3.2.4. Acidity

The legislation of the UAE [35] and Codex regulations [3] do not accept an acidity of >50 meq/kg in honey. This criterion was not met by 2% of the samples in the current study. The free acidity in the studied honey samples was 74 meq/kg (52 to 85 meq/kg). Similarly, in Oman, mean acidity values of 84.9 meq/kg were reported for Sumer honey, with 18 of 21 samples exceeding the Codex standard [6]. Research studies on honey collected from Turkey [44], Portugal [45], Argentina [46], and Ethiopia [39] showed lower values of free acidity (25.0, 40.3, 11.0, and 45.0 meq/kg, respectively). The high acidity observed in 5 samples in the present study could have been due to the fermentation of honey sugars to form organic acid [30]. This could be controlled by adopting more modern techniques for producing honey that enable reducing the moisture or by pasteurizing the honey to control microorganisms. The variation in acidity between the samples may also be attributed to the presence of different acids of varying floral origin or harvest season [44,45].
