Long-Term Storage of Honey and/or Sugar

Provident Principles and Practices
© David Edwards, 2008

PRINCIPLES: The First Presidency, in a letter to the membership of the Church dated June 24th, 1988, provided a list of suggested foods to store. These included honey and/or sugar.

PRACTICES: Honey and sugar can be stored for many years without freezing, refrigeration, or canning. These products store best in air-tight HDPE buckets or glass jars with minimal or no exposure to moisture, light, bugs or contaminants. If honey crystallizes, it can be liquefied again by heating a jar for hours in water at 130oF, about as hot as hands can tolerate. At storage temperatures well above room temperature, honey tends to darken and lose flavor over time. Exposure to high humidity can cause honey to ferment and sugar to clump. Clumped sugar can be used if crushed.

Stored honey or sugar can be used as a sweetener for cereals, baked goods, spreads, yogurts and beverages. Honey comes in various colors and flavors depending on plant blossoms visited by bees.

Stored honey can be used as a substitute for sugar in baking recipes. For every cup of sugar in a recipe, substitute ¾ cup of honey. Decrease added liquids by ¼ cup, or add 4 Tbsp flour plus ¼ tsp baking soda. Measure honey in a measuring cup or spoon coated with fat or oil. To bake foods with honey, use an oven temperature 25 F lower than called for in the recipe. You can make no-yeast bread with honey using ½ to 1 tsp of baking soda per cup of honey. Low-pH honey reacts with high-pH baking soda to make CO2 bubbles. You need to bake the bread very soon after mixing it.

Honey and/or sugar can also be stored for future canning needs. Water-bath systems can be used for pickling cucumbers, beets and beans, or for canning high-acid fruits, preserves, jams, jellies and tomatoes. Pressure canners must be used for canning fish, meat and all vegetables except tomatoes. If honey is used in canning syrup, most practitioners recommend using a mix of sugar and up to 50% honey. It takes some tricks to can food well with just honey. Consider storing sufficient honey, sugar, equipment and supplies to meet your canning needs during a lengthy crisis, e.g., a pandemic.

Honey or food canned in honey should not be given to children one year old or less because natural, heat-resistant spores in honey can cause botulism in newly developed digestive tracts. Over 2,400 cases have been reported. For children older than one year, and for adults, honey is safe to eat.

Stored honey can also be used as a wound dressing for many types of wounds. Honey is reported to have excellent antimicrobial properties. Also, its use does not lead to growth of resistant strains of bacteria as use of antibiotics sometimes does. Honey dressings are said to also reduce inflammation, provide a moist healing environment, minimize adherence of bandages to newly forming skin, and promote rapid, effective healing. (Some journal articles with links below discuss relevant evidence.) . . .

Graphics credits:

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For more info, see http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/bacterial_viral/botulism.html; http://ijl.sagepub.com/cgi/reprint/5/1/40; www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1297205&blobtype=pdf; http://live.psu.edu/story/27584; http://missourifamilies.org/features/nutritionarticles/harvesttohealth/honey.htm; http://books.google.com/books?id=8vqp_XLfNKYC&pg=PA806&lpg=PA806&dq=canning+with+honey+carla&source=web&ots=OYa4ZbYz3K&sig=stJj2o8SDSMWhvHEiBnxq29FQD0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result.