This has been such an interesting thread. I posted the statistics for food born illness from home canned food in the comments section but I will just add (for those that don’t read the comments) most botulism is infant botulism coming from feeding babies foods that adults can tolerate but are not good for babies (honey is one example). The second cause if wound infection as botulism occurs naturally. Take good care of even small injuries. The incidence of food born botulism is very small with only 21 cases being reported last year. You are far more likely to get ill from eating commercial spinach than from my home canned tomatoes. Here are the take home points. Use up-to-date recipes from approved sources, proper equipment and excellent hygiene and you will be fine. Do not can anything with gravy. Make the gravy later-it only takes a minute. Don’t can dense things like pureed pumpkin or squash as the interior may not get hot enough. Don’t can in 1/2 gallon jars. Add acid to tomato products. Boil canned vegetables for 10 minutes before eating. I know. The idea of canned green beans being boiled for ten minutes is pretty unappealing which is why I freeze or dehydrate my vegetables. Don’t can milk products in a water bath as they are low acid and not safe.
I assembled all of my canning equipment in the kitchen last night to get ready for my canning class today. It is an amazing amount of stuff as I have no idea how well-equipped the kitchen I’m using is. I’m canning raspberry jelly and tiny new potatoes. I juiced the raspberries last night so I’m good to go. My Daughter, Karen, and my DIL, Maggie, are coming with me. Karen is my go-fer and Maggie is the IT girl and is going to film the class for my first posted video on the new web site. We are extracting honey next week and making creamed honey so both of those videos will be posted too. Maggie has worked really hard on this and it’s coming together.
I’m just about ready to pull the pea plants. This hot weather has been really hard on them. I’m putting in more cukes as soon as there is room. I ran out of pickles this spring and we are all feeling pickle deprived. I’m out of fruit leather too but I fortunately have lots of applesauce left. I’m using the leftover berry juice to flavor the applesauce and I will make fruit leather tonight. Applesauce is so versatile. I use it for fruit leather base, to replace 1/2 the oil in most recipes and as my main meal extender. It makes me very happy to see the 18 apples on my little apple tree. It’s the first year with an actual harvest, tiny though it is. It gives me hope for the future.
July 13, 2011 at 7:40 am
woohoo for new harvests! I hope you post the recipe/instructions for the creamed honey. I hadn’t thought of making up some fruit leather out of my applesauce.
Good ideas, can’t wait to see your video.
July 13, 2011 at 8:23 am
Kathy~~~When you replace 1/2 the oil with applesauce do you do it measure for measure? Are there ways to use fruit leather besides just eating it in strips? I like dehyrating but am finding it a little tricky cooking with the veggies I’ve dehydrated. Cauliflower rehydrated okay but broccoli was a bust. Not one to waste anything I tossed it into a cheese sauce and used my immersion blender on it….we had mac n’ green cheese. Tasted fine just looked a little weird…lol
July 13, 2011 at 8:34 am
I do just a measure to measure replacement. Did you blanch before drying? What made it a bust? I just use it like fruit rool ups.
July 13, 2011 at 9:46 am
I have used tomato leather in pasta dishes, it tastes kind of like sun dried tomato, only lighter. I snipped up pieces of fruit leather to add to oatmeal.
July 13, 2011 at 10:26 am
Kathy – you don’t have to post this – but I wanted to make a note on the botulism stats you mentioned – botulism doesn’t present as a food borne illness – it is a neurotoxin so it gets mis-diagnosed. in the 19070′s there was a re-surgence of home canning which also lead to a whole lot more than average cases of botulism. i feel like if you downplay its existence, more people will can unsafely. The symptoms of botulism start at the top of the head and work down – blurry vision, headache – no gastrointestinal symptoms – but by the time it works down to respiration, you might has well just forget it – it is that deadly. The symptoms will start sometimes within 4 hours of ingesting the toxin, which might be while you are sleeping after having eaten dinner, so by morning, it is already too late. After five 8-hour days of class, the food safety issues are the ones that were stressed the most. The head of the Indiana Dept of health – Food Borne Illness division was in my class, so I got to hear a lot of her horror stories. paula.
July 13, 2011 at 4:50 pm
I did blanch the broccoli but when I rehydrated it only plumped up a little and the stem of the floret was still all crinkled. I’d hoped the broccoli would plump up like the cauliflower did. They were cooked just not plump. When I rehyrate the veggies I put them either straight into a soup or simmer gently on the stove top. Am I doing that part wrong? Should I be rehydrating in cool water first them steaming them maybe?
I’ve dehydrated mushrooms and peppers and they turned out well. I may just take your advice and freeze some of my veggies. Fruit seems to work okay. Apples come out great and the strawberries worked really well too. They’re going to be wonderful on my cereal this winter. Just tried the roll up leather and it tasted quite yummy, almost like candy.
Thanks for the advice.
July 14, 2011 at 9:54 am
Kathy – at some future post, would you talk about grinding your own wheat and maybe explain if you use 100% ground wheat or mix it with “store-bought?” I went to Lehman’s last week and bought a mill (and an oat roller).
July 15, 2011 at 9:54 am
[...] Kathy Harrison has a great post that includes the data on canning-caused illness. Obviously, you really don’t want to mess with safety when pressure canning or canning any marginally acidic food, but it is also the case that we should have a balanced understanding of real risks and benefits: [...]
July 19, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Hi again! another great way to save your harvest is to dehydrate…I love doing this for stir-frys, soups, etc not to mention some things dehydrated are awesome just for munching on