38 Thinking About Canning? Here's What You Need to Know First

Is home canning really safe? Why are so many families rediscovering this traditional skill?

In this episode of Handmade Happiness, Jessica and Thomas share why home canning has become an important part of life on their Missouri homestead, how they safely preserve food for their family, and why you don't have to be intimidated to get started.

If you've ever wanted to preserve your garden harvest, stock your pantry with homemade food, or learn a practical life skill, this episode will help separate fact from fiction and give you the confidence to begin safely.

Whether you're preserving food from your own garden, shopping local farmers markets, or simply curious about learning traditional skills, we hope this conversation encourages you to give home canning a try.

Free Resource: Check out the blog and download our Ultimate Canning Guide for a beginner-friendly introduction to safe home food preservation, recommended equipment, trusted recipe sources, and practical tips to help you get started with confidence.

Visit The Lark Life for recipes, gardening tips, quilting classes, homesteading inspiration, and practical skills for the whole family.

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 What's one food you've always wanted to learn to can?

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi there and welcome to the Handmade Happiness Podcast. I'm Jessica.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

And I'm Thomas.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

And welcome in for today's episode. So today we're going to be talking a little bit about canning.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

One of my favorite topics.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Yes. Um, but before we get into that, uh Really?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

You just took that at face value, just like canning is my favorite topic. You just walked right past that?

SPEAKER_00 0:22

I guess.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Uh fine. I didn't even have a joke set up for that. Anyways. No, it's my favorite top one of my favorite topics because I get to eat what you can.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

And so therefore, I'm a big fan.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Okay. Well, I'm glad you're a big fan. So we're gonna be talking just um a little bit about some of the basics, but really more dispelling the myths about canning and people's fears about having home canned food and and talk through some of those things. So if you've ever been interested in preserving your own food, having cans of food on the shelf, we'll talk about kind of some of the pros of doing that, why we like to do it. Um, but also the reality of like the work and effort that goes into all of those things and just all the things to consider when you think about canning food.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

There's a lot to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Um, but before we do that, we had kind of an adventure around here today. Um turkey. Yeah, so while you were gone at work, we have a neighbor that comes and cuts the hay in our field. Um because we don't have livestock eating down the pasture yet, so it gets crazy tall. So he comes and cuts the hay and he started out by our gardens that we have in the back, right? Which is right up against the edge of that pasture.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Like the small pasture side.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

Yeah. And I hear the mower kind of rev up to start, and then almost as soon as he starts it, I hear it like go down, and I peek out the kitchen window just in time to see a turkey running towards the barn. And so I see him, he's hopping off his tractor, I walk outside and I go out there to see what's going on, and he's like, Hey, you have this nest. There's like 18 eggs out there. You need to go get something so you can move these eggs. So, anyways, we went out there, we moved the eggs. Um, I was hoping the turkey was gonna find where I like, you know, I kind of showed her where I was putting them, but no. But no, yeah, um, she never went to where I relocated the nest.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

They're very much about geolocation, right? She constantly she was not at this spot.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

She was calling and pacing back and forth in the field. After he was done and gone, she went and was looking for her nest and um like for hours.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

And I was right when I got home, she was just wandering around like in that area looking.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

And I kind of thought she would like do a lap and kind of give up and realize, oh no, they're not here anymore. No.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

No.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

So um we candled the eggs. We have a few of the ones that had developed embryos in them in the incubator.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

And then we just put the rest of them out there so that she would have something to sit on. I don't know that she's gonna be able to stay out there. Turkeys, like it's a four-week incubation period. I don't know. I mean, there's 18 eggs out there, so she's been out there for a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

If they're fertile, it's too early to tell. So like they're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

And again, she had set up that nest in really tall grass where she had shade and shelter from things. Uh, and now all of that's been cut down, and she has none of that. So I don't know that she's really gonna stay out there long. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

There's probably a subplot there about destroying habitat and stuff, but like so, in fairness, where her nest is is literally I could spit from your garden to where her nest is. Right. So the fact that we did not find that nest Oh, it's incredible. Is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

And I knew, like, we've known she doesn't generally go roost up in the barn with the other.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, we've known that she's been like slipping off to a nest somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

I've seen her go into the woods, into the tree line, so I just assumed that's where she was. So I was very, very surprised when he came and told me that she actually had been on a whole nest. Because again, I'm out in the garden every morning, every evening.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

Haven't seen her, haven't heard her, haven't seen that like the grass kind of in that area had been disturbed.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

Well, in like 18 eggs, so that means she's been there a good what two and a half weeks at least. At least like three weeks. Yeah. Um, which we've known she was nesting for a while, right? But the fact that we haven't accidentally just stumbled across her in three weeks of being because we worked the garden, you work the garden every night, and we're we're out there regularly. And anyways, interesting stuff.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Very crazy.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

So we've got turkey eggs and the incubator.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

We've got turkey eggs and the incubator.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Two of them in the trash can because they smelled a little gammy.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Because they were done. They were they were old.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

We've had a lot of rain, so you know, we've got to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

They were probably some of the first ones that she laid.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Um, but yeah, so we'll see what becomes of those turkeys.

SPEAKER_01 5:10

But every day Army almost have figured it out. I think we talked about that several episodes ago about him just standing on her back like an idiot, yeah. Like flapping his wings like he was the king of the world.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yeah, well, but apparently he figured out how to do it. We have some fertilized turkey eggs, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

It's exciting. Yeah, free turkeys.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Well, we'll see what happens. Um, hopefully we get as fortunate as we did with our ducks, and we end up actually hatching out some of those turkeys. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

All our baby ducks that we hatched out, by the way, are looking fabulous. They're they looked out, they're big and healthy, and they've got pretty blue stripes on their wings, and they're just living their ducky life.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

And and they're they're a lot of fun because unlike the original pairs of like flocks of ducks that we had, this particular group is very, very attached to us. And so anytime anytime I go outside, wherever I am, if I'm working in the back, they're gonna come to where I am. If I'm in the front garden, they're gonna come to where I am, and they just kind of follow follow me around, and it's the first thing flock was a little bit uppity, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:18

Like they were a little more likely to like wander off and look at you over their shoulder and like talk behind their back behind your back about you. Yeah, where these ones literally just want to be your friend and they follow you everywhere like your mommy. And again, our other ones I always probably has to do with the fact that we hatched them out, and I was kind of their mommy.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Um but I mean the other ones we got as day old ducklings, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

But they didn't care, they weren't about it.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

No, no, so I don't I don't I don't fully understand all of that, but I do enjoy it and appreciate it. They are much more fun to have around because you go outside and they just start talking to you. Where the other ones it always felt like they were complaining and like bossing you and yeah, or nagging you. These they like come and talk to you, like and they just are chirping and they're all underfoot and you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Like y'all are all getting mani-petties at the salon. I don't know. It's it's kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

So so we'll see. I I am enjoying having them though. But okay, so into today's episode, um, all about canning. So summertime, the time when a lot of people are canning and preserving. Um whether you have a garden of your own that you are pulling in things and canning, or you're just taking advantage of everybody else's gardens around you, the fact that it's you know, peak produce season and you can a lot of times really fresh seasonal things at really great prices. Um this is a time of year when there is a lot of canning happening. Um, and I see all the time, you know, people sharing all of their canning things. So we're gonna just talk about some of that. So um I guess let's start with like what are some of you already mentioned that you know canning is your favorite because you like eating the things. What are some of your favorite things that we can that you enjoy having on the shelf to just go pull a jar and eat?

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Well, I think a lot of people forget that like jams, jellies, preserves, all that stuff is canning.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

So I would say probably my favorite thing. Your holiday jam is fire. Like it's ridiculously good. It's if you're not familiar, it's kind of a strawberry jelly, strawberry jam base, but it's got cranberry in it, and that acid, that additional like tartness, really just does something for the strawberries. And there's like a little bit of a few. A little bit of cinnamon, a little bit of it. But it's not Christmas at all. Yeah. I don't think, right? It's something you can put on whatever, but it's just got an amazing profile. It's better than anything I've ever had as far as jelly and preserves. Um, you also make lemon curd, which is a huge favorite around here. Uh, as far as veggies or things that you put up, um, I I like the beans. We do, you've done what pinto beans or like uh navy beans, navy beans, black beans, all those. Those come out, those always work really well. Tomatoes always come out well, although honestly, we've not canned tomatoes a lot in recent years because we haven't had a decent garden.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Um looking forward to doing a lot of that now because we got the plants out there are just loaded tomatoes right now. They are still very green, they are not ripe, but we have some massive tomatoes.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, we have lots of tomatoes. Um so I I guess again, you typically I would say the probably some of the the fruit that you put up is one of my favorites, but um, as far as veggies, like you've done green beans in the past. Uh purple hole peas. You've done those in the past, and those are one of my favorite things. I black-eyed peas, not so much. Purple hole peas, it's a whole nother animal, and I love them.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

So anyway, that's my yeah, those are my picks.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Yeah, and so I've canned a lot of things.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Uh, but there's a lot of things that I haven't canned. Um, mostly because when you start talking about putting away food, you want to make sure the things that you're that you don't die? No, well, I mean that too.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

But you want to make sure that's important.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

Like you're either you're growing this garden or you're buying the produce, and then you're putting the energy into preparing those things and can through that process to preserve it. Um, you want to make sure that whatever you have in those jars on the shelf is something that you actually enjoy eating, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, because there's a lot of things that are like people can them because they say, Oh, it's easy these are so easy to can. But like nobody wants to eat beets.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

I'm sorry, I should have said that out loud.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Some people do, but don't beat it. But we are not canning beets.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Right, we're not putting up beets because we won't eat.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Um, yeah, they're easy to grow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Green beans, we eat them.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

We're not canning beets because none of y'all nobody will eat them. Right. But uh the green beans will eat. And that was something that my nana always, always had canned green beans on the shelf.

SPEAKER_02 11:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Tomato products. I'm constantly buying cans of tomatoes at the store.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Yeah, so we've got what 40 some tomato plants.

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

And we probably still like we will use all the tomato stuff that we put up.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, and I will still wish that I had to.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Easily, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

And we're like, um, and again, this is the first year that we're back to having this big garden. We haven't canned like this in many years. When we lived in Mississippi, we had access to that UPIC farm. And so that year I put away pretty much all the veggies and stuff that we regularly ate. Uh, and all the jams and fruits, and like we had enough canned goods that I really didn't buy. Came that was the year we had all the canned goods on the shelf. We had a freezer full of the beef that we had bought, we had the chickens that we had raised. Um, so that year we were only buying like flour and rice. And like there wasn't much that was kind of cheese, cheese and butter, all the dairy things. Um, so this is the first year we're really getting back to being able to do some of that. But that volume is. When you start down this rabbit hole of canning, you look at the canning books and you see these, you know, blog posts and all these things with all the things that people are canning. Um, and some of them look beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Right, but is that why you're canning though?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

If it's not something that you're gonna eat. The other thing is, um, I've seen where you know somebody will have a bumper crop of cucumbers come in. So they'll put away like a hundred jars of pickles.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah. Well, if you like pickles, that's great.

SPEAKER_00 13:07

This family is gonna eat a hundred jars of pickles in a year. Like, and again, canned food, it can last on yourself for a long time, but the to really have the best quality and flavor in your stuff, yeah. You're trying to use as much as you can within that 12-month period.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

You're not, you know, again, you can eat it after that 12-month period.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

It will last much longer than 12 months, but the the quality drop-off is there, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

So again, I don't necessarily want to have five years worth of pickles this year. I just gonna can what I think we can eat this year. Um, and so some of those things, this is our family is we've got six people um with growing appetites. Um, many of them eat like adults, and so trying to figure out exactly how much we use. Rather, how many do we need? Um, this is kind of a baseline year figuring out okay, we're gonna put away that we grew this many plants, we put away this many jars, and we ran out of it at this point.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Some of that too is that you you have to know your audience, right? Like our kids, there's things that they eat really well, and there's things that it's you and I will be the only ones that eat them. Maybe you and I and the girls, but um, there are things that the boys are not going to partake in, so we don't need as much of that, right? Like the beans, the boys are eating them. Um, but you know, if you were to can asparagus or I don't know, they eat the asparagus too, right? Ironically. But not potatoes. No, God forbid potatoes or squash. They're not big on squash sometimes. So certain things we don't put a lot up just because we know we're like we're not going to use enough to make it worth it. I wanted to to mention that like a lot of the canning that we do is single ingredient.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Right? So we do a lot of just putting up green beans or even if you're putting up pickles, it's just cucumbers that are pickled, right? But single, single item things where like going back to our tomato stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

I'm not gonna make pasta sauce and pizza sauce and then have tomato sauce and can tomato. I basically am just going to put away the tomatoes. The cans of tomatoes because it's really easy when it comes time to cook to take that can of tomatoes and dump it down. Turn it into sauce.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Well, and that was my point, is that some people can um in a way that where they're putting away basically meals, right? They're canning vegetable soup or they're canning um we don't can a lot of meat or really any meat, where some people do can beef or chicken or chicken stew, or you know, they're they're canning, so they can literally go in their pantry and get a jar and dump it in the pot and heat it up and dinner, right? Um we don't really cook that way. Nothing wrong with doing that. Um, but that's just not how we typically can again, we'd rather have the ingredient than the a lot of people are doing that so that they have quick, easy go to contain. To me, you the loss of quality in that, because if you have noodles sitting in water, even if it's safe and sanitary and it's cooked and everything, those noodles are going to be mush when you get them out. They're not going to taste right, it you just lose that freshness element of it, I think. So, but again, that's preference, that's just me. But like people put away pie filling where they basically made an entire pie and they just put it all in a jar. Um you know, to each their own, I suppose. Well, and so that is something you can do, so like meal prep and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Since you bring up pie filling, so let's talk about that. Well, we'll get to that in a minute. So people are putting up these convenience foods that their family eats. Well, I don't really buy cans of soup and stuff at the store to have as convenience meals. Our convenience things are like we can throw together a pizza really quick. Um or we can there we have certain quick, easy go-to things that are standbys when we need a fast supper.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

And ramen and grilled cheese don't can very well.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

So um, so that's why we're not putting away some of those things. But beans, you've mentioned the beans several times. Now we're not growing beans because I can buy a 25-pound bag of beans for nothing.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

And the amount of time and space that it would take me to grow those beans, maybe one of these days. I mean, I've heard so many things about how old the beans are that we're buying and how amazing they are when you grow them fresh. So maybe one day, but like right now, we're buying dry beans in bulk. I have them in a five-gallon bucket. I'm not gonna can 25 pounds of beans, but I like to keep a canner load, so seven or eight jars of beans on the shelf so that when we're gonna make a soup or a stew or a chili um or we do taco nights and we like to do the refried beans, that's an easy thing to go grab off of the shelf.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Easy ingredient.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

I can quickly turn that into something that otherwise would take me an hour to make. So now I want to go back to your pie filling comment.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Um because in the past, generally speaking, I prefer to just like we like if we want apple pie, we've gotten apples in the fall that we have just canned the apples. Yeah. And then I can take that jar of canned apples and I can turn it easily into an apple bread or an apple pie. It it opens the door so that that ingredient can be used in so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Well, it's apple pie filling, so I can't use it in bread. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

Also, the way that you do pie filling, the way that we make our apple pie filling fresh, um like when you make canned app pie fillings, you're using clear gel to be able to do it safely.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Right, which is not the kind of pie we prefer.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

Is not the kind of pie we prefer. Now, for apple. A cherry pie.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

We're used to eating those canned cherry pie fillings that have that gel, and so that's not a big deal. But I don't want that canned apple pie filling that has all of that gel. When we bite into an apple pie, we want baked apples, apple pie and butter and sugar, yeah, and cinnamon. So, again, that's another reason, but we did recently put away some of the strawberries that we got from the local berry farm.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah, and you made pie filling.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I made pie filling because I wanted to try it out, and um, one of the jars didn't seal, so I just used that to make some hand pies that I took to the farmer's market the other day. Spectacular. Oh my goodness, they were fabulous. They were so good. And so we have some tart cherries, and I'm super excited. Last year, I just I took my apple pie approach and I just canned cherries. I was really disappointed.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Just as in the cherries, I feel like the cherries really lost something in translation when you canned them. Yeah, they got sad. They did, and they did, right? Because some of that acid and some of that like fresh tartness is lost in the world.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

And part of it too was we were using sweet cherries. And so this year I bought tart, sour cherries.

SPEAKER_01 20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Um, and I'm going to turn some of those into pie filling using the clear gel so that it will be very much like what we're used to buying in. Can at the cherry pie filling. Can at the store, but for a fraction of the price of what that stuff costs. And then you can have as much fruit in it as you want. And that's the other thing. My strawberry pie filling. Like if I had bought a still very fresh of strawberry pie filling, it would have been mostly gel and a few little pieces of strawberry.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

You're paying a lot of things.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

The mine that I made, it was like a jar full of strawberries with some of the gel in it, and it was fantastic. So, um anyway, so there there are some things, but yeah, really focusing in on what are the things that we like, how much of that thing can we realistically use in a year, yeah, and then kind of trying to stock our pantry.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Well, and I like that you I like that you mentioned that you don't put up a lot of beans because of like the cost of them being low.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Um one of the things that people I don't need to have the beans. The beans will last dry for years.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Right. Well, no, but I think one of the things that people do is they get carried away in canning all this food and they forget like a Quart jar takes up a certain amount of space on your shelf. If you were to can the amount of beans that we eat in a year, it would take up an absurd amount of space on your shelves. Right. Whereas a 50-pound sack of beans can basically go in a five-gallon bucket. Right. And so you're storing a lot of water, basically, is what it comes down to. You're storing a lot of liquid and things that you just don't need because most of the time when we make beans, we're also doing them a lot of times like in a crock pot. We throw them on in the morning, we get home at night, and there's this gorgeous pot of beans made for us. So we they don't need to be instant, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

So we can just enough beans so that for those times when we do need them, like right now, just to dump in a chili or something, that's available, and we don't have, you know, because you can't, you don't have six hours to whip up some beans, right? Right. Um, but I think that's something that people get stuck on, is like this with the sauces. They make tomato sauce and tomato paste and tomatoes, you know, quarters and some, you know, whatever. But they forget that like you can make all those things out of just tomatoes.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

But now you're locked in because you made it to pizza sauce.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

So if you use up your tomatoes, well, you can't just put pizza sauce into your I mean you could put it in your beans or whatever, but it would, you know, you're locked into whatever that thing is. Whereas if you just kind of stay at a lower level with those items, you can use the stuff.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

It gives you much more flexibility. Yeah. So again, thinking about how you're gonna use it, what your family likes to eat.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Um, let's talk a little bit about safety stuff.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Because some people are scared to can.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Some people are scared to can, and there's a few different reasons. So you have some people that are scared to can because of the equipment itself. Like the noises that a pressure canner makes is a little unnerving. If you don't know that everything is functioning properly and you don't know that that's normal.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

I mean, it's like that's it's a pressure vessel. They they can hypothetically blow up.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:01

It's it's scary, you know.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

So, like, we did our canning class the other day, and one of the ladies that was there, she was really excited to be able to can food. She grew up eating food that her mom and grandma canned.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah, but she had never done it.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Eating canned food wasn't the hang-up for her, it was the fear of the pressure cooker. Yeah, so we we got to talk through some of that. Now, for other people, um, it's the fear of the safety of that food in that jar. So they cannot this food and it's sitting on their shelf and it looks really beautiful. Well, and they know it's six months old and they're like, And it's been sitting there for six months, eight months, nine months, and they're like, I don't know if this is safe. Safe.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Um, and again, you mentioned botulism, so that's the first thing that everybody's brain goes to because they have made such a big deal about it because it doesn't have an odor, so it's completely odorless, completely tasteless, completely colorless. So you won't know it's in the food until you are very sick. But when you look at the science behind everything, when you look at the research, the statistics of things, so last year, I think they had a total of three confirmed botulism cases that were directly connected to people eating food that was home canned.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

And those three people that were affected had used recipes that were not approved. Tested recipes. They weren't safe, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:45

They just kind of like experimenting.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

They didn't know what they were doing, and so they just threw something in a jar and put it on a shelf, and then they went and got it out and ate it, but they hadn't followed any of the proper process, and so of course, that food made them sick.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

So let's talk about those processes, right? So um the USDA has a lot of resources in this regard, right? They have what is it like a 200-page guide?

SPEAKER_00 26:11

They have a they have a huge guide, so between the information that the USDA puts out, and they're the ones doing a lot of the testing on that. Yeah, there's uh National Center for Home Food Preservation organization that also kind of in conjunction with the USDA does a lot of testing. They have a ton of recipes that they uh you know have tested and know are safe.

SPEAKER_02 26:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Um a lot of the university extension offices publish, they they'll do classes and they publish a lot of information um sharing kind of those safe canning practices.

SPEAKER_01 26:48

Yeah, if you're somebody who doesn't trust the USDA for whatever reason, um you don't have to, right? There's a lot of other responses, well-documented resources in that topic. Also, companies that are in that space, like Ball and some of those others, they have canning guides and they have they're staking their reputation on those recipes being safe for you to eat, right? Like those recipes have you get botulism from their recipe, they would be in a world of trouble. So they're doing it.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

They've been tested, and again, so one of the areas that people get in the biggest kind of trouble over is first of all, you have water bath canners and you have pressure cookers, right? Pressure canners, which is two very different things with the water bath canners. Now they also even have steam canners where you can do the same process but using less water, less water, which is faster. Um and so even somebody that I was just talking to recently, they had a water bath canner, so they canned some food. Well, water bath canners are for high acid things like the fruits and jellies and um those things, there's so much acid in those foods that just water bath canning it and getting that vacuum and that seal on that jar is enough to make that product soak.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

Cook it, get it hot, seal it.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Because the acidic environment in that jar is not conducive to growing bacteria. Um, vegetables and meats and meals like the soups and stews you were talking about.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

17 beans.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Those things have to be pressure canned at high pressures for a much longer period of time.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Right, because you're you've got to remove the bacteria. There's nothing in there inherently just preserving it like salt or acid. It's it's gotta basically be sterile. Right. Once you're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Um so that there's nothing in there to there isn't an environment, a place for those things to grow. Right. Um, and so a lot of times people will, you know, water bath their green beans. Well, you're gonna get to have nasty green beans. And a lot of times, even when you're making those kind of mistakes, it's not one of those botulism situations where you can't smell it. Like you open that jar and you know, oh, this smells not right. Right? Um, most of the time, like there's some very clear signs. Most of the time, it's very obvious if something's gone wrong with your canning. Real gnarly discoloration or if the yeah, if it's discolored, the lids up when you finish canning, you always make sure that lid is sealed tight where there's no movement or play in it. You wash the jar so that the outside of the jar is totally clean. When you go get that off of the shelf, if the lid is loose or popped up or bulging, or if things are dripping down the side, or if you see like fizzy bubbles in there, you know, those are all signs that things have gone wrong. And you should just not eat that.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

One of the things I didn't know that you you taught me was after you've canned it, you always take your rings off.

SPEAKER_00 29:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Um, and the reason is that way you're not holding a jar full of bad food sealed.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

Um, with that ring off, the seal is holding that lid on. And if it if something goes bad inside, if you're generating any kind of bacterial gases or anything, that sealed lid is going to pop loose or bubble up at the minimum.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

And that's the thing, bacteria. So it's a great way, like living organisms that are literally eating the sugars and thing inside of that product, and as they do that, they are off gas and you're making gases. So that lid is going to come off if there is bacteria actively working in it.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yeah, so if your lid, you go get your thing off the shelf six months later, and your lid is nice and tight, sucked down, and your jar is clean and it's not discolored or anything.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

You're you're good. And you use a safe recipe. Another thing, there's so many like trendy canning things. TikTok canners. Yes. TikTok canners where they're like, oh, we just put the hot food in and we sealed it and we put the jar upside down and it's sealed.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Oh, like that it's some kind of magic.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Or we put it in the oven. We canned it in our oven. No no no.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Now rolling boil.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Are people are people doing that? Yes. Are their jars sealing? Yes. Are people doing that and eating the food and not getting sick?

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Maybe.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

Sometimes yes.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Are they properly eliminating all the bacteria that could cause you to get ill later on? No.

unknown 31:23

No.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

And and for me, when I go down to that shelf, I've put all of that energy and work into preserving that food. I go and reach for that jar off of the shelf, and I'm gonna bring it and prepare it to feed my family.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

I want to know 100% without a doubt that that food is safe and healthy and not gonna make anybody that I love sick. And the only way I can have that confidence is that I do things in the tested ways. And there's a whole bunch of, you know, this is probably a hot a hot take, because there's a whole bunch of people that, you know, rebel canning, and so they're like, oh, my grandma did it this way, or you know. Okay, you know, if you feel comfortable doing that, go for it. But for those who are like on the on the outskirts of this canning thing and they are interested in trying it, but maybe they are just scared, they're a little bit concerned. Um, the place for you to start is not in rebel canning. The place for you to start is in something. The tried and true is scientifically tested and proven. There is no way that this is going to make you sick because if you follow these steps, it's gonna be easy.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Yeah, honestly, I feel like just based on and what little experience I have with canning. I mean, my mom would canned food, and of course you can food and things, but um I feel like starting with like a jam or a jelly is a great way. Those are easy. It's a water battle, it's really hard to screw it up. Worst case scenario, maybe your pectin doesn't set and you end up with syrup instead of jam. Like, okay, but it still tastes good and you can still use the cakes or something.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Um, I feel like that's a lot easier way to start. Also, you don't need to invest in a pressure canner. Yeah. Um, you can just boil the heck out of it and you'll be good to go.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

So yeah. Um, so that's that's good advice for sure to start in some of those things like a jam or even say you find a load of peaches or tomatoes on super sale at the peak of the season, and they are the best, delicious, juiciest peaches.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Yeah, we've got it happening.

SPEAKER_00 33:40

They're super easy to put away. So again, find a tested recipe. You don't need a special, you know, a bunch of special equipment. You can put those away and one of those things. And I know like the peaches that we had on our shelf last year, I purposely I had they're gone. I purposely made myself not dig into them, but mid-winter, yeah, it's snowing outside, and you get to go pull a jar of sunshine peaches that were literally the best, most delicious peaches in the summer. Yeah, and you open that jar and it's like the day you put them in. All of that flavor and freshness was preserved and saved so that you have a little taste of summer in the dead of winter.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

It's yeah, nothing like eating peach cobbler in February. Oh, yeah, it's really awesome. It's icy outside and you're eating warm peach cobbler. Um, what else? There was something I was going to say, and I had forgotten what I was going to say now. So um I guess we'll just move on, and if I think of it, I'll I'll come back around to it. Oh, I know what it was. Um, you had mentioned that like if you find a deal on produce, right? So we picked a hundred and something pounds of berries this couple weeks ago.

SPEAKER_02 34:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Um it will all get eaten, right? Oh yeah. But they were at peak freshness, the prices were really good, we won't be able to get those things. Like you said, peaches don't grow in February, not fresh ones, not local ones. And so when we have the opportunity to get those kinds of things, we tend to load up on them.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Oh yeah. And like these came from a small family farm, you're supporting a small local farm, and this family is not spraying a bunch of junk all over their things. So you know what you're doing. And we're gonna eat every ounce of them. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

And so again, or like when we find peaches and they're at peak season and they're just on stupid price stupid low prices.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Because once you bite into them and it's just in Atlanta a couple years ago, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:41

And we driving home, and we just happened to pass a peach place, and we said, Well, we should try their peaches, and they were stunning. And so we bought like six bushels of them. Yeah, and we brought them home and we put them up, and we were very grateful that we had done that. So that's a great usage for canning. Um, and you know, people I know there's people who are preppers and they can food because, you know, for whatever. Um, some people can because they want easy meals later, and it's better to cook all day of one Saturday and then have easy dinners. We cook, we tend to can, I think, just because of the things we like to eat, right? Like we just can for because there are things that are seasonal that we can't always get. And if you can a bunch of it now, you'll have it in February.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yeah. And again, being able to go pull those cans, a lot of times that means that I can throw together a full meal really quickly and easily. Yeah. Um because again, a lot of these things that people can, you also could freeze them.

unknown 36:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

But now you're having to thaw those things out, and with some of the produce things, freezing it totally changes the texture of it. And oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

So um well, and there's things that you can get in the grocery store all year round, right? Like you could get a peach in winter in the grocery store if you wanted to. Will it be any good? Probably not. It won't I promise you it won't be great. It might be okay, but it's not gonna be really good even. Um, which again is why we can, because the ones that we can are gonna be spectacular coming out of that jar six months from now.

SPEAKER_00 37:22

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

Um and so we do a little work on the front end and it's pays big dividends later.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

Yes, yes, it does.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

So we've talked about that it's safe, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

If you do it, just follow the guidelines.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Again, don't don't experiment. That's how people get sick. Don't don't experiment, let somebody else experiment. Um, there's there's no reason to, right? There's anything you want to put away, there's a safe way to put that up.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

That's delicious.

SPEAKER_01 37:52

That's that'll taste okay, and um, you don't need to go and find alternative methods and all this, like it's just not worth the risk. Um that being said, you have some resources also, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:06

So we have some on our so really our our hope and goal for this episode was just to kind of get you thinking about canning food. If you've never canned food before, yeah, try it for sure. Um, whether you have a garden or not, um, again, I was canning long before we had a garden. I would find produce in other places and put those things away. So you don't have to have a massive garden to be able to start canning your own food. Um hopefully this kind of piqued your interest and got you interested. If you're wanting to learn more about canning, uh there is a blog post up on our website, thelarklife.com. Uh so you can go check out that blog post. And in that blog post, down towards the end of the blog post, there is a seven or eight page PDF guide that kind of talks you through all the basics. It'll tell you like the basic equipment that you'll need, it'll tell you which method to use for what things, it'll just give you some a basic overview without you having to read some massive book or listen. This it'll it's like the quick start guide. Um, and then it links to a couple of extensive resources that are free online that actually give you specific tested recipes that you can try out for yourself. So that's completely free. You just have to go over to the website. Uh again, you can find it at larklife.com. It's on our blog. And if you go down to the bottom of that blog post about canning, the the guide is there.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

You a couple of things. You mentioned uh the canning class that you just taught. Um can we expect another canning class in the near future?

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Probably. So my hope is um to kind of have one of those canning to do my canning class video form so that you can follow along. Follow along. But there are also, we already got a few YouTube videos up canning, right? Canned some apple products. I'm I'm trying to think of what I can. I've done some jams, I've done some different things where I've kind of gone through the canning process, and more of those will be coming as we get into harvest season and we start putting away more things, more videos will be coming.

SPEAKER_01 40:16

So the other thing I was gonna ask you is pro tips. I know you have a preference on pectin, and you want to share that. And I don't think you're nobody's a sponsor, you can just be honest.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

Let me just go through some of my top things because that is a good point. So um, for making jams and jellies, I have discovered that I really like using Pomona's pectin. It's not one that you can generally find at a big box store.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

You'll need to order that.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

You'll probably have to order it. You can get it if you pick up on Azure, you can find it there, or you can buy it on Amazon or some other online things. Um, it is um a citrus, a fruit-based pectin, and it doesn't need as much sugar as the standard pectins that you use at the store. It works a little bit differently, but you get your stuff to set really well every time. Where I've had issues with some of the pectins from the store. Um, Pomonas pectin always works really great.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

Yeah, especially recently. I don't know if we got a bad batch or what, but you had a uh hell of a time with the sure gel and some of those. I know you really were struggling to get things to gel properly.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

So Pomona's pectin's my favorite if you're gonna be making jams and jellies. Um the other thing is we are kind of moving everything over, and any jars I buy at this point are wide mouth jars.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

Um, when I first started canning, nobody told me, and I'd always just seen, you know, the regular mouth jars. That's what my grandma my nana always used.

SPEAKER_02 41:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Probably because I mean, I know up until some point that was just the standard size. That was what there was. They were all regular. Um, but it's so much easier to get the food, especially when you're talking about cramming green beans and stuff into a jar. It's so much easier to get them in and out, and to get that jar really good and clean when you have that wide mouth opening versus And when you say like a wide mouth, you're talking about like what people might consider to be a jelly jar, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:13

Where the wall is straight all the way up, but there's not a shoulder on the jar, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Right. Um so wide mouth.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Lids.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 42:26

See, you've got a lot of you got a lot of pro secrets. So I'm gonna get you the dirt, folks. I'm gonna get you the dirt. It's okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Lids, and again, we're not sponsored by anybody, but we can you can you can go and buy like the inexpensive Walmart stack of lids. Um even honestly, even if you buy the the ball jars, um the lids come with them, right? The lids come with them, the lids and rings come with them, and those lids and rings have gotten thinner and flimsier over the years, and the little rubber coating on them has gotten thinner and thinner too. Um, but there are a few US-based companies they are making and manufacturing caning lids here, so they're superb brand lids. They are very thick, they're almost twice the thickness of like they you can feel the noticeable difference. Notably and they have a thicker um seal ring seal ring on them. Four jars is another company, their lids are a lot like superb, so they're much higher quality. A lot of times, those other less expensive lids, I'll have a hard time getting them to seal. They won't seal properly, and so I end up having to reprocess things or just have things put in the fridge.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

Just because that seal is too thin.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

It doesn't, you don't have the right compression and the just the I've never had any any of those in the four jars that I've used, those always seal. And they stay like it's almost hard for me to get it.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

You have to pop it loose, right?

SPEAKER_00 44:01

You gotta can open them because they're sealed on there so well. And then recently, just this year, we actually bought reusable ones. So Harvest Guard, I think is who I got them from. It's an it's a plastic flat, and it has a reusable rubber ring, and so instead of having one of those metal lids that you use one time, and then once you've processed it's done, and you've got to throw it away. I hated, I would always like be mid-canning, and I go and reach and I've got a stack of jars, and I'm like, oh, I don't have any lids, and so then you have to stop what you're doing and go to the store to get lids. Yeah, now we have these reusable plastic flats with rubber rings that we can use over and over and over again, and I won't ever run out of them. And if the store happens to be out of metal ones, like not a problem. And those have sealed really well for me, too. I was not sure um if I was gonna like using them, but so far, so good.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yeah, we've been happy with them so far, I think. And so just a side note on that: if you're new to canning, the flat lid that you put on your jar, once you pop that loose, once you open a jar of food, you have to throw that away. You can't reuse unless it specifically is, like you said, a reusable lid. Um, the standard ones that come with your ball jars or your Walmart brand jars or whatever, those are not designed to be reused. Now, your grandmother may have told you, oh, I use mine a hundred times. I'm just telling you, again, don't don't get creative. Follow the instructions.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

That rubbery seal that old lid away keeps the air and stuff out of your jars.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

You will you're opening yourself up to issues by reusing those lids. Unless, like you said, the ones that are specifically designed to be reusable, which is a fairly new, at least to my knowledge, that's a fairly new thing, is those reusable lids.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

I mean, back before they had these fancy schmancy ones, that's kind of what everybody used, was just a little bit of a few.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Well, okay, yeah, so it's yeah, that's fair. I mean, we're going back to the old school ways.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Well, yeah, you know, but it works.

SPEAKER_01 46:03

But it works. That's why we follow the manual, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:06

So and I I anytime we can have something that is where we're getting away from disposable, consumable things, I'm like all for that.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

And even though, like you said, the ones are their plastic, but it's a pretty it's a durable, thick, heavy plastic thing, and it is reusable.

SPEAKER_02 46:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

And I would think recyclable when you get done with it. It's just it's a very clean plastic. It's not uh it's not it doesn't have dyes or labels and all the things that they guarantee that those will last for years and years and years.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

So I've been super happy with those.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 46:38

So yeah, those are some of my uh top favorite canning things.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Nice, and now you know.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Yeah. So thanks so much for hanging out with us this week for this episode, and we look forward to seeing you in the next one.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Go can something.

SPEAKER_00 46:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:53

See you next time.

SPEAKER_00 46:55

Subscribe now to Handmade Happiness so you never miss an episode. And let's find the joy in making one handmade moment at a time.