TIL: Honey Does Not Spoil. You Could Feasibly Eat 3000 Year Old Honey
Honey has been known to have a lot of healing properties. It is more effective in a cough than cough medicine, which has been tested a number of times by yours truly.
But today I learned that honey is the only food that doesn’t go bad, even after thousands of years. It’s like a magical food given to us humans by the gods.
The longevity of honey can be explained by its chemical properties. It is naturally acidic and has a very low moisture level in which bacteria and other microorganisms simply can’t survive and hence that prevents it from going bad.
That is why the ancient Egyptians used to keep jars of honey along side the mummified pharaohs as they believed that the souls of the dead continued to live and required food in the afterlife.
The oldest honey ever found was found in Georgia and is 5,000 years old, which you can eat by the way. Even if it is crystallised after all those years, all that is needed, is a little bit of heat, and it is good to go.
As a matter of fact, honey isn't just low in moisture, it's what's known as hygroscopic, meaning it actively sucks water out of anything it comes in contact with. That's why bacteria can't survive in honey: it desiccates them.
That's also why honey will eventually go bad if you leave it unsealed: it sucks water out of the air until it loses its hygroscopicity, at which point bacteria can survive in it.
That is very true. Yes, I forgot to mention the part that it should be kept sealed. Thanks for pointing that out :)
Other foods would be stored in honey to preserve them too
yeah! come to think of it, it was used like a refrigerator!
Honey is absorbed 100% by the human body.
well, that is another til for me today! :D
enjoy
Brilliant piece! Didn´t know that. Thanks for sharing.
thanks for reading as always :)
man i love honey
it works good for my allergies as well, local/raw honey especially
yeah, it works the best for me when I get a cough.
I love these type of posts. Learning while having fun 😁
haha me too. I have always enjoyed reading and sharing facts and these type of posts help me do just that! It's addictive to be quite honest.
Very! Can't wait to write my post every day. 😀
have fun! :))
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This should make the expiry date on the bottle obsolete but I guess we'll still look at it.
haha, I am not sure about the manufactured honey though since it goes through at least some form of processing. So we might still have to look at that expiry date.
You're right.
Sweet post! I've kept honey for for few years before, but glad to know it will still be OK in a few thousand more.
haha yeah, it is indeed sweet. (I see what you did there :P )