Relevant principal component analysis applied to the characterisation of Portuguese heather honey

• Autor(a) principal: Martins, Rui C.
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Outros Autores: Lopes, Victor V., Valentão, Patrícia, Carvalho, João C. M. F., Isabel, Paulo, Amaral, Maria T., Batista, Maria T., Andrade, Paula B., Silva, Branca M.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/11150; https://doi.org/10.1080/14786410701825004
• topic: ‘Serra da Lousã’ heather honey; Relevant principal component analysis; Sugars profile; Glycerol content; Ethanol content

The main purpose of this study was the characterisation of ‘Serra da Lousã’ heather honey by using novel statistical methodology, relevant principal component analysis, in order to assess the correlations between production year, locality and composition. Herein, we also report its chemical composition in terms of sugars, glycerol and ethanol, and physicochemical parameters. Sugars profiles from ‘Serra da Lousã’ heather and ‘Terra Quente de Tra´ s-os-Montes’ lavender honeys were compared and allowed the discrimination: ‘Serra da Lousã’ honeys do not contain sucrose, generally exhibit lower contents of turanose, trehalose and maltose and higher contents of fructose and glucose. Different localities from ‘Serra da Lousã ’ provided groups of samples with high and low glycerol contents. Glycerol and ethanol contents were revealed to be independent of the sugars profiles. These data and statistical models can be very useful in the comparison and detection of adulterations during the quality control analysis of ‘Serra da Lousã’ honey.