Classification of Southern Tunisian honeys based on their physicochemical and textural properties

Abstract

This study investigated the physicochemical, rheological and textural properties of nine types of honey from different regions of southern Tunisia. Principal component and cluster analyses were used to classify the honeys into groups. The physicochemical results (water, proteins, total soluble solids, pH, free acidity, water activity, electrical conductivity, invertase activity, Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), vitamin C, lycopene and anthocyanins) were in accordance with those of the standards Established by the Codex Alimentarius. The invertase activity varied from 62.58 units/kg to 110.24 units/kg. The HMF values of the different types of honey ranged from 11.48 mg/kg in prickly pear honey to 25.56mg/kg in heather honey. Anthocyanin contents, lycopene and vitamin C contents ranged between 8.38 and 24.86 μg/L, 1.08 to 6.17 mg/kg and 30.71 to 129.38 mg/kg, respectively. The flow test confirmed the Newtonian behavior of all honeys, and their textural properties had very high extrusion forces varying from 113.50 g to 131.05 g. Cluster analysis (CA) and the biplot generated through PCA recognized four groups of honeys based on either the physicochemical parameters or textural attributes and only three groups based on color and sugar.

Characterisation of the total phenolic, vitamins C and E content and antioxidant properties of the beebread and honey from the same batch

“…The content of vitamin C and E. As shown in Table 1, the content of vitamin C was about 99.5% higher in beebread than in honey. Our data of ascorbic acid concentration are lower than level of this substance found in the Portuguese (Karabagias et al 2018) and Tunisian (Boussaid et al 2018) honeys. The level of vitamin C in the Brazilian bee pollen was in the range from 60.3 to 797.0 µg g -1 (Sattler et al 2015), while bee pollen harvested in Portugal was characterised by even higher content of vitamin C (46.9-214.4 mg g -1 ) (Estevinho et al 2019).…”

“…The level of vitamin C in the Brazilian bee pollen was in the range from 60.3 to 797.0 µg g -1 (Sattler et al 2015), while bee pollen harvested in Portugal was characterised by even higher content of vitamin C (46.9-214.4 mg g -1 ) (Estevinho et al 2019). Moreover, the place of origin and the harvest period affect the concentration of bioactive substance (including vitamin C) (Sawicki et al 2019), as well as the extraction and analysis method (Wang et al 2004;Boussaid et al 2018). Another reason for low vitamin C amount in tested samples, could be pH-unstable environment.…”

Quality of Honey Imported into the United Arab Emirates

“…The sucrose content of the remaining 30 samples (44.1%) was less than the legally permissible maximum value of 5%. In other work involving 9 honey samples collected from southern Tunisia it was found that the sucrose content ranged from 2.3 to 4.5% [28]. In the present study, the mean sucrose content of the 6 non-conforming samples was 14.1%, with a range of 5.1 to 33.4%.…”

“…The level of non-conformity was lower than the 64.4% reported by Al-Farsi et al (2018) [6] for 58 honey samples collected from 18 geographical regions in Oman, following a comparison with Gulf Standardization Organization (GSO) standards. It is notable that Boussaid et al (2018) [28] found that all 9 honey samples examined in Tunisia complied with the Codex Alimentarius standards. In the current study, the proportion of non-conformity ranged from 5.0 to 21.0% for the various types of honey, with the lowest values noted for forest honey.…”

“…A study conducted by Yayinie, Atlabachew, Tesfaye, Hilluf, and Reta (2021) [27] found that all 47 honey samples collected from different geographical areas within the Amhara region, Ethiopia, met the Codex Alimentarius [3] standard. Boussaid et al (2018) [28] reported that all 9 honey samples collected from southern Tunisia met the standards of the Codex Alimentarius for pH, free acidity, water activity and HMF.…”