p.34-43
• Main Authors: Pascual-Maté, Ana, Osés, Sandra M., Marcazzan, Gian L., Gardini, Silvia, Fernández Muiño, Miguel A., Teresa Sancho, M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Crystallization; Food analysis; Food composition; GC-FID; Honey; Moisture; Specific rotation; Sugars
• ISSN: 0889-1575; 1096-0481
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfca.2018.08.005

•Honeydew and chestnut honeys are rich in isomaltose.•Chestnut honeys are poor in sucrose, trehalose and maltotriose.•Heather honeys are rich in monosaccharides and poor in maltose and erlose.•Lavender honeys are poor in isomaltose and raffinose.•Isomaltose tends to inhibit honey crystallization. This research was aimed to study the sugar composition of fifty-four representative artisanal honeys from the northern Iberian plateau. Moisture, specific rotation, and crystallization indexes were also determined. Sugars were analyzed by gas chromatography-flame ionization detector (GC-FID) after Pourtallier´s derivatization procedure. Fourteen carbohydrates were reliably quantified: two monosaccharides, five disaccharides, six trisaccharides and one tetrasaccharide. Honeydew honeys showed the highest disaccharides (6.71%) and trisaccharides (1.81%) averages and the lowest monosaccharides (63.10%) average, in contrast to heather honeys that had the lowest disaccharides (4.93%) and trisaccharides (0.69%) averages and the highest monosaccharides (70.96%). Chestnut honeys possessed low concentrations of monosaccharides, sucrose, trehalose, and trisaccharides. Clover and lavender honeys possessed high monosaccharide and disaccharide percentages. As expected, lavender samples showed the highest sucrose concentrations (0.05–5.18%). Isomaltose contents were particularly high in honeydew (1.17–2.49%) and chestnut (1.34–1.74%) samples, and low in lavender (0.6–1.16%) honeys, the latter also being low in raffinose (0.01‒0.05%). Moisture percentages (14.4–18.6%) indicated optimum honey ripeness. Averages for all groups of samples were levorotatory. In contrast to honeydew and chestnut honeys, lavender samples showed the fastest granulation tendency. In the analyzed honeys, the higher the percentage of isomaltose was, the lower the crystallization tendency the honeys exhibited.