Tag: Science

It may not look like it sitting in that cute bear bottle, but honey is a supercharged bacteria-killing powerhouse!

Sometimes while browsing the grocery story we’ll pick up an item we know we’ll be out of soon, only to open the new one before using up the old one. For me, that’s honey. There’s always an all-but-spent bottle haunting the back of the pantry like a bear-shaped ghost with unfinished business. While the natural assumption with any other sauce or spread would be to toss the past-due portion out, honey doesn’t have to suffer the same fate. It’s true what they say, honey doesn’t go bad.

This superpower has a few factors that allow honey to survive without refrigeration or other preservatives which the folks over at SciShow have laid out in fascinating detail. Honey has some surprising properties including being a supersaturated solution which means that it literally sucks bacteria dry before they can flourish and potentially cause the consumer harm. It also contains an anti-bacterial protein that protects bees from harmful diseases. That’s right, bees are making us one of the most sterile substances on the planet. I guess we shouldn’t complain about a few stings.

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