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To avoid extreme measures like that of the Chinese honey, studies are
necessary to extend the traditional ones, like pollen analysis, which
is affected by different factors. Among them, the ability of the
expert himself. “To make this process more scientific it is necessary
to carry out chemical analysis applying sensitive and reliable
analytical techniques”, explains Alberto Fernández Gutiérrez,
Professor of the University of Granada and director of the research
group "Analytical, environmental, biochemical and food control".
In this sense, capillary electrophoresis is an analytical technique
with a great potential to use it in food and agriculture. At the
present day, scientific teams are using it in our country and all over
the world. This UGR group has proved the potential of this process as
a routine analysis method in different products like beer, oil or
honey, to implement it in industry laboratories to control production
quality and the final result.
Honey elements
The analytical technique aims to separate the different chemical
compounds of complex samples. By coupling it to different detection
systems we can identify and quantify sample compounds and obtain a
graphic representation called electropherogram. It is a kind of
identity card or identifying print where everything and every part of
the whole is collected.
There are many substances present in honey and analytical chemistry is
an essential tool to detect and quantify them. At the moment, studies
on organic acid content are being carried out to characterize the
different sorts of honey according to their origin.
According to Professor Fernández Gutiérrez, “through honey
electropherograms, we aim to distinguish one kind of honey from
another, which are more beneficial to health, which flower they belong
to and other questions like the geographical origin according to OD
organisms”.
This research group is working in collaboration with the recent
Regulatory Council of Origin Denomination Honey from Granada, since
last year´s Honey Fair of Lanjarón. The County Council of Granada
supports the research; they also have funds of other projects of the
group.
Nowadays, “teamwork are directed towards obaining a chemical
characterization that allows them to set honey categories according to
its monofloral origin like chestnut tree, avocado pear tree, rosemary,
thyme, orange tree, Sierra´s honey and multifloral honey”, pints out
Antonio Segura Carretero, winner of the Young Researchers´ Prize of
the Andalusian Association of Analytical Chemists, in 2002.
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