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The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

bbc.com

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Re: The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

#81

Post by filterfish »

fsckboy wrote: post #55
filterfish wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a planter wart surgically removed which they packed with Manuka honey and because it's a deep open wound it needs to heal from the inside. I changed the dressing and repacked it every few days for weeks and the wound was absolutely pristine ever time. I live in the tropics where people die because due to infection which makes it even more interesting that they use honey.

plantar wart. all wart removals should heal pristinely, warts are on only the outermost layers of skin above where scarring occurs.

The wound was about 6mm deep on my heel and took months to heal properly. And yes I did check those homophones :-)

And thanks for the other homophone correction!

Re: The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

#82

Post by pyman »

filterfish wrote: post #79
RataNova wrote: post #73

Pretty wild how bees basically invented a biochemical preservation system thousands of years before we had food science labs

Millions of years!

The fact that they navigate by memorising visual landmarks like trees, buildings, and flowers to recognise familiar routes is unbelievable

Re: The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

#83

Post by borski »

tayo42 wrote: post #50
Analemma_ wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that number is meaningful without knowing how many parents are giving their infants honey. Granted I'm in a high-income, high-education area, but at least in my bubble, "don't give babies honey" seems to be common knowledge, so it's possible there are relatively few instances and a high percentage result in complications.

Whole food crunchy Instagram grifters push that infants should eat honey Though tbh do people really eat that much honey? I only have some in my kitchen to have with tea when I have a cold. Other then that I almost never use it.

Yes. I literally collect different honey (including from my own hives) and my love of it is very strong.

And no, I don’t have diabetes yet. I’m not insane about it, but I do have it frequently.

Re: The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

#84

Post by borski »

alwa wrote: post #72
tayo42 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whole food crunchy Instagram grifters push that infants should eat honey Though tbh do people really eat that much honey? I only have some in my kitchen to have with tea when I have a cold. Other then that I almost never use it.

Oh man buttered toast with honey... English muffins... But most controversially, and most deliciously, it dresses up a pizza something lovely... For me the shift happened when I stopped thinking of it as a sweetener for liquids and started thinking about it as a condiment to deploy conservatively but frequently.

Hot honey on pizza is the BEST

Re: The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

#85

Post by abcd_f »

cess11 wrote: post #57
repeekad wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

same with immunocompromised folks, though all that only applies to raw honey; pasteurized honey is more common in grocery stores and totally safe

It's pasteurised to stop you from making mead, not because it does anything to Clostridium spores.

Pasteurization doesn't in any way prevent honey from remaining fermentable.

Re: The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

#87

Post by stinos »

Jun8 wrote: post #30

Same principle, reducing water activity (aw), is how Nutella keeps fresh for so long without refrigeration: its water activity is even lower than honey. Most bacteria need an aw of around 0.85 to thrive, Nutella’s aw is around 0.4, honey’s around 0.5-0.6. Peanut butter is 0.7, so it stays fresh for relatively long, too. Here’s the definition of water activity from FDA: https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enfor…

In the end drying grass to create hay is also the same principle: dry enough (say < 15% water) and it doesn't do much at all, being pretty dead. Higher and you get all kinds of life having its go at it.

Re: The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

#88

Post by amelius »

RataNova wrote: post #74
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #67

>> This doesn't mean that honey can withstand all challenges to freshness. Once a jar of honey is open, its surface is being regularly exposed to the air, and dipping licked spoons in will bring bacteria and moisture that weren't there when the jar was sealed. I have plenty of observational, empirical data that contradicts this apparently theoretical statement. Not just licked spoons but breakfast knives with bits of…

My honey jars basically turn into forensic time capsules of breakfast past, and still nothing grows

But the same holds for my sugar jar.

Re: The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

#89

Post by bob1029 »

Peteragain wrote: post #66
bjelkeman-again wrote: post #6

The story misses that lactic acid bacteria are fairly common in honey and seem to be out competing other bacteria and have anti microbial effects. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7949542/

I've recently been embracing the idea of co-evolutionary pressure. Reading the article I thought that if it was just the dryness, bacteria would have evolved to tap such a rich energy source. Hence the biology of bees must have something to do with the preservative nature of honey. I'm feeling vindicated!

I think co-evolution should be investigated for encoder-decoder architecture training.

The idea being that you pair multiple decoders with each encoder, and multiple encoders with each decoder (randomly sample if large populations). The selective pressure is a feedback loop between the encoder and decoder populations that requires the members to produce and interpret the latent vector as well as possible. In theory, this creates a form of generalization pressure wherein the encoders and decoders must perform well with a wide range of possible up/down stream states. I think with large enough populations, this could be robust to premature convergence and overfitting.

Re: The chemical secrets that help keep honey fresh for so long

#90

Post by octo888 »

fsckboy wrote: post #55
filterfish wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a planter wart surgically removed which they packed with Manuka honey and because it's a deep open wound it needs to heal from the inside. I changed the dressing and repacked it every few days for weeks and the wound was absolutely pristine ever time. I live in the tropics where people die because due to infection which makes it even more interesting that they use honey.

plantar wart. all wart removals should heal pristinely, warts are on only the outermost layers of skin above where scarring occurs.

Surgical wart removal can involve some pretty deep incisions and month long recovery. Scars aren't unheard of as I understand it

(And it can be futile ! The wart can easily come back)

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