DETERMINATION OF POLYPHENOLS OF SOME TURKISH HONEYDEW AND NECTAR HONEYS USING HPLC-DAD.

The present article was carried out to characterize and compare the phenolic compounds of Turkish honeydew and nectar honeys which have quite different acceptances by consumers and processing type. Phenolic compounds were identified and quantified with High Performance Liquid Chromatography-Diode Array Detector (HPLC-DAD) system by means of 20 phenolic standards. Some differences were observed between honeydew and nectar honeys. While pinocembrin and quercetin were not determined in the honeydew honeys, these flavonoids were present in the nectar honey samples. While the main compound of honeydew honeys was catechin, it was chlorogenic acid for nectar honeys. In addition to this results, statistically significant correlations were detected among the phenolic compounds such as between caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid (r = 0.908), chlorogenic acid and coumaric acid (r = 0.836), and caffeic acid and coumaric acid (r = 0.893) in the nectar honeys. Phenolic profiles of these honeys may provide a marker for determination the botanical origin of honeys. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]