Food Preservation

There are no safe methods for home canning pumpkin butter. Pumpkin butter is a delicious autumn fruit spread that many folks love to preserve and sometimes give as gifts for the holidays. While canning pumpkin butter was once common, decades ago scientific studies found safety issues with the home…

Proper handling and preparation of eggs are important for safety.  Eggs are a wonderful, nutritious food that come so conveniently packaged in their own individual shells. But raw eggs can harbor Salmonella – both on the shell itself and inside the egg, too. Egg shells can be contaminated from…

Be safe when handling raw flour Flour is, generally speaking, a raw agricultural product which has not undergone any treatment to kill pathogenic bacteria – such as E. coli and Salmonella – that can cause foodborne illness.  Several disease outbreaks associated with flour and flour products …

Buying large to break down into small is not practical and possibly unsafe. Buying large tins of canned foods, such as tomatoes and vegetables, can certainly save a lot of money, but not if you can’t consume the product before it spoils. Buying in bulk with the intention of breaking the contents (or…

That's rutin; weird looking, but perfectly safe to eat If you’ve ever canned your own pickled asparagus, you may have been surprised at some point to find little crystals deposited along the spears. These crystal formations are rutin, which is a pigment that occurs naturally in asparagus. Usually…

Safe Preserving Resources  There are many books and websites covering food preserving, but unfortunately not all of them provide good advice. Some sources provide processes or recipes that are downright dangerous. So where do you turn for research-based, reliable information? Or to find safe information…

Safe ingredient swaps for home-canned salsa Salsa contains a combination of high- or borderline high-acid ingredients (such as tomatoes or fruit) and low-acid ingredients (such as peppers, onions, or other vegetables). Acid in the form of vinegar or bottled lemon juice is added to ensure the appropriate…

Salt is salt is salt - except when it's more than salt Salt is an essential mineral for health and one of the five basic human tastes. It’s indispensible in the kitchen for many reasons beyond taste. Whether gathered from coastal or inland salt pans, evaporated from sea water, or mined from salt…

Sure, you can, but they may not be the best pick Supersweet varieties of corn are popular because – well – super sweet! They are wonderful for fresh eating, but supersweet and white varies of corn are not necessarily the best choices for canning. Canning supersweet and white varieties of corn do not…

Tartrate crystals are a common occurrence in grape products  Hard, crystalline shards or granules are often found in home canned grape juice, syrups and jellies. These formations are the result of tartaric acid, a naturally occurring compound in grapes, reacting with potassium. The reaction forms…