Mineral Content as a Tool for the Assessment of Honey Authenticity

Abstract

The present work aims to provide a contribution to the overall investigation of European unifloral honeys with regard to authentication according to botanical and geographical origins. The mineral content of 206 monofloral honey samples of five botanical origins from six different regions in Serbia was investigated by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry. Chemometric techniques were applied for the classification and differentiation of acacia, sunflower, and linden honey according to botanical origin, as well as acacia honey samples according to regional origin. The highest influence on the differentiation of acacia honey samples was the presence of siderophile and chalcophile elements, whereas sunflower and linden honeys were determined by the presence of lithophile elements, indicating their origin from soil. However, due to the different bioaccumulation properties of plants, the presence of elements is not necessarily directly correlated to their presence in soil, which is confirmed by the results of the authentication of geographical origin of acacia honey.