A quick search suggests that the average American uses about 1.3 pounds of honey per year. If I’m 40 years old, and guess that I might live to be 80, that’s only 52 pounds of honey, which I could easily buy in bulk. Honey doesn’t expire, and even assuming the price doesn’t skyrocket from bee die-offs, inflation alone will make the price go up over time.
Does it make sense to buy all the rest of the honey I’ll ever need for the rest of my life, right now?
Do you actually eat 1.3 pounds a year tho? If so, then it does.
Honey can expire if not stored right.
That’s an old wives’ tale. Honey never spoils, it crystallizes. All you need to do is heat it to liquify. 3000 year old honey was found in an Egyptian tomb, and was still edible.
https://realrawhoney.co.uk/blogs-real-raw-honey-honey-in-ancient-egypt/
I misunderstood “poor storage” as a temperature. Sure, if you don’t seal the container and an abundance of moisture is able to enter, that could cause spoilage. So if OP doesn’t keep their honey in a bucket in the basement they should be fine.
if OP doesn’t keep their honey in a bucket in the basement they should be fine
First time on the internet huh? Pretty good odds OP is right now trying to figure out where to store that 5-gallon bucket of honey he just purchased, and that basement is looking mighty tempting.
So, if it’s left?
God damn that works on so many different levels!
I buy a 5 gallon bucket of honey once every 6ish years. It’s one of the only sweeteners my wife can have so we use it in everything that needs a sweeter taste. I fill small 20oz jars with it and seal the bucket back up. It’s a good investment because you can get it much much cheaper. I buy mine from Sleeping bear farms in Michigan.
Is it dangerous? What if the bears wake up?
They hibernate for quite a while. Plenty of time to steal their honey jars.
obviously you have to wait for them to go lookin’ for pic-a-nik baskets then.
Hello.
Oh wait you meant the other kind of bear…
You’re likely better off investing the same amount of money.
Buying it all now is betting that inflation will be higher than your investment return over the next 40 years. That’s not a good bet unless the world literally collapses.
What do you think investing less than $200 is going to earn you?
What do you think buying $200 worth of honey will save you?
About 20 trips to the grocery store and the associated gas prices.
…You know you can buy multiple things at once at the store?
Like $200 worth of honey?
Exactly! You get it.
I like honey.
So it’s a good bet, got it.
Honey can technically expire. If it crystalizes, some portions of it can become more diluted, leading to a low enough osmotic pressure for bacteria and fungi to exist. If you do buy in bulk, check your local universities. One in my area does honeybee research and sells bulk honey from their bee lab at cheaper prices than any of the private beekeepers. I use it to make mead.
Haven’t seen this mentioned yet so:
The honey may not expire, but the container you store it in could. I’d be very concerned about plastic disintegrating and/or leeching into the honey. Glass would be better for that, but it’s also really heavy compared to plastic, so you’d need more, smaller containers instead of one giant tub.
I would agree with you but I’m like 25% microplastic (and 8% regular plastic) so I figure what harm will be done has already been done.
It’s surprising that Bender has yet to say “I’m 40% plastic!”
Glass would also be better for heating it to melt crystals.
Sure you could. But I’ll offer a different perspective
All honey tastes different from different producers and areas, you’ll be missing out on some wonderful honey flavors if you buy that much in bulk. If it’s purely for sweetening, sure fine, do it. But if you want the flavor of honey, check out a farmers market and see what you’d be missing out on with bulk.
The idea did occur that I’d better be damn sure that I like whatever honey I’ll be eating for the rest of my life.
I’ve also heard that honey helps to confer resistance to allergies to things that were in the area where the honey was made. As such, OP might be missing out on environmental defense by not diversifying.
As a kid we had a neighbor that ran a bee-brothel and had hives all over the region. Since his hives would just sit on un-used corners of farmland, he would offer some honey annually as ‘rent’. (He was also generous with his boat so a couple waterskiing trips were also on the table).
We (2 parents, 4 kids) would get a 5 gallon can of honey every other year or so.
That has been over 45 years now and my father is still working through that supply. We put it in sealed mason jars and it has remained good all this time.
A quick search suggests that the average American uses about 1.3 pounds of honey per year.
I think this is a case of people not eating honey and bringing the average way down.
My current SO puts honey in her tea and goes though about a pound and a half per month or about 18lbs per year.
It might sound like a lot but 24oz over an average of 30 days is less than an Oz of honey per day or 2 tablespoons across 4 cups of tea every day.I’ll balance her out - zero most years. It doesn’t taste good enough to start adding sweetener to things
The average added sugar consumption for American adults is about 70g per day, which works out to be 25.6 kg (56.2 lbs) per year. People can shift their source of sweetener and consume a dramatically higher amount of honey without necessarily having a diet that is all that different from the national average.
Yeah, then turn it into mead
Then you’d be a lot warmer and a lot happier!
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That’s some very nice honey you got there, be a shame if it all burned down
Honey can change consistency, depending on how it is packaged and stored. In addition, you have to consider the cost and risk of storing it. But if you think the bees are going to die off, it could be a lucrative investment.
If the bees die off, you’re going to have a much bigger problem than lack of honey.
My first thought was that of the cost of storing it. You never know when something will happen and all of your effort to store it is moot. Like if a natural disaster occurs and destroys your stash, or something happens and you must leave everything behind. Not a huge deal if you only have a few years of it, but a lifetime’s worth?
Or just ants. Ants ruin plans
Also cockroaches.
The issue with stuff like this is the high upfront cost, the hassle of storing the goods (correctly), and the fact that you could just put the same money into some stable stocks and likely be better off buying honey as needed. But I’m sure if you research it hard enough you can set yourself up for a good deal, barring catastrophy.
Having had a 50lb bucket of honey I can tell you that honey use goes up dramatically because you say to yourself “well I have so much I can just use it for this, and that, and a little more on my toast…” and then friends come around asking for a little here and a little there. Unless you can be super disciplined in a way that I cannot, 50 pounds will not last more that a couple years.
No.
