The other day, at a friend’s house, she showed me a bottle of honey that she had been keeping for 20 years!   Though the color of the honey has turned into dark brown, nonetheless it has not crystalized yet.  Just before she left for overseas, she gave us the bottle of honey.  One of our topics of discussion that night was honey – the food that never expires!

Just like uncooked rice, sugar, salt, vinegar, corn starch, wine and pure vanilla extract, honey is also one of the top ten foods that never expires.    Some food items just can last forever.  These vampires of the food  are good to have on hand — and to buy in bulk — because they will never spoil, hardly lose quality and will always be there when you need them.  But seriously, would you dare to cook up that bag or rice you found hidden behind your kitchen cabinet that your late grandma bought in 1980?  Or put into your coffee a teaspoon of sugar that your mum bought 30 years ago?  Errm, I don’t think I will do it.  The bottle of honey that my friend gave me is still on my kitchen shelf. I guess I will keep it for remembrance. Some day perhaps when I summon the courage to try it, I shall!

So why does honey never go bad?

Honey is a sugar. You may have heard all sorts of things about the health benefits of substituting honey for sugar, which may or may not be true. While honey isn’t the same as regular, granulated, white sugar, it’s still a sugar. And sugars are hygroscopic – they don’t contain much water in their natural state. And very few bacteria and microorganisms can live in the resulting low-moisture environment.  Honey in its natural form is very low moisture. Very few bacteria or microorganisms can survive in an environment like that, they just die. They’re smothered by it, essentially. The fact that organisms can’t survive long in honey means they don’t get the chance to spoil it.

Another thing that sets honey apart from other sugars is its acidity. Honey’s pH is between 3 and 4.5 (or, more precisely, 3.26-4.48), which also kills off anything trying to make a home in honey.

Caveat: Infants

So, yes, honey mostly doesn’t spoil. However, honey can contain spores of Clostridium botulinum. This isn’t harmful to adults and children over one year old, whose gastrointestinal tract is developed enough to deal with the spores. But children under one are at risk for infant botulism, so honey is not for your infant.

So could you eat 5,000 year old honey? Well, if it’s spent that time sealed and stored against moisture, sure. If it’s crystallized, it’s not spoiled, just heat it up and put it in your food of choice. Unless you’re under one year old. Then you’d have to wait.