Carbohydrate and enzymatic activity profiling for the quality assessment of Canadian honeys

The compositional profiles of 163 Canadian honey samples from four botanical sources -buckwheat, clover, goldenrod, and blueberry-were analyzed for enzymatic activity and sugar composition using spectrophotometry and LC-QToF-MS. Results showed that clover and goldenrod honeys exhibited higher diastase and invertase activities (11.90 DN/4.24 IN and 12.52 DN/5.33 IN), while buckwheat honey displayed the highest acid phosphatase activity (683.202 mg P/100 g). Blueberry honey demonstrated elevated glucose oxidase and catalase activities (11.843 μg H₂O₂/g/ h and 27.629 μg H₂O₂/g/ min). Fructose and glucose concentrations ranged from 37.0%-38.1% (w/w) and 32.0%-34.1% (w/w), respectively, across the four floral types, with maltose identified as the most abundant disaccharide. Multivariate analysis demonstrated significant negative correlations between diastase activity and HMF concentration (p ≤ 0.0001), and between glucose concentration and the levels of nigerose, isomaltose, and gentiobiose (p ≤ 0.0001). The predictive models for botanical origin classification achieved an accuracy of 80%-90%. Acid phosphatase and catalase were identified as the most impactful features to differentiate clover, blueberry, and buckwheat honey across various models based on importance scores.