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Bee honey is nutritious and has numerous health benefits, but its taste is for many people too bland. Honey with addition of spices could be important to the food industry as a functional product with positive health image and interesting taste. Such product would definitely meet health-driven consumers’ expectations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of addition of selected spices on sensory, antimicrobial, and antioxidant properties of honey. Results showed that the addition of spices significantly affected the taste and the smell of honey (p<0,05) and that honey with the cinnamon was the most desired and easily accepted product by the consumers. The addition of spices had no significant effect on texture and appearance. All tested samples showed the ability to inhibit the growth of bacteria and, contrary to the assumptions, the addition of spices did not cause an increase of antimicrobial activity. The results also showed that the kind and amount of added spice significantly affected the antioxidant activity: ability to scavenge free radicals and total phenolics content. The highest antioxidant activity revealed the honey with cinnamon and the lowest revealed the honey with cardamom addition.

The aim of this study was to determine whether fluorescence spectrometry can be used to identify the botanical origin of filtered honeys. Sixty-two honey samples with different botanical origins, both filtered and unfiltered, were investigated in order to examine their fluorescence spectra. The results showed that individual honey varieties have different fluorescence spectra, and the filtration process had no impact on these spectra. The results suggest that fluorescence spectroscopy may be a useful method to identify the botanical origin of filtered honeys.

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Sorbets are a popular dessert, especially during hot summer days. They can also have health-promoting qualities, mainly due to the nutritional value of the fruit from which they are made. The production technology can also have an impact on the final nutritional quality of the sorbets. This paper presents a comparative assessment of the quality of industrial fruit sorbets and their craft analogs. Sorbets with the following flavors were selected for the research: blueberry, strawberry, raspberry, and passion fruit with mango. An organoleptic evaluation was performed, and the overrun, melting resistance, active acidity (pH), color in the CIE Lab system, antiradical activity (DDPH method), and content of vitamin C and total polyphenols were determined. The research revealed the differences between sorbets produced from different fruits as well as the differences depending on the production method between products made of the same type of fruit. Craft sorbets were found to be better than industrial sorbets, and storage time had a significant effect on the sorbets’ quality. In terms of organoleptic characteristics, craft mango-passion fruit sorbet turned out to be the best; in terms of antioxidant properties, craft raspberry and strawberry sorbets were the best, and these two sorbets also showed good, stable overrun and melting resistance values during storage.

Edible flowers are food products that are usually eaten fresh without prior heat treatment. Due to their chemical composition and low degree of processing, they can be an excellent breeding ground for microorganisms, and thus a source of infection. Methods of their preservation include proper packaging and storage at low temperatures. Therefore the aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of type of packaging (vacuum-sealed polyamide/polyethylene bag and polyethylene terephthalate box) on the microbial contamination of edible flowers including nasturtium, calendula, and daisy during refrigerated storage. The counts of selected pathogenic bacteria, total yeasts and moulds on the day of harvesting and after 1-3 days of refrigerated storage were determined. The results showed that the edible flowers did not contain Salmonella sp. or Escherichia coli (except nasturtiums), while all flowers contained both yeast and moulds at counts about 4-5 log cfu/g, and Staphylococcus aureus at numbers ranging from 1.89 to 2.72 log cfu/g. The differences in the counts of moulds and S. aureus were statistically significant depending on the type of flower. Neither the type of packaging nor storage time under refrigerated conditions influenced the degree of microbial contamination of the flowers.