Romanian honey authentication based on physico-chemical parameters and chemometrics

摘要

The aim of this study was to determine the physico-chemical parameters [glucose, fructose and sucrose content, pH, moisture content, aw, refraction index, Brix concentration, free acidity, ash content, electrical conductivity, colour parameters (L*, a*, b*, chroma, hue angle, yellow index)] of five different honey types from Romania. The honey types were: acacia, sunflower, tilia, honeydew and polyfloral. For this study 50 samples of honey were used. The pH ranged between 3.88 and 6.39, aw ranged between 0.476 and 0.603, free acidity 3.40-37.10, moisture content 14.44-19.80%, electrical conductivity ranged between 109.9 and 1276.8 |jS/cm, ash content 0.05-0.63%, L* 19.60-48.08, a* -1.96 to 7.68, b* 4.16-18.24, chroma 6.53-18.32, hue angle -13.44 to17.01, yellow index21.89-70.20, fructose content 33.64-47.31%, glucose22.06-38.25%, sucrose 0-2.71%, and fructose and glucose contents sum 66.62-79.94%. The authentication of honeys was made using the Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Principal component analysis (PCA). According to the LDA, 94.00% of the honey was correctly classified using these physico-chemical parameters.