Preliminary Study of ¹³C/¹²C Application for the Detection of Adulterated Honey

Honey and pollen in natural products derived from the same plant both share the same carbon source; as a result their ¹³C isotope signature should be identical. The majority of honey adulteration in Thailand was done particularly by adding cheap sugars such as high sucrose cane syrup (HSCS). The accepted differences in ¹³C/¹²C between honey and its associated protein extract is -1δ/ο deviation, which provides the international benchmark of 7% C4 sugar addition. This study reports the preliminary detection of adulterated Thai honey samples by using isotope ratio mass spectrometer coupled to elemental analyzer (EAIRMS). The 5 Thailand honey samples and the pure honey were adulterated with HSCS dilution as: 0, 0.5, 1, 5, 7, 10, 15 and 50%, respectively. The results were found that two of the Thai honey samples and of 10, 15, and 50% dilution were adulterated. The result of analyzed cane sugar of ten replicates were found -11.2 and -10.8 δdeviation, respectively.