Is local the new passe?

Mother Jones has published an excellent article looking at the complexities local and organic produce pose when considering reformation of conventional farming practices. The article, titled Spoiled: Organic and Local is So 2008, has some very interesting arguments that ultimately lead to the point that a focus on local and organic food is not the answer to the agricultural conundrums we face. Rather than promoting what he sees as a single-minded system that is all-organic or all-local, author Paul Smith seems to believe that it is a blended agricultural system or a system that radically redefines both the ideas of sustainability and current food production models that is the answer to creating true food sustainability:

“That doesn’t mean sustainable agriculture can’t happen. But if we want to build large-scale capacity, we’re going to need to broaden our definitions of sustainable practices. Suppose that instead of insisting that farmers forgo synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, as current organic regulations do, our goal was to dramatically reduce the need….

…The local-food movement, too, must learn to bend. The reality of 21st-century America is that food demand is centered in cities, while most arable land is in rural areas. What open land remains around cities is so expensive that it either is out of reach for farmers or requires that farmers focus on high-end, high-margin products with little utility as mainstream foods. Thus, although there is great potential to increase urban agriculture (as we’ll see in a minute), urbanites will always depend on rural areas for some of their food-especially given that by 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in or near cities…. 

…In short, as important as the eat-local model is, it’s going to have to work within other, much larger geographic systems-especially as these geographic mismatches are only getting larger. Asia and Africa, which are rapidly overdrawing water tables, soils, and other assets essential to food production, will increasingly depend on fertile regions such as the American Midwest, whose superb soils and favorable climate can easily generate exportable surpluses-even without heavy doses of pesticides and fertilizer.

Put another way, if sustainability means food security for everyone, and not just for affluent nations, trading food over long distances is here to stay.”

For some time now I have considered the many different ways I could create a diet centered on foods I buy directly from local farmers or that I grow myself. I’ve considered alternatives to a 100% local diet, such as limiting myself to five “cheats” – a fixed list of five staple non-local foods that have a multitude of uses in my kitchen, like quinoa, tahini, soy milk, rice, and sugar. Another alternative I’ve thought about is restricting the number of non-local foods I purchase to no more than 20% or 25% of the total foods I consume. I can also become more frugal in how much of any one non-local food I use. For example,  I could purchase a tub of Earth Balance margarine no more than 4 times a year, as opposed to every month or every other month. Or perhaps seasonal eating is a better answer, in addition to making an effort to preserve, freeze, and store away many of the spring and summer fruits and vegetables that aren’t available here in the fall and winter.

 Of course, these alternatives still present to me many problems I’ve not yet been able to come close to resolving. To be honest, choosing not to purchase non-local foods that have long been a part of my diet means making something like a birthday cake or cookies impossible. And that kind of sucks. It’s not that I am interested in continuing to eat as I do for the sake of my own convenience. I truly believe that convenience is very much overrated, no matter what the situation. And I don’t think what’s convenient to me should trump the health of the planet, even if giving up convenience is a major pain in my ass.

However, no one yet has been able to convince me that growing my own tomatoes to make my own sundried tomatoes or tomato sauce is a worse option than buying pizza sauce from Italy or oil-soaked sundried tomatoes from somewhere in the US or Europe. And how could buying perfectly ripened produce directly from the hands of the farmer who grew it 360km from my apartment be worse than buying under ripe, over packaged produce from Texas, Chile, or China, produce that has gone through the truck doors of at least one or two distributors before it was ever sold and trucked to the local grocery store? If I grow my own organic Romaine lettuce using seeds from a seed grower 28km from my doorstep and walk home with that lettuce, is that really worse than buying organic lettuce from drought-stricken, smog choked California? I definitely don’t think so.

I see that there may be something to the idea of having a blended system of agriculture based upon radically new ideas of production and sustainability. But throw into that mix the unsustainability of the use of petrochemicals, peak oil, an unstable global economy, and the myriad deadly effects of pesticides and industrial fertilizers. To me, even a modified system of food production based in part on traditional methods of cultivation is a system with a dubious future.

Vegan diets tied to birth defects

Yesterday, The Vancouver Sun published an article with a headline declaring “Vegan diets tied to birth defects”, and this got my blood boiling enough to send a letter to the Sun’s Editor, as well as the Canada & World section editor, Massey Padgham. You can read the Canwest News Services article here (The Vancouver Sun webpage for the article was not opened up to comments), as well as on The Province’s webpage.

Here is what I wrote:

Re: “Vegan diets tied to birth defects”, 2nd March, 2009

This article does contain some truths, in that a deficiency in one’s diet can lead to birth defects during pregnancy. However, as published in The Vancouver Sun with the headline stating vegan diets are to blame is irresponsible.

Any person can have a B12 deficiency, even someone eating a diet based on meat and dairy products. B12 is a bacterium that is found naturally in soil, but intensive farming practices in the last few decades have depleted soils worldwide to the point that naturally occurring B12 in soil is no longer a reliable source.

B12 occurs in meat and dairy due to bacteria that forms during the processing of meat in slaughterhouses and in dairy and eggs in processing facilities. B12 is sometimes also fed to factory farmed animals if they don’t acquire it directly or indirectly from B12 bacterium from plant sources; it does not occur in meat or dairy products naturally.

 As the article states, regardless of their diet all women of childbearing age should be supplementing with B12, not just vegans and vegetarians. Clearly, it’s incorrect to state that a vegan diets leads to a birth defect that could and does happen to anyone regardless of their dietary practices.

While my letter didn’t get published in the paper, here is the response I got this afternoon from Massey Padgham:

Agree. Headline writer honed in on one group that story merely suggested was “at risk”.

This article may have passed under the radar of many readers were it not for the headline used with the printed version of the article, the headline used for the online version of the article did not pinpoint vegean diets. My concern with the print publication was that, once again, misinformation about vegan diets would be spread via irresponsible feamongering by Canwest’s editors.

A golden opportunity to make changes

When I first found out about peak oil, I was pretty freaked out. So it’s easy for me to understand the frightening scenarios that go through the minds of those of us who come to know that peak oil is no myth. But rather than be willfully ignorant to the issue, I’ve come to understand that though I may be one person the actions I take can have a positive impact in lessening the crisis ahead. In this Georgia Straight article by Rex Wyler, he explains why …”we might discover that the new normal is a golden opportunity to make changes that we will have to make anyway. We may discover that we can have much richer lives with far simpler means.”

Peak oil has me concerned not only about my own family’s future, but also the future of my friends, strangers, their children, and all the other creatures, flora, and fauna that inhabit this planet. Here are some of the very easy choices I have made in my own efforts to slow down peak oil and global warming:

• I have never owned a car and never will – I walk or bike where I need to go when I’m not taking public transit.
• I eat a vegan diet that I am working on centering around seasonal locally produced food I will either grow myself or buy from local farmers within 100 miles of Vancouver (and I walk home with my food).
• Anything not local I try to buy organic and fair trade, if possible.
• My partner and I plan to have only one child that will be born and raised vegan, and  we will use reusable diapers, tempered glass reusable bottles (when not breastfeeding), home-made baby food from locally grown sources, to name a few alternatives.
• I have made the switch to some pretty awesome reusable organic feminine products from Lunapads.
• I have an apartment vermicomposting systemI use to compost my kitchen scraps and create my own garden fertilizer.
• I am contemplating changing my fashion habits to rely more upon second-hand and vintage clothing.
• If I drink any wine, it’s locally produced and made from grapes grown in BC (organic is even better, though not to drink any wine at all would be the best option in terms of lessening the strain on water, land, petrochemicals, and other resources)
• I do recycle, but when I do purchase packages goods I try to make sure the packaging is reusable (i.e. glass jars) and I minimize what I do have to recycle.
• I have made my own reusable produce bags (a DIY will  be posted here shortly).
• I have purchased a food dehydrator to preserve foods and will also be getting into canning.
• There are mostly energy efficient bulbs in my home (though I am questioning if these bulbs are really the best option).
• I use only reusable shopping bags, some of them made from vintage pillowcases  (not those recycled plastic shopping bags that are everywhere now)
• I use mostly biodegradable grabage bags in the kitchen and bathroom.

The idea here is that I do what I can with the resources that are available to me, and it can be just as easy and fun for many of you. And the best thing about my choices is that they have actually simplified my life and shown me just how many resources go into producing all of the things I buy.

Organic and free-range meat not ethically viable

I try not to get up on my soapbox too much anymore when it comes to animal rights issues, as I’ve found I am much better at appealing to people’s appetites and inclination to be crafty when it comes to issues related to veganism. I’m an intense and strongly passionate person by nature, and serious issues coming from me seem to be taken as militant when heard by others.

So I’m glad that someone like Becci Gindin-Clarke is better able to gently articulate why organic and free-range animals and the foodstuffs made from their bodies are just not ethically viable alternatives to conventionally raised animals used for human and animal consumption:

The cruel truth about organic and free-range meat and dairy products

Did you know, for instance, that in British Columbia “…there are no special hatcheries for organic egg-laying chickens. That means that they come from the same hatcheries as factory-farmed and free-range chickens…”? Also, “[t]here does not appear to be any special ‘humane’ slaughter for organic animals…” in BC, though there are two exclusively organic slaughterhouses in the province. As well, there are no standards regulating the labeling of free-range and organic meat and dairy in Canada.

Unfortunately, no matter how nice of a life an animal seems to have lived, they are all slaughtered and die in the same ways, which makes it very saddening that many of us cling to the beliefs that free-range and organic animals are treated better, which is almost all cases is completely untrue. And the industries whose dollars rely on us not knowing these truths have a vested interest in keeping these truths secret.

Cooking class review: Radha Yoga and Eatery

For a long time now I’ve wanted to go to a cooking class, mostly because it’s something different to do and because I was hoping that the chef leading the class might be informed about wonderful foodie secrets that I might be able to sweet talk out of her/him. I settled on taking a few classes at Radha Yoga and Eatery in Vancouver because the offerings seemed to be more of the type of intriguing classes that I was looking for. They are hosted in the midst of the eatery, which is located in a lovely 100-year old building in a warm, inviting space. This past Sunday I attended my first class, Vibrant Quick and Make-Ahead Meals, hosted by Jill Boadway, a founding partner and former Radha chef and a partner at The Conscious Table.

 

I chose this particular class because most of the time I start and end my workdays wondering what the heck I am going to make for dinner. And I was hoping that Chef Boadway would help turn on that proverbial light bulb over my head. It’s not that I have any shortage of cookbooks or places on the Internet to find recipes. The problem is there are too many choices and I just don’t know where to start. While I’ve gotten pretty good at creating off the cuff recipes from scratch, a lot of the time it’s pretty tiring to deal with the dilemma of what to make so there’s also enough leftovers lunch for the next day. And as I prepare for and contemplate my impending transition toward an almost entirely local vegan diet, I was hoping Chef Boadway’s knowledge would inspire me toward discovering simple techniques that I was overlooking in my tendency to be more fancy and complicated with my food.

 

For people who don’t know how to decide what constitutes healthy, vibrant foods that make them feel nourished and satisfied or really don’t know where to start when it comes to preparing various healthy ingredients, this class offers a wealth of new ideas and some very easy approaches to eating healthy food. For me, however, Chef Boadway didn’t tell me much of anything I didn’t already know about or use any ingredients I don’t already have in my refrigerator and haven’t cooked with extensively. Rather, what I learned was that it isn’t necessarily the types of ingredients I use that make some meals easier to prepare than others. And it isn’t always handy knife skills or having electric mincing and shredding gadgets that make preparing meals faster. What needs to change are my habits that make preparing meals a hassle and time-consuming. I came away from the class understanding that despite my tendency to be annoyingly analytical about most things, I am a mess when it comes to having my kitchen in order and organizing my time so that I never have to think twice about what to do when deciding what to eat. For me, this class was very much worth my time and the relatively inexpensive cost, because I came away with several very simple and useful strategies that will go a very long way in helping to keep me de-stressed and nourished, as well as with a lot more money in my pocket.

 

Create a set of easy to make favourite recipes and keep their key ingredients on hand

Sometimes when we just don’t have any ideas about what to make for dinner, the stresses of the day and demands on our time have us opting for take-out and prepackaged convenience foods that may save us time. Many times these quick fixes can cost us not only more money but also our well-being. Having a collection of favourite recipes that are easy to prepare can be a redeeming freedom on those days when we just don’t know what to do about dinner. In addition, always having the key ingredients to those recipes on hand in the kitchen will make deciding what to have for dinner at the last minute effortless. Making sure these recipes are based on minimally processed whole foods will also help in making healthy eating choices.

 

Think about meals and plan them in advance

Many of us may not be used to planning our meals in advance or thinking ahead of time about what we might need to have ready for those meals. And sometimes thinking and planning ahead might seem like too much of a time-consuming chore. But a key strategy Chef Boadway recommends is taking a little bit of time every week to sit down and plan out a few simple meals that you would like to eat in the week ahead. Planning meals in advance will actually save you more time later on for other activities instead of searching for recipes and ingredients at the last minute that may take a lot of time to prepare. Also, knowing when you have an ingredient you’ll need get ready in advance — as with soaking, sprouting or marinating — can help you take steps to ensure you are prepared and not left without an important part of a dish that can’t be substituted for with something else.

 

 

Dedicate a time every week to food shopping

Set aside a specific time every week to do food shopping. Make sure you bring a list with you of the ingredients you will need to make meals in the week ahead, as well as any ingredients you tend to rely on often. Daily or last minute stops at the grocer waste both time and money that could be better spent enjoying your meals and de-stressing from the day. Also, taking the time to shop at a dedicated time each week will keep you from finding yourself without important ingredients while in the midst of cooking. Having a kitchen well stocked with simple dried, fresh, frozen and preserved ingredients that can be used to create nourishing meals will help ensure you aren’t tempted to rely on expensive and unhealthy overly processed foods.

 

Set aside some time for food preparation

Often the most time-wasting part of making a meal is in washing and chopping, cutting, or shredding the ingredients you’ll be using. When you return from the farmers market or grocery store, take a bit of time to wash, prepare and store your produce in containers or resalable bags so they’re ready to use when you need them. Chef Boadway also recommends taking an hour or two each week to cook staple ingredients in advance and store them raw or pre-cooked to make meal preparation during the week even quicker. Grains, pastas, beans, and other ingredients can be cooked, cooled and stored in the freezer or fridge, as well as items like onions, squash, carrots, and other fruits and vegetables that can be peeled and sliced or diced and stored in airtight containers ready to use when you need them.

 

Make extra amounts of staple ingredients

When you’re going to be cooking ingredients like beans or grains and roasted or steamed vegetables for a meal, it helps to cook more than you need for a recipe and store the excess in the fridge or freezer for use at a later time. This also comes in handy for ingredients we tend to rely on often, cutting down on preparation time and making the use of ingredients easy since they are already prepared. Frozen grains and noddles can be steamed to restore their freshly-made textures, cooked chickpeas can be frozen and amounts for a recipe taken out of a freezer bag as needed, and frozen vegetables can be tossed directly into a pan or pot, or thawed and reheated.

Just another reason to eat locally

Anticipating the arrival of my new Excalibur dehydrator, I’ve had so many ideas about what to do with it I’ve had to starting writing my ideas down so I don’t forget them: Watermelon candy, bumbleberry fruit leather, crackers of all sorts, soup bouillion and dried soup mixes, cinnamon-spiced dried pears, home-grown dried herb and seasoning mixes, no-bake granola bars… The list really is endless, even if it were restricted using to local food.

Although I am making a more committed effort to eat as much locally grown food as possible, I did have visions of once or twice a year drying a small load of oranges to make candied orange rinds and grind dried orange slices into a fruit powder to add to baked goods, sauces, salad dressings, etc. But, as always, my being nosey about where my food comes from and what impact its production has on the environment leads me to articles like this one from the Weekly Times in Australia: Orange production leaves hefty carbon footprint.

Better put, this article from The New York Times includes a graph that illustrates how 60% of the carbon footprint of Tropicana’s production of orange juice results just from agricultural practices.

After reading the Weekly Times article, it occurred to me that were a person to live in an orange-growing region, eating locally grown oranges wouldn’t necessarily have a low carbon footprint due to the enormous impact large-scale growing activities have on the local land and water. Also, the article seems to discuss only the orange growing activities in the United States. What of the varieties oranges grown in China and Brazil and flown to locations all over North America in the dead of winter? I wasn’t under any illusions before that orange production is all that environmentally friendly, but at least reading articles included on several pages of this search on Google clarified my perspective a little more.

My verdict? I’ve never been crazy about oranges or orange juice, though I do like me a seedless baby sugar Mandarin. But I’m not just not that interested in helping destroy someone else’s home, whether it be terrestrial or aquatic. Oranges are definitely off my plate, no matter if they are conventional or organic.

A late season hibernation

While the fog has long since left Vancouver, I find myself in more of a hibernation mode with not much motivation to do anything. Perhaps it is from a lack of sun, as the grey winter days have left me wanting to cry my eyes out some days. But I also blame my intense laziness on my new obsession with the reimagined Battlestar Galactica (2004). I always come across things like this far after everyone else has discovered them, but I’ve not often been one to jump on the proverbial bandwagon when it comes to the newest crazes. However, if you haven’t yet seen this series (which happens to be in it’s last six episodes), I highly recommend borrowing Season One from a friend and tucking into a large bowl of popcorn.

Needless to say, my laziness has ended up in my gaining several more pounds on top of whatever I gained at Christmas. Perhaps some of you who also find yourselves with a bit of a muffin top or larger derriere might be interested in these links to help you on your way toward better health:

MapMyRun

Whatever your mode of self-propulsion, Map My Run is a great resource for tracking and planning running, walking, cycling, and hiking routes, with many other resources available for novices and pros alike. The site offers Google maps and topography maps that offer 3D and satellite map views of your routes.

The Daily Plate at Livestrong.com

This nutrition and fitness tracker is a goldmine of resources. The food diary will help you track your daily RDAs of fats, carbs, protein, etc., and will calculate for you how much of what you’ve eaten counts toward your RDAs. In addition, the food diary lets you set weight loss goals by recommending the amount of calories you should consume according to how many pounds you’d like to loose per week. The site includes an extensive database of foods to choose from and also offers a tool that lets you add your own food items if you happen not to find the item you’re looking for.

Nutrition Data

While this site has some small shortcomings (it’s database has no entries for whole or ground flax seeds, but somehow powdered spirulina has been included), it’s an outstanding reference for finding out the complete nutritional profiles of most whole foods. For each food item, the site offers a nutritional analysis page with a quick-view Nutritional Target Map, Caloric Ratio Pyramid, the Estimated Glycemic Load of the foodstuff, Nutrient Balance, Protein Quality (Amino Acid Score), and a very extensive nutritional breakdown of every vitamin, mineral, and type of fat, fatty acid, and carbohydrate. You can even save your search results. For instance, if you make a morning smoothie for breakfast, you can search for and save each of the ingredients according to the amount of each ingredient you’ve included in your smoothie.

My laziness of late has not meant I have been tinkering with ideas about recipes, local food, and ways of living green. Soon I will post a beautifully vegan rendition of a beef stew my mom used to make when I was a kid, as well as a DIY on how to make your own reusable produce bags. And because the buds on the trees outside seem to whisper to me “Spring is coming!”, I will soon be posting on my new adventures as an organic gardener. I will write about everything from building your own garden boxes and companion planting to vermicomposting and using a food dehydrator to preserve the literal fruits of your labours.

Pizza d’oh!

These days, with the constant pea-soup fog outside, I don’t much feel like cooking or doing anything except hiding from the January greyness. Lately it’s seemed like every day in Vancouver is like a scene out of Stephen King’s The Mist. Fortunately, this has given me plenty of time to perfect my pizza making skills. Here is my adaptation of the pizza dough recipe from Mark Bittman’s amazing  How to Make Everything Vegetarian. It’s simply the tastiest home-made pizza dough I’ve ever had, and its quick rising time makes it convenient recipe for a weekday dinner.

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour, or a mixture of the two flours

2 tsp quick-rise/instant yeast

1/2-1 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp dried oregano, rubbed (optional)

1 tbsp dried basil, rubbed (optional)

2 tsp garlic granules, or 1 tsp garlic powder (optional)

2 tsp onion granules, or 1 tsp onion powder (optional)

1 tsp olive or canola oil

1 cup water

1 tbsp ground cornmeal (medium, not finely ground)

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the flour, yeast, salt, herbs, and seasonings. Mix well to combine.

Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and add the water. If using all whole wheat flour, you may need to add a tbsp or two of water. With a wood spoon, mix the flour and water until the dough starts to come together. Turn the dough and any remaining flour out on to a dry, very lightly-floured surface and knead the dough ball a few times until you have a smooth ball of dough.

Lightly oil your bowl with the oil and place the dough ball in the bowl. Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and place the bowl in a warm location for 30 minutes. If you like, you may leave the dough to rise for 40-45 minutes.

Once the dough has risen, you can refrigerate or freeze it until you are ready to use it. You can also use the entire dough ball for a thick pizza crust or divide it in half for two thin crust pizzas. Make sure to wrap the dough well to prevent freezer burn. Also, make sure the dough is fully thawed before using.

When you’re ready to use the dough, preheat your oven to 500°F. Sprinkle your pizza pan with the cornmeal and place your dough ball on the pizza pan. While rotating the pan clockwise, flatten out dough ball from the centre, spreading the dough out evenly toward the edges of the pan. Top with your toppings and place in the center of the oven. Bake the pizza for 10-12 minutes. After removing the pizza from the oven, let it sit for five minutes before cutting.

Note: If you don’t already have an oven thermometer, now is the time to invest in an inexpensive one. Since most ovens are either too hot or not hot enough, with the high temperature of this recipe you will want to make sure that your pizza doesn’t burn.

Tips and tricks for canning success

Now that we’ve covered the basic tools you need to become a canning maven, here are some tips and tricks to help you on your way to jam and pickle perfection.

Talk to your Grandparents

For our elder folk, canning was a way of life that helped ensure their families stayed nourished through the colder seasons. Many of our grandparents have a wealth of knowledge about the dos and don’ts of home canning. Put on a kettle of tea and sit down with them to hear about the inside scoop on how to do canning the right way.

Stick to the Directions

Sometimes when you have a great idea it can be tempting to stray from a recipe. But when you’re new at canning, stick to the directions until you have built up a good repertoire of skills. Start simple with tried and trusted recipes and work up to more complicated recipes. Ensuring you fully understand how to preserve your produce of choice will go a long way in helping your batches turn out well.

Safety is key in home canning, and it is important not to underestimate cleanliness when it comes to making sure your food is safe to eat. Not following recipe guidelines and processing times can also result in throwing your time, effort, and food away.

Keep altitude in mind. Just like altitude affects the oven time for baked goods, the cooking time for canned foods can vary with different altitudes. For every 1,000 ft. increase in altitude, an adjustment in processing times will need to be made. Here is a handy guide from the University of California at Davis on how to adjust canning times.

The Raw Ingredients

No matter whether you choose juicy berries or crisp cukes in trying your hand at canning, make sure you get the freshest in-season produce possible. This means buying direct from local farmers markets or a u-pick farms. The quality and flavour of your fruits and vegetables will be far better than grocery store fare that may be old or have been picked and shipped unripe. If you can afford it, buy organic when you can. The cost might mean a smaller quantity of produce, but the quality and taste of the finished products will be well worth it.

Make sure that your fruits and vegetables are at peak ripeness. Unripe produce means less flavour, and overripe, bruised, or spoiled produce should never be used for canning.

Natural Preservatives

Sugar, salt, and vinegar are used in canning because they act as natural preservatives for foods that have a low acidity.

Try to use organic cane sugar instead of white sugar in jams, jellies, and other sweet preserves. While organic cane sugar might be a bit more pricey, it’s free of pesticides and isn’t processed with animal bone char like many white sugars are. And unless a recipe calls for it, don’t be tempted to use honey in lieu of sugar. Whatever you make will taste predominately like honey and be very runny.

Avoid using iodized salt in your recipes. Stick with sea salt instead.

Also, use white vinegar for pickled foods. While apple cider vinegar and other vinegars might seem like tasty alternatives, the strong flavours of these other vinegars will overpower any other flavours in your recipe.

Acids, such as lemon and citric acid, should be used in tomato sauces to prevent spoilage of the final product.

A Little Bit of Nippy

Liquors and wines can also be used in small amounts in preserves and pickled goods. But before experimenting on your own, seek out recipes that call for spirits to make sure your next batch of chardonnay jelly or drunken asparagus doesn’t turn into a disaster.

No Time?

If you just don’t have the time to use your fruit at its freshest, freeze it until you have a few hours to set aside to whip up your next jellies and jams. When possible, though, it is best to process your all produce as soon as possible after it is harvested.

Not All Canning Methods Are Alike

Think you might like to try canning something without a preservative or using plain water? Think again. Attempting home canning without the use of a pressure cooker and the natural preservatives mentioned here will only result in food spoilage and a serious case of botulism.

Steam processing or processing of jars in the oven is also out of the question, as these methods are not reliable and will likely lead to improperly sealed jars.

The Finished Product

The work is not done once your jars have cooled down after the water bath. Inspecting your sealing caps for a proper seal immediately after canning, and again after 24 hours has passed, is important in preventing food spoilage. If you find your caps haven’t created good, solid seals, you can always use new sealing caps and clean jars and put your food through the water bath again. And if all else fails, share your “spoils” with friends and family, making sure to refrigerate the food and eat within a few days.

Storage

To make sure canned food stays at its best, store your jars out of sunlight in temperatures below 20°C (70°F). Make sure to mark your jars with a dated label so you can keep track of your batches and eat older foods first.

And a final word of wisdom: If you happen to be the lucky recipient of someone’s canning efforts, return their jars and you just might be lucky a second time around!

Eight essential tools for canning

While it’s quite a while yet until the the local fields will yield the first luscious springtime fruits and vegetables, perhaps you might already be thinking of how to get into the groove of preserving and pickling. Here’s the low-down on the tools you’ll need to become the new canning king or queen on the block.

Tools

There’s no need for fancy gadgets to produce jars full of great tasting goodies. Some of the most important canning tools can be had for a few small dollars at a thrift store or yard sale, or borrowed from a friend or family member.

1.  A good canning cookbook

Starting off with the right guidance will help make sure that your first batch of strawberry jam or bread and butter pickles will be a success. The Bernardin Complete Book of Home Canning is considered the go-to reference on preserving foods at home.

2.  Large canning pot

This is usually a large enameled steel pot that can be bought at a hardware store and some grocery stores. Large aluminum stock pots and stainless steel canning pots can also be used. For the most part, a pot is a pot and there’s no need to spend a lot of money on this item.

3.  Canning pot rack

This is one item not to go cheap on, but there’s no need to spend a fortune on it either. A pot rack is an essential tool to have to ensure you can safely submerge and remove your jars into and out of the water bath. You definitely don’t want your jars sitting on the bottom of your pot – the direct heat from your stove element could shatter the jars. Pot racks are made of either stainless steel or galvanized steel, and they have handles on either side to help you lift them. The most important thing to ensure is that the rack is well-made, fits your pot properly, and can withstand the weight of several full jars.

4.  Jar lifter

Along with the canning pot rack, a jar lifter can also be purchased inexpensively, but make sure it’s of good quality. You’ll need this tool to safely lift your jars out of the canning pot once they’ve finished in the water bath.

5. Mason jars

This is one thing not to go the thrift store or second-hand route on. Second-hand Mason jars may have been smacked around during use by a previous owner or en-route to wherever you happen to buy them. The danger here is in the strong possibility of  your jars shattering in the hot water bath due to chips or hairline cracks in the glass that you might not be able to see or notice. While you also don’t need to spend a lot of money on acquiring jars (keep your eyes peeled for a good sale), its best to buy them new and take care when handling them so you can reuse them. Many jars of different sizes are widely available. Jars are the most inexpensive at the end of the canning season when they usually go one sale (in the early to mid-fall season).

6.  Metal screw bands and sealing caps/lids

While most metal screw bands can be reused as long as they have not been damaged or dented in any way, sealing caps – the metal disc coated with a sealing compound – should never be reused. Dents in the edges of the caps usually occur when prying them off unopened jars, and these dents can result in a defective seal if reused. A defective seal can lead to food-borne botulism, and no amount of money saved on reusing sealing caps is worth the life-threatening sickness that can result from botulism.

7.  A wide-mouthed funnel

To make filling your jars easy, invest in a simple wide-mouthed funnel. Either a rigid plastic or stainless steel will do. Using a funnel will help ensure you keep your jar rims clean so your sealing caps create a good seal.

8.  A large magnet or a canning magnet wand

You’ll need to sterilize your sealing caps, and removing them safely from hot water is important to prevent burning yourself. Use a large magnet to remove the caps from the water, or use a specially-designed canning magnet wand.

What’s next? Stay posted for tips on what foods to start with and tricks on how to turn the fruits of your labour into yummy rewards.