Content of Na, K, Ca, Mg, Zn, Cu and Fe in Flavoured Honeys

The honey market is characterised by a wide variety of products. Honey producers also intro-duce modifications, e.g. flavoured honeys, with the addition of fruit, herbs and/or spices. The main purpose of adding this type of substance to honey is to enrich it with biologically active substances, which enhance the product's health-promoting properties. Honey plays both a nutritional and a medicinal role, as it contains many valuable substances, including macro -and microelements. The content of minerals depends on the type of honey, when it is harvested, and its region of origin. The aim of the study was to evaluate the mineral composition (Na, K, Ca, Mg, Zn, Cu, Fe) of flavoured honeys. Twenty-eight types of honey were studied, including 8 multifloral honey and 20 flavoured multifloral honeys enriched with herbs, marshmallow root, seaberry, elderberry, cranberry, hops, cloves, ginger, vanilla, black cumin, lemon, blackberry, strawberry, orange, raspberry, European blueberry, as well as three creamed honeys with ginger and lemon grass, lemon and peppermint, and strawberry. The study showed that honey contain- ing fruit and/or herb juice or extracts generally had higher mineral content than multifloral honey without flavourings. Only the content of Na was lower, probably due to the component composition of flavoured honeys. Although flavoured honey is not a significant source of mine-rals in human nutrition (supplying less than 1% of the Reference Daily Intake), the minerals present in the highest quantities are commonly deficient in a human diet, and therefore the role of flavoured honeys in rational nutrition should not be overlooked.