Saturday, April 16, 2011

Product Review - Honey Powder


A friend, visiting last week, mentioned in passing that they had been traveling through a small town to the south of us and stopped at a local grocery store to pick up a few essentials.  Imagine her surprise, when going toward the checkout line, she noticed a large, hand-lettered sign with the words "Emergency Survival Food".  Intrigued, she made her way toward the rows of #10 tins to investigate.  She toted home a few tins of banana chips and quickly made plans to revisit the store to further bolster her preparedness supplies.  Of course, I filed this information away with hopes that we too would be making our way south in the near future so that I could check out this "survival" section of a mainstream grocery store.

Today was that day.  Sir Knight, the kids and I headed south to attend our nephew's birthday party and had to drive right past that very store.  How could we possibly not stop?  A quick trip inside revealed a gold mind of emergency essentials.  Sure enough, rows upon rows of dehydrated foods in #10 tins consumed premium space right next to the checkout counter.  Standard fair such as powdered milk and potato gems were present along with other not-so-common items like powdered scrambled eggs, butter powder and honey powder.  We picked up a few tins of this and that so that we could evaluate the quality of the food and decide what we were interested in stocking up on.  The honey powder was especially intriguing, since we had never heard of such a thing.  I couldn't wait to get home and try it.

Honey powder in the can
(it was about 2/3 full - it is filled
by weight and not by volume)

Mixing the powder with water
The honey powder package had direction for using both straight from the can (in powder form) and rehydrating the powder and using as table honey.  I thought it more likely that we would reconstitute the honey and use it in liquid form so I followed the rehydrating directions, with really exceptional results.

First, I measured 1 cup of honey powder into a saucepan, slowly added 1/4 cup of cold water and stirred to combine.  After the powder and water had been sufficiently mixed, I put the saucepan on the stove and slowly heated the mixture up until the sugars went into solution.  Of course, at this point we had to taste the honey to see if it was remotely edible.  It was great!  I was very surprised.  It was the taste and consistency of "regular" honey.  I would gladly put the reconstituted honey on my table.

Heating the honey

The honey after the sugars have dissolved
It was exciting to see preparedness foods in a chain grocery store.  We brought home a brochure for the supplier, Augason Farms, which showcased even more products than the grocery store had carried.  The prices in the grocery store were considerably less than they are on the Augason Farms website, which I attribute to the shear bulk that is carried in the store location.

It is even the right consistency and color!
Although honey has an incredibly long shelf life, I think the honey powder is definitely a worthy addition to our preparedness stores.  I will definitely be frequenting that grocery store and adding to our honey powder supply.

22 comments:

  1. Michelle;
    Yes, there are directions for using it in powdered form as a sugar substitution in baked goods.
    Enola

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  2. I recently purchased the honey powder and some other items from Agason Farms from Sams Club online. I am glad to see that the honey reconstituted well. I did have concerns. I tried the apples i ordered from them and was really disappointed. I dry my own apples but thought it would be nice to have some in #10 cans. They tasted bad to me. The ingredients said apples and sulfates. Maybe that is why they tasted yucky. I use the butter powder in baking and really enjoy using it. Thanks for the review!

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  3. You can use it in beads, cereals, and toppings . i have some from family members in Utah. It came with a high recommendation. Good luck using it. Melissa

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  4. Enola,
    I was shocked to see an end-cap of Augason products in the north Spokane WalMart. A week later my daughter and I went in again and looked for the products in the same location - nothing! They had moved ALL the products (about a pallet-ful) to the middle of the main aisle, and they were selling OUT! We managed to grab the last 3 cans of regular Morning Moo. They had a wide selection of products, but I don't know how the prices compare to your little store. The milk we purchased was $10.88. People were stopping and placing several items at a time into their carts - and they all seemed familiar with the product. I hope WalMart will see the demand for these products and continue to carry them!

    Thank you so much for trying the honey powder and for giving all of us the tasty reviews. :) I wasn't sure how that could possibly reconstitute to anything that resembled honey!

    Blessings,
    Lisa/dragonfly.garden

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  5. I have made several orders from Auguson Farms. The products have arrived promptly and they have been quick to send emails to update me. Seem like nice folks!
    MaryB in GA

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  6. Thanks 4 looking out 4 us once again, I'll be ordering us a few can as well & a few other item's.

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  7. I'm from Northern Idaho too, and I'd like to know where we can get these items locally.

    Scott in Athol

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  8. Scott;
    I picked the honey powder (among other things) up at a Rosauer's store. I understand that most (if not all) Rosauer's will be doing a test run with the Augasun Farms products. Lisa (a reader) mentioned that she was able to buy some of their products at the North Spokane Walmart - I'm not sure if the other Walmart's are carrying their products or not. Good luck. It is worth searching them out.
    Enola

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  9. Thanks Enola! It sounds like I need to make a trip to the Big City.lol

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  10. Interesting, 'cept i don't see much point in the honey. As you point out, honey has an exceptionally long shelf life (some would say an indefinite one) and this being the case, might as well just go for the real thing. Another point against it would be that many of the great nutritional properties of honey would be destroyed in the heating/rehydrating process, although i imagine the initial dehydrating process already took care of that :)
    And while i'm at it (sorry to poo poo this dehydrated foods idea so much) a better idea for long term egg storage is to store large quantities of chicken feed instead for your laying hens.

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  11. Unfortunately, I know of no stores in this area that carry any "survival foods". It seems people are living as though everything is fine, despite living in CA (where nothing is fine anymore).

    I have quite a bit of honey, but a can of powdered honey would be a good addition to the pantry. Thanks for doing a review of the powdered honey for us, Enola. You certainly have done all of us a big favor.

    NoCal Gal

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  12. Mark,

    Here are a couple of reasons to store dried honey and eggs.
    Due to high bacterial counts in raw honey, (unless it has been pasteurized),it is medically advised not to feed raw honey to youngish, under the age of 12 months of age, due to the naturally occurring tutin and the risk of botulism, that is bound in natural honey.
    The dehydrated form is adequately heat processed to destroy that bacteria. Thus, you can use it in place of raw honey in baking and in cooking cereals.

    Also, if you are an avid hiker or, wish to carry honey in your BOB, and would love honey in your morning dried oats, or in your tea, this is a boon!

    Same with dehydrated eggs. Ever try packing fresh eggs in your backpack? NOT.


    notutopia

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  13. Is the powdered honey dehydrated honey with nothing else added?

    Once reconstituted can it sit out unrefrigerated indefinitely?

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  14. Notutopia;
    Thanks for answering! You said it perfectly.

    Kimberly;
    The listed ingredients are honey powder, fructose. The label does not indicate a need to be refrigerated.

    Enola

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  15. Enola,

    I ordered the honey powder a few weeks ago from bulkfoods.com and will be using it in my bread mixes I'm packing away. Have you tried the peanut butter powder yet?

    Angela

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  16. Honey Butter
    (whipped honey)

    1 stick of butter, softened
    1 cup of honey
    1 tsp. vanilla

    Put the honey in chilled mixer bowl and whip it for 3 minutes, add the softened butter and vanilla.
    Whip another 3 to 4 minutes.
    This is SO yummy on warm biscuits or bread, corn bread, or scones. Great on pancakes too.
    I love it in my tea!

    Keep refrigerated.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you!! Can't wait to try it!

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  17. haven't found any of these products anywhere here in n.e. mississippi...would love to find the dried egg as it makes up the best ever baked custards i have ever tasted. will be checking out the tupelo, ms. Sams tomorrow..maybe i will get lucky.

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  18. Thank you so much for this excellent review. I check Augason Farms website every day to see what the daily special is. Today, it is honey powder. I have purchased some, but have not yet opened it. I wanted to find a review to see if I want to make a purchase today while it's on sale. Your review convinced me that I definitely want to go place an order. Thanks so much.

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  19. Just spoke to someone at Augason regarding the honey. She said that it isn't pure, it is made up of sugar syrup, honey and fructose from sugar cane. I asked how much of it is honey and if the pollen had been removed. She only knew that 33% of it is fructose. She's going to investigate and let me know what she finds out.

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  20. Use Augason Farms "semi-Honey" for syrup on pancakes and for flavoring oats/cream of wheat. Try to find 3LBS of real honey for under $11, YOU CAN'T. Walmart has this #10 can for $10.76. Use this stuff in baking or whatever, rehydrate and bag it for bartering, bet people would trade some nice stuff for it. Save the REAL stuff stomach aches and for wound care. I got 2LBS of Manuka Honey for MRSA and Staph infection treatment. Plan to use this Augason cheap stuff for daily sweet tooth.

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