How does a natural food like honey never expire, unlike other natural foods like fruits or vegetables?
In: Chemistry
High sugar content is a preservative because of osmosis.
Osmosis is basically the movement of water from a area with a few dissolved molecules to an area with a lot of dissolved molecules. It basically wants to equalise the amount of water on either side.
So when a bacterium (that makes food go bad) lands on honey, the water inside it is pulled out and it dies.
Fruit and vegetables also have sugars, but they’re stored in different cells and parts of cells, so the bacteria can eat the sugar bit by bit without the water trying to equalise.
More generally, honey is made to store food for the bees, but fruit is made (by the plant) to protect its seeds until they’re ready to make new plants. So many ripe fruit want to be “eaten” by bacteria and fungi so that the seeds will be spread out.
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