ABSTRACT
The composition of honey is relatively variable and primarily depends on the oral source; however, certain external factors also play a role, such as seasons, environmental factors, and processing. Honey contains at least 181 substances (Chow 2002). It is a complex, nutritious food and its main ingredients are simple sugars (or monosaccharides) such as glucose, fructose, and galactose and complex sugars (oligosaccharides) such as sucrose (Figure 17.1). The biggest components are glucose and fructose. Honey is mainly a watery solution of two invert sugars, dextrose (glucose or grape sugar) and levulose (fructose or fruit sugar), in nearly equal proportions. The terms dextrose and levulose originated from the use of the two prexes, dexter (right) and levis (left), because the former turns the polarized light to the right and the latter to the left. We may call these two invert sugars natural or simple sugars because they are readily absorbed by the bloodstream without requiring the assistance of the salivary, gastric, or intestinal secretions to accomplish the process of inversion. Cane and some other articial sugars must rst be inverted into simple sugars before they are assimilated (Chow 2002; Terrab et al. 2003; Dimitrova et al. 2007).
