In Eight Moroccan Honeys, the Darkest One Fought Free Radicals Best

• Eight monofloral Moroccan honeys, Zantaz, fennel, thistle, eucalyptus, spurge, thyme, jujube, and carob, were tested for phenolic content, antioxidant capacity, and their ability to block a damaging sugar reaction called glycation.
• Zantaz honey scored highest across five separate antioxidant assays, including the strongest result the researchers recorded on a test called ORAC.
• On a separate test for blocking advanced glycation end products, thistle honey performed best at 96 percent inhibition, followed by fennel at 88 percent and Zantaz at 77 percent.
• Darker honeys generally contained more phenolic compounds, and color intensity tracked closely with phenolic content across the whole set.
• Ellagic acid was the single most abundant phenolic compound found in nearly every honey sample tested.

Bupleurum is a spiny, unglamorous herb that grows wild across Morocco's uplands, and the honey bees make from it comes out almost black. That same honey, called Zantaz, turned out to be the best performer in a new comparison of eight Moroccan honeys tested for how well they neutralize free radicals in the lab.

A study of eight monofloral honeys collected from central and eastern Morocco tested each one's phenolic content and antioxidant capacity in vitro, and found that Zantaz honey (Bupleurum sp.) came out on top across five separate antioxidant assays, including the highest recorded score on a test called ORAC.

Researchers sourced honey directly from beekeepers across Morocco's central and eastern regions, confirmed each sample's floral origin by counting more than five hundred pollen grains under a microscope, then extracted the phenolic compounds from each honey type and ran them through five antioxidant tests plus a sixth test measuring how well the extracts resisted a sugar damaging reaction called glycation. Eight varieties were compared in total, Zantaz, fennel, thistle, eucalyptus, spurge, thyme, jujube, and carob.

Zantaz scored highest on the DPPH, ABTS, beta carotene bleaching, FRAP, and ORAC assays, the last reaching 4.65 millimolar Trolox equivalent per gram, the strongest figure in the study. It was also the darkest honey by color measurement, at nearly 167 mm Pfund, and phenolic content correlated closely with both color and antioxidant strength across the sample set. On the separate glycation resistance test, thistle honey performed best at 96 percent inhibition, with fennel and Zantaz close behind at 88 and 77 percent. Ellagic acid turned out to be the single most abundant phenolic compound detected in nearly every honey sample.

None of this proves what any of these honeys do inside a human body. Every result comes from honey extracts reacting with free radicals or proteins in a lab dish, not from feeding trials or clinical study, so the findings describe potential rather than demonstrated effect. Moroccan honey has drawn far less scientific attention than honey from better studied regions, and work like this puts real, measured numbers behind varieties most people outside the country have never encountered.