Good News for Home Canners

If you're a canner like me, you know there's two types of canning methods that are deemed safe; pressure canners, for low acid food like meat and vegetables, and water bath canners for high acid food like fruit and pickles.  Most home canners use their water bath canners the most; jellies and pickles are fun and easy to make, afterall.

Some of you might have heard of a third method of canning that's kind of been on the fringe of canning for almost a century, and that's steam canning.  Basically, it's just like water bath canning, except instead of surrounding your jars in boiling water to kill bacteria, you surround it in steam.  It makes sense, since steam actually gets hotter than boiling water.  The problem is that the government has never done any real tests on steam canning to deem them safe, so we've been told for a very long time not to use that method.  Which is a shame, because steam canning uses a lot less water and energy that water bath canner.

However, I just found out to day that the National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP), with the help of a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, conducted a study on steam canners and found them to be perfectly safe for high acid foods. 

Yay! 

I actually knew for a long time, maybe a year and a half, that the government was conducting a study on steam canners, and I've been waiting patiently to see what the results would be.  I'm disappointed that it took me five months to finally see that they released the data; clearly, canning news isn't really exciting to most news agencies.  The study was also testing the safety of reusable Tattler lids; I haven't checked to see if they released that data yet, though. 

So since I knew they were doing the study and that they were having pretty good results, I went ahead and bought myself a dual-purpose canner last year.  It's a Victorio steam and water bath canner.

It looks like a regular water bath canner, but it came with a reversible grate that can be used for both water bathing and steaming, and it has a cool dial in the lid that tells you what temperature it is inside so you know when to start your timer.  I have to tell you, out of all my canning gear I've ever gotten or owned, this is my favorite!  Steam canning is so much easier, faster, and simpler than water bath canning.  Do you know how long it takes for a giant pot full of water to boil?  FOREVER.  But it only takes a few minutes for a few quarts of water to start steaming.  Plus, it's big enough for quart sized jars, which is great if you're into canning fruit.  Those old fashioned graniteware blue speckled water bath canners said they were big enough for quarts, but if you actually tried to process quart jars, you'd get water spurting out all over the place. 

So yay for progress!  We can finally officially steam can!

Knowing What's In Your Food

I've been doing a lot of canning lately.  Last week I did a batch of ginger peach jam, this week I did a huge batch of salsa, and once the pears come in a couple of weeks from now, I'll be canning those, too.  I love to can.  I've talked about it before on my blog, and how empowered it makes me feel, how independent and self sufficient it can be. 

There's other reasons I love canning, though.  One is that it ties me to my roots; every time I can, I'm reminded of the great canning parties the ladies in my family would have, and the stories my mom would tell me of when her 11 brothers and sisters would help grandma put up food for the winter.  Another reason I love it is because it's pretty darn frugal.  My jams, even though they're almost all fruit with very little sweetener, cost roughly $1 for an 8 oz jar.  The salsa I made today cost around $1.35 for a 16 oz jar.  The pears I'll be canning?  They're completely free, because I'll be picking the pears from Chad's mom's yard as well as our elderly neighbor's yard.

But the reason I most love canning is because I know exactly what's going into my food.  I know my strawberry jam is made with organically grown berries from my own back yard, lemon juice, pectin, and some sweetener.  There's no funky ingredients with names so long and complicated that you can't pronounce them.  I know the pears I'll be canning are pesticide free.  That the peppers and onions I used in my salsa are locally grown.  And that there's love in every single jar.

Chad and I started out this low carb journey over a year ago, and it kind of surprises me when I think back to those times and how much we've changed since then.  We were still eating store bought condiments and salad dressing, eating vegetarian meats (like soy burgers and seitan), using soy flour to make low carb baked goods, using vegetable oils, eating canned soups, and using chemical laden seasoning packets.

It took us a while, but we gradually, little by little, converted our way of eating from a low-carb version of  the SAD diet to a more primal lifestyle.  And over that time, knowing exactly what's in my food has become more and more important.  That's probably why I have a personal goal this year to fill up a metal cabinet where I keep my canned goods.

This is without the salsa, which is cooling on the counter :)

As you can see, I still have a ways to go!  But with the salsa and pears, as well as some applesauce, taco sauce, and pickles I plan on making yet, I think I should be able to reach my goal.

If you're interested in canning salsa, the recipe I used was from this PDF (page 10, the recipe titled "Tomato/Tomato Paste Salsa II") from the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Extension.  I chose that one because it looked easy, it made a goodly quantity (I got 11 pints), and coming from a university, I knew it was a tested recipe.  Also, I liked that in an earlier part of the PDF, it tells you that you can use any kind of pepper as long as you use the exact amount called for.  So I substituted bell peppers for the hot peppers, being totally anti-spicy foods.  It came out delicious, too, so I'll continue using this recipe!