Canning Basics for Preserving Food

What does canning do?

Canning is an important, safe method for preserving food if practiced properly. The canning process involves placing foods in jars or similar containers and heating them to a temperature that destroys micro-organisms that cause food to spoil. During this heating process air is driven out of the jar and as it cools a vacuum seal is formed. This vacuum seal prevents air from getting back into the product bringing with it contaminating micro-organisms.

Safe Canning Methods

There are two safe ways of processing food, the boiling water bath method and the pressure canner method:

• The boiling water bath method is safe for tomatoes, fruits, jams, jellies, pickles and other preserves. In this method, jars of food are heated completely covered with boiling water (212°F at sea level) and cooked for a specified amount of time
• Pressure canning is the only safe method of preserving vegetables, meats, poultry and seafood. Jars of food are placed in 2 to 3 inches of water in a special pressure cooker which is heated to a temperature of at least 240° F. This temperature can only be reached using the pressure method. A microorganism called Clostridium botulinum is the main reason why pressure processing is necessary. Though the bacterial cells are killed at boiling temperatures, they can form spores that can withstand these temperatures. The spores grow well in low acid foods, in the absence of air, such as in canned low acidic foods like meats and vegetables. When the spores begin to grow, they produce the deadly botulinum toxins (poisons).

Foods that are low acid have a pH of more than 4.6 and because of the danger of botulism, they must be prepared in a pressurecanner.

High acid foods have a pH of 4.6 or less and contain enough acid so that the Clostridium botulinum spores can not grow and produce their deadly toxin. High acidic foods can be safely canned using the boiling water bath method.

Bees 'entomb' pesticide-tainted pollen in effort to protect themselves from extinction by Jonathan Benson, staff writer

A crucial lifeblood to agriculture, bees continue to face threats of extinction by things like pollution and pesticides, both of which are implicated in causing mass bee die-offs, also known as "colony collapse disorder" or CCD (http://www.naturalnews.com/honey_be...). And scientists say that because of this massive onslaught of toxins, bees are actually entombing, or sealing off, their hive cells in an attempt to quarantine polluted pollen and prevent it from destroying the entire colony.

The Guardian writes that scientists began noticing differences among hive cells containing normal pollen, and others containing tainted pollen. The tainted cells were sunken and covered with a waxy layer of propolis, a sticky resin substance with antibacterial and anti-fungal properties. Upon analysis, the propolis-covered cells were found to contain high levels of pesticides and other toxic pollutants, indicating that the bees were purposely covering them in propolis to protect the hive.

"This is a novel finding, and very striking," said Jeff Pettis, an entomologist at the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). "The implication is that the bees are sensing [pesticides] and actually sealing it off. They are recognizing that something is wrong with the pollen and encapsulating it. Bees would not normally seal off pollen."

Researchers also noted that while the sealing efforts are a type of emergency reaction by bees to being bombarded with toxins, they are not really all that effective in the end. According to Pettis, most of the colonies with entombed cells ended up dying off anyway.

Though there are likely other factors contributing to CCD, pesticides play a considerably substantial role in the devastating phenomenon. In fact, a document leaked back in late 2010 revealed that a popular pesticide known as clothianidin, which was approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1993, is directly responsible for killing off bees -- and the EPA has known this for a while but has done nothing about it (http://www.naturalnews.com/030921_E...).
Source: http://www.naturalnews.com/032057_honey_bees_pollen.html

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As we get into the growing season, canning is a great way to preserve food to keep our cabinets full over those winter months (or in times of emergency).

For those of you who would like to learn more about preserving food through canning, we will be presenting step by step instructions. In coming posts, we will delve into using water canners and pressure canners. We will also post some recipes and tips that will be helpful.

We will also talk about how to dehydrate our beautiful fruits and vegetables and make wonderful soup mixes, bread mixes, dried fruits and more.

We hope and pray that you will benefit from these and be prepared for whatever may be in the future when it comes to our food supply.

So you thought that you had to live in the country to grow your own food? Take a look at this!

Of course, living in the country in a much better scenario, but this is a great "training ground" for those that aren't able to make that move yet!

Learning to grow your own food can be very rewarding. Grapes are one of those very rewarding fruit, that can yield up to 30 years worth of fruit for use fresh, canned, in syrups and jellies