Stock Up Saturday~Honey Food Storage

A friend of mine was nice enough to give me her breadmaker that she doesn't use anymore.  The recipes associated with the breadmaker have honey in them which is crucial to keeping homemade bread moist but we don't keep a ton of honey at our house because I've never been a huge fan of PB & honey sandwiches. Now that I'm making my own bread, I run out much quicker!  While at the store, I decided to make this my weekly Food Storage/Emergency Prep item.

We looked at all of the plastic honey containers (i.e. the "bears") and based our purchase by the price per ounce.  Since we were at winco, we decided to look at their bulk honey as well and lucky for us-it was on sale and the best price! 

Storing honey is extremely easy...put it in an airtight container...keep it out of the sun...and you're good to go.  For about a million years.  Honey doesn't expire, the worst it really does is crystallize.  To get honey back in its liquid form you can put the container of honey in warm water and it will "melt" it back to how it originally was.  You don't need to can it or give it special treatment. 

4 little containers certainly isn't "long-term" food storage, it likely won't last us long enough to crystallize, but it's a start.  You can look up local beekeepers as well as other sources to find bulk honey and get a better price.  A big tip I would give is to repackage the honey.  No one wants an entire 5 gallon bucket to crystallize and then have to get it back to liquid consistency... Even these little containers from Winco aren't the best for long term food storage-I plan to pour them out into glass jars-probably pint size or smaller, quart at the absolute largest. 

As for other options in sweeteners for food storage, there is always the standby of granulated white sugar (which will also last forever if kept in an airtight container with no moisture) and I've seen dehydrated honey powders...which I frankly don't know much about.  Honey tents to be pricy but it does have more vitamins and minerals than plain sugar, it also has antibacterial and anti-fungal properties, and can soothe a sore throat.  Ultimately what you decide to stock up on is your choice, if you've read my other posts, you know I recommend variety.  If, per chance, you needed to substitute honey for granulated white sugar in a recipe, here is a great "how-to": http://www.ehow.com/how_7541622_substitute-granulated-sugar-honey.html

If you have any input regarding using honey or alternatives like honey powder I'd love to hear it!  Feel free to comment below!