An approach to assess the quality of honey using partial least square method

Abstract

The objective of the present study is to obtain the quantity of honey components such as moisture, glucose, fructose and sucrose in order to access the quality of honey. The tested honey samples are authenticated if the characteristics of a pure honey. The average ratio of 56% fructose to 44% glucose, but the ratios in the individual honeys ranged from a high of 64% fructose and 36% glucose to a low of 50% fructose and 50% glucose. The contents such as fructose and sucrose in honey is due to the presence of invertase enzymes. The organic acids present in the honey is responsible for the flavor and stability against the contamination of honey due to microorganisms. The natural food items are adulterated intentionally to increase the quantity and there by the quality gets affected. The main adulterants added in honey are sucrose, corn syrup, sugar syrup and jaggery syrup. The quantification deals in finding out the amount of basic constituents present in pure honey and adulterated honey using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer with the multivariate analysis and validating the same using chemical analysis method. The partial least square model is used in predicting the constituents of the samples.