Sugar is anti-bacterial and can be used to store meat. Ever heard of honey baked ham? Ham, pork, and bacon are sometimes stored in sugar syrup. The meat is chopped up into small pieces, put into a sterile jar, then sugar syrup is added and the jar is sealed by standard canning methods.

Just as salt water is kills bacteria, so does sugar water or any other highly concentrated fluid. Chemically speaking, any highly osmotic solution is bacteriocidal.

Sugar is often used with salt to preserve certain foods like fish and meat. Sugar may either be added to salt to create a dry mixture which covers food or may be dissolved in a liquid to make a brine to surround the food. Adding sugar to a salty brine helps to confer a sweetness to meat and fish and also helps to reduce the harsh flavor of salt. Adding too little sugar to a food will still enable the development of bacteria. Adding too little sugar promotes the growth of mold and yeast. Adding too much sugar to food affects the health benefits of the food.

Sugar provide empty calories, no real nutrition and puts us at risk for several health problems so this method of preservation is listed for completeness but I hope other methods will predominate.

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