• Journal of the East Asian Society of Dietary Life
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.867-879
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• 2015

To confirm basic nutrient contents of Korean honey as a food material, we assessed New Zealand Manuka honey by measuring proximate components, vitamin C and minerals of 16 kinds of honey harvested in South Korea. The proximate composition of each honey sample was as follows: moisture content 18.45~29.84%, crude protein 0.10~0.95% (vs Manuka honey 0.23%), crude fat 0.02~0.60% (vs Manuka honey 0.34%), crude ash 0.01~.52% (vs Manuka honey 0.24%) and carbohydrate 67.90~80.94% (vs Manuka honey 79.39%), respectively. In the case of free sugars analyze by HPLC, fructose showed a content of 26.12~49.84% which was highest in acacia honey and lowest in sorbus honey. Content of glucose was 19.38~36.12% and lowest in chestnut honey, whereas sucrose, lactose, maltose were absent. Total sugar contents were 64.16% which was less than Manuka honey (70.23%) and vitamin C was not detected in all samples. Minerals were detected 15~25 kinds, including K, Ca, Mg, Zn, Fe, Cu, Mo and so on. Ca was high in order of linden > canola > codonopsis > hedysarum honey, and K was higher than in Manuka honey in order of chestnut > hedysarum > codonopsis > jujube honey. Especially, these results suggest that Korean honey have a better nutrient content profile than Manuka honey.