The test using apple slices to demonstrate the antioxidant properties of
different honeys is not a good test of an antioxidants effect in the
body.

The apple test shows the apples reaction with oxygen, and it may not be
that good since you are coating the apple and may seal it from the air.
So you may be demonstrating the sealing qualities of different honeys.
And there may be different chemical reactions taking place depending on
the honey. But the main problem is it does not show what happens in the
body.

The chemical term antioxidant refers to a participant in an
oxidation/reduction reaction. In the body it specifically refers to
reactions with free radicals, which are molecules with unpaired
electrons. An oxidation reaction does not necessarily have to have
oxygen as a part of the reaction. Only an agent that accepts electrons
from the antioxidant.

Different antioxidants react differently with these molecules. For
example, "vitamin E and beta carotene appear to protect cell membranes;
vitamin C remove free radicals from inside the cell" (from the Columbia
encyclopedia). So even though something may be an antioxidant, its
effect in the body may be effective in one area but not in others or not
effective at all in regard to health. (Proteins, one of the molecules
that you are dealing with, are exceptionally complex and their chemistry
is also complex. Plus there are many in the body that science has no
idea what they do. Science is attempting to get the protein sequences as
they did with human DNA and it is a thousand fold more difficult, and
that may be an understatement. Think a tangled string of Christmas
lights. From the tree at Rockefeller Center.)

Plus, different foods have different amounts of antioxidants.

Antioxidants are generally not needed by most, since the body produces
its own, until you get older. Then everything starts to break down.

Bill Truesdell - Who knows he is getting old since I continually have to
look behind me to see what dropped off.
Bath, ME