Help!!!! Canned tomato sauce taste too acidic?

[heirloomgal]

I've w

Stop adding citric acid to tomato canning!! Somebody in the government is CMA bc people mishandle food and they Don't want their advice coming back to bite them.
Would you Really eat something that combined tomatoes and lemons?!?!?
I have canned tomatoes for OVER 20 years and I have Never used citric acid or ANY additive, my tomatoes don't ever taste too acidic.
I have successfully canned tomatoes, zucchini and onion, and that makes a nice pint snack.
Every time I open a jar of tomatoes I give it a smell test. It reminds me that the work is worth it.
Btw, I don't puree it ahead of time, although I Do puree it when I am canning beans adn Using a quart of my tomatoes.
Last winter we ate tomatoes from a quart canned in 2015. No bad smells, just lovely tomato aroma.
THIS IS NEW:
Directions

1. Prepare boiling water canner. ...
2. Wash tomatoes. ...
3. Cut tomatoes into quarters to measure about 2 cups. ...
4. Add ½ tsp Ball® Citric Acid or 2 Tbsp bottled lemon juice to each hot quart jar. ...
5. Pack hot tomatoes into hot jars to within a generous 1/2 inch of top of jar

I've wondered about this because people have been canning for a long time and I've never heard of anyone ever getting botulism. Yet, there is all this 'high alert for botulism' stuff out there that freak out people like me. Surely pioneers didn't do pH tests before canning their food?

 

[ducks4you]

I don't want to argue about this more with Anybody.
I wouldn't use lemon juice for tomato canning. Period.
Do as you wish.
I am going back to "A Seed Saver's Garden" thread now.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

A woman was on youtube to explain her bout with botulism. In the hospital for weeks. But she water bathed green beans.....

 

[flowerbug]

What's CMA?

The belief that some tomatoes are less acidic has actually been proven false. Some tomatoes only taste more acidic than others; the variation in what have been so called 'low acid' tomato varieties is that they actually have higher sugar levels in them. The pH is more or less the same in tomatoes no matter the taste or type. It's about 4.3 to 4.9 I think.

CMA = Cover My A$$.

please understand the science of pH and what the scale means. it is a logarithmic scale. that is the difference between 4.0 and 5.0 is not 1 but a factor of 10. so the claim that there is not much difference between 4.3 and 4.9 is somewhat false or misleading. also the safety limit of pH and acid foods is about 4.6 and some tomatoes are above that (less acidic) and others are below (more acidic). these are facts, not opinions, they are actual measurements. just because people have opinions about safety and flavor and what can and can't be done this is something all surrounding the facts and what risks people want to take. personally if i suspect the tomatoes are not acidic enough some lemon juice works fine and the flavor change doesn't bother me at all. most of the tomatoes we put up are used in recipes with other ingredients you wouldn't notice the lemon juice at all.

if you don't understand what i've written then look into it yourself and do more research.