Honey is a natural food of worldwide economic importance. Over the last
decades, its potential for food, medical, cosmetical, and biotechnological applications
has been widely explored. One of the major safety issues regarding such
applications is its susceptibility to being contaminated with bacterial and fungi
spores, including pathogenic ones, which may impose a hurdle to its consumption
in a raw state. Another factor that makes this product particularly challenging
relies on its high sugar content, which will lead to the formation of
hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) when heated (due to Maillard reactions). Moreover,
honey’s bioactivity is known to be affected when it goes through thermal
processing due to its unstable and thermolabile components. Therefore, proper
food processing methodologies are of utmost importance not only to ensure
honey safety but also to provide a high-quality product with low content of HMF
and preserved biological properties. As so, emerging food processing technologies
have been employed to improve the safety and quality of raw honey, allowing,
for example, to reduce/avoid the exposure time to high processing temperatures,
with consequent impact on the formation of HMF. This review aims
to gather the literature available regarding the use of conventional and emergent
food processing technologies (both thermal and nonthermal food processing
technologies) for honey decontamination, preservation/enhancement of honey
biological activity, as well as the sensorial attributes.
Thanks are due to the University of Aveiro and FCT/MCT
for the financial support for the LAQV/REQUIMTE and
CIMO research Units (FCT UID/QUI/50006/2020 and
UIDB/00690/2020, respectively) through national funds
and, where applicable, co-financed by the FEDER, within
the PT2020 Partnership Agreement, and to the Portuguese
NMR Network. The authors Hana Scepankova and Carlos
A. Pinto would like to thank also FCT/MCT for the Ph.D.
grants (SFRH/BD/88133/2012 and SFRH/BD/137036/2018).
