A few times a year I see an article or blog post with titles something like "10 top foods to have in your emergency stockpile." For example These lists often have some good suggestions but they often include Honey. They claim that honey never spoils making it an excellent choice for a base sweetener to store long term for emergency preparedness.
This is horrible advice. While it is true that honey will "never spoil", this is not the same as being "usable after long term storage". Honey has a tendency to crystallize after just a year or two of storage even under near perfect storage conditions. Once crystallized it is a huge pain in the ass to do anything with it. When I first started food storage prepping in the my mid-20s I followed a lot of this advice and added honey to my long term stock and rotate strategy. By the time I was 30 I had completely phased honey out of the long term strategy. I still stock and rotate Honey but it is on the 1 year schedule, Not the 3/5/10/20 year schedules. I stock enough honey to get though local disasters or even global supply chain problems but in a real 'end of the world as we know it' situation my plans assume that honey is a luxury that disapears in the first 12 months.
Stock and Rotate can be hard to stick to and hard to make it fit into a modern life. I always recommend that people also stock "Forever Foods." These are things that have a 20+ year shelf life. These are things you can invest in without being concerned about spoilage and loosing your investment. These articles advise you that honey is one of these Forever Foods but it just is not. Stop listening to them. Granulated sugar stored in airtight containers with a desecant and a Oxygen absorber is a far superior choice. I rotate both white granulated baking sugar and blonde 'Sugar in the Raw' type sugar on a 10 year schedule and it comes out of the 5Gal bucket like it was yesterday. I have a bunch in the 'forever' pile and have zero worries. Honey will be useless after 2-3 years max.
These days when I see someone say "Honey lasts forever" or even "you can heat it to disolve the crystals" I take it as a sure sign that they have not really tried this in real life. When you try to walk the walk you realize honey is a bad idea.
A few times a year I see an article or blog post with titles something like "10 top foods to have in your emergency stockpile." For example [https://poal.co/s/preppers/112280](https://poal.co/s/preppers/112280) These lists often have some good suggestions but they often include Honey. They claim that honey never spoils making it an excellent choice for a base sweetener to store long term for emergency preparedness.
This is horrible advice. While it is true that honey will "never spoil", this is not the same as being "usable after long term storage". Honey has a tendency to crystallize after just a year or two of storage even under near perfect storage conditions. Once crystallized it is a huge pain in the ass to do anything with it. When I first started food storage prepping in the my mid-20s I followed a lot of this advice and added honey to my long term stock and rotate strategy. By the time I was 30 I had completely phased honey out of the long term strategy. I still stock and rotate Honey but it is on the 1 year schedule, Not the 3/5/10/20 year schedules. I stock enough honey to get though local disasters or even global supply chain problems but in a real 'end of the world as we know it' situation my plans assume that honey is a luxury that disapears in the first 12 months.
Stock and Rotate can be hard to stick to and hard to make it fit into a modern life. I always recommend that people also stock "Forever Foods." These are things that have a 20+ year shelf life. These are things you can invest in without being concerned about spoilage and loosing your investment. These articles advise you that honey is one of these Forever Foods but it just is not. Stop listening to them. Granulated sugar stored in airtight containers with a desecant and a Oxygen absorber is a far superior choice. I rotate both white granulated baking sugar and blonde 'Sugar in the Raw' type sugar on a 10 year schedule and it comes out of the 5Gal bucket like it was yesterday. I have a bunch in the 'forever' pile and have zero worries. Honey will be useless after 2-3 years max.
These days when I see someone say "Honey lasts forever" or even "you can heat it to disolve the crystals" I take it as a sure sign that they have not really tried this in real life. When you try to walk the walk you realize honey is a bad idea.
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