What are You Eating from the Garden?

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Dented or bulging cans are a sure sign, but this news story centered on cans/jars that appeared normal and tasted nearly normal. It was enough to scare off chicken-hearted me.

On edit, I wonder if following the money trail from that news story would have led to Del Monte et al. It was right at the start of the back-to-the-land movement and perhaps the commercial food industry regarded home canning as a rising competitor.

I made bread and butter pickles long ago according to a recipe, so technically they were canned in their jars, but, as with the blackberry jam I made in that same era, I refrigerated them as soon as they cooled. I think of them as "refrigerator" preserves and pickles, even though technically they weren't.

Only in this past decade did I learn about actual refrigerator pickles and jellies/jams. Easier to make, and more sensible, since ultimately I'm depending on refrigeration to preserve them. Now I usually keep a jar of pickled cut up bell peppers and sliced onions in the fridge because they last so long that way.

Haven’t heard about canned foods were bad without any signs or smell. I’ll look that up. Never experienced that thruout many years of canning.
Thanks for the heads up.

 

[flowerbug]

Haven’t heard about canned foods were bad without any signs or smell. I’ll look that up. Never experienced that thruout many years of canning.
Thanks for the heads up.

the botulism producing bacteria is pretty much the worst in terms of no smell or obvious signs of a problem in some circumstances.

the most recent event that made the news (that i remember ) was from potatoes that were home canned and not properly done. made a lot of people sick and killed some of them.

pretty much if you avoid low acid items then canning is safe. if you do low acid items you should be using a pressure canner. we don't do low acid items at all any more so i don't want yet another gadget here and Mom doesn't either.

pickled (acidic and somewhat salty brines) things and tomatoey things ok, but follow proven recipes and don't improvise until you really understand what and why you are doing... i'm still alive after all these years and we used to do oven canning of non-acidic items but that was a long time ago and the amount of time those spent in the oven was rediculous. i do not do that sort of thing any more. someday i may venture into more non-acidic canning again but it will be with a pressure cooker for sure and following recipes designed for that sort of technique.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

@flowerbug I get it now. Thank you for the explination. Very much appreciated.