Local Honey

Local honey is touted as being helpful in reducing seasonal allergies. Raw honey, honey that has not been exposed to extreme heat during processing, retains more vitamins and minerals than honey typically found in stores like SAMs and Costco.

Sugar, in general, is a good thing to focus on at this time. The church recommendations for sugar storage (back when there were guidelines) used to be about 65 pounds per person per year. This was to include all sugars. It is certainly a good reference point, though I think we would probably want more than that if it came down to solely eating food storage. Just using 1 Tablespoon of brown sugar a day on cereal for one year would require storing about 20 lbs.! Multiply that by the number in your family....and you get the idea. And that is just using it one way. If you use honey for bread baking, and want to store enough for a typical recipe (one loaf a day for one year) you would need approximately 55 lbs. of honey. You would need slightly more than that if you use sugar in the place of honey. People like storing honey because it stores indefinitely.

"I have effectively stored sugar in plastic buckets for over 20 years in Houston with no problems. I just pour the sugar into a food grade container, snap on the lid so it stays airtight and it lasts. No major clumping. No need for oxygen absorbers. No sugar ant problems. A 44 quart container from ACE Restaurant supply holds 75 lbs. of white sugar and the container costs about $21. I have been told that 5 gallon buckets will hold about 35 lbs. and 6 gallon buckets of course will hold more." Leila

Sugar is currently cheaper to purchase at SAMs or Costco than at the church cannery. But, you will have to package it for long term storage. Put it in buckets, jars, mylar pouches or cans.

Some measurement calculations offered by Wendy DeWitt (google her amazing videos):

SUGAR (white)................. 12 c in a # 10 can, 2 c=1#, 1#= 32 Tbsp = 96 tsp
SUGAR (brown)...................... 1 1/3 c=1#
HONEY................................... 20 Tbsp = 1 c, 13 oz=1 c, 6 c=5#

One gallon of honey is about 12 lbs.