Whether you grow your own food or prefer to visit your local farmer’s market for your favorite items, spring and summer are optimal growing periods for a gorgeous produce. In these sunny months, a wide array of foods are thriving across the U.S.
With spring, many parts of the country see early fruits like strawberries, apricots and cherries, as well as vegetables including asparagus, radishes and peas. In summer, you can typically find fresh, ripe peaches, nectarines, blueberries and melons, and a beautiful abundance of vegetables, such as corn, many variations of tomatoes, cucumbers and summer squash.
Some of these wonderfully nourishing foods thrive so well that they produce ‘bumper crops,’ which is one reason fresh produce in season tends to cost less. This means you can access large quantities of healthy food at the peak of freshness for a fraction of the usual price in your area.
However, you may find yourself with more fruit and vegetables on hand than you and your family can consume before they spoil. This leads to food waste which defeats the purpose of stocking up at your local farmer’s market or reaping a large background harvest.
Welcome to the challenge faced by our ancestors who had to find ways to preserve seasonal fresh foods, as they could not shop in winter for imported produce. Natural food preservation−which includes fermentation, freeze-drying, dehydrating, root cellaring and canning−is both an art and a science that can extend your enjoyment of seasonal crops all year long. Food canning is one of the most popular of these techniques, for many reasons.
What is Canning?
In simple terms, canning involves enclosing fruit, veggies or other food in a jar, which is then subjected to heat to sterilize or pasteurize the contents. As the lid is vacuum-sealed during the process, the food becomes shelf-stable, meaning it has been preserved so it can safely be stored without refrigeration for extended periods of time.
How did food canning start?
In the early 1800s, a Frenchman named Nicolas François Appert developed an early version of food canning. However, it was a limited practice until the 1850s, when John Mason developed a standardized glass jar with the screw-top lids which could be subjected to heat, famously dubbed The Mason Jar. Once this handy tool became widely available at a reasonable cost, home canning became more widespread. The canning process further evolved in 1950 when Alexander Kerr developed the two-part lid, setting the standard for safe canning that is still commonly used today.
What are the benefits of home canning?
In our early days, as humans pioneered their way to a better life, there was no access to modern grocery stores. Food was grown off the land and preserved by necessity for long, harsh winters. Back then, “putting up the season’s harvest” was more than a way of life, it was the primary means of ensuring that the family would have access to fruit and veggies during the winter months. Food canning helped ensure the survival of earlier generations.
We now see a renaissance of this useful practice, not only for those who want to preserve their backyard bumper crops or save money, but also for people who aspire to ‘get back to nature,’ and to assume more control over the ingredients in the foods they consume given the plethora of processed, adulterated food being sold commercially. For many individuals, mastering the art of growing and preserving their own food is highly empowering.
Are there health concerns around food canning?
Although home canning is a great way to preserve fresh garden produce, it can be risky—even deadly—if it is not done correctly. In fact, according to FoodSafety.gov, home-canned vegetables are the most common cause of botulism outbreaks in the United States. Botulism is a rare but serious illness caused by a toxin that attacks the body’s nerves. It can cause difficulty breathing, muscle paralysis and even death. This dangerous toxin is typically made by the Clostridium botulinum bacteria.
That said, individuals have been preserving food this way for generations, and we have learned a great deal through trial and error. The key to safe, successful canning is taking safety precautions along the way to prevent dangerous contaminants from creeping in during the canning process. Protect yourself and your loved ones by brushing up on the current guidelines from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Complete Guide to Home Canning.
What are the basic canning techniques?
There are two common methods for canning fruits and vegetables, water bath and high-pressure. Water bath canning—which involves boiling the prepared, sealed jar in water—is an ideal for foods higher in acid−those with a pH of 4.6 or less. That’s because the acidity prevents the growth of dangerous bacteria like Clostridium botulinum. The best choice for this canning method is fruit, which is naturally high in acid, such as apples, pears, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, cherries, figs and tomatoes (which may require the addition of lemon juice to lower pH).
The other common method, pressure canning, requires a pressure canner, which runs around $100. You will need to select a model capable of holding at least four-quart jars, which is the smallest size recommended by the USDA. Pressure canning is the required technique when preserving vegetables and meats, which have a much lower acidity, placing them at risk for botulism.
In fact, when it comes to those low-acid, foods, pressure canning is the only method to kill the germ that causes botulism. The pressure helps the contents of the jar reach a higher temperature than boiling alone, which is required to safely destroy botulism spores. Step-by-step procedures for proper use of pressure canners are described in the National Center for Food Preservation’s fact sheet, Using Pressure Canners.
What equipment do you need for canning?
The list of canning gear may seem daunting, but it is a worthy investment if you are sold on the benefits of home canning. It is a priceless skill to pass on to the next generation, along with your equipment and supplies when you no longer use them. You can also find entire food canning kits that include all you will need to be successful. Typical canning necessities include:
- A sturdy stock pot with a lid and jar rack.
- Glass canning (Mason) jars with lids and rings.
- A pressure canner, if you want to preserve veggies, meat, or anything other than fruit, which is naturally high in acid.
- Labels and markers, enabling you to safely label your jars with the name of the food and the date.
- A jar lifting device, which allows you to remove glass jars from boiling water safely and efficiently.
- A stainless steel funnel for transferring your product between containers, Stainless steel utensils are the easiest to sterilize.
- A magnetic lid lifter, which allows you to retrieve sterilized lids from hot water without touching the lid with your hand.
- Sharp knives, large spoons or ladles or other utensils will also prove useful and help the canning process go smoothly.
So, you now have a sense of the origins of canning, the health and economic benefits of “putting up” your own preserved food, the primary methods to use when canning at home, and the essential safety information that will help ensure your homemade food products are safe and healthy to consume.
Home canning is fun and productive, provided that you ensure safe practices along the way, which includes choosing the right canning method for the foods you want to preserve. Here’s to enjoying your warm weather harvest for many months to come!
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