How are the taste of these meats canned up? Best ways to use them?

[Corn Woman]

Actually, it is all about

1) safe food
2) safe food handling practices
3)cleanliness and personal hygiene

Even in my instruction book for the All American canner, it states that botulism spores are on the food and good washing practices will eliminate most of them. If you have grown your own produce, every one's GREAT grandmas did; sorry grandma is just not old enough any more to be taking credit anymore, then with good food handling techniques and clean hands along with a clean work space, water bath canning of meats is and low acid veggies is a minimal risk.

I have eaten and would eat in the future water bathed meats and veggies provided I knew the person who did the canning, where the produce came from, and the personal habits of the people in the household. Its all about risk assessment; most people still get out of bed in the morning and the odds are much greater of coming to harm from just getting in the car and going to work.

There is no right or wrong in the canning argument its just that some of us have lived a more rugged and practical life. There really is a lot of fear mongering in the food industry. I have a pressure canner but if it were to suddenly "blow up" I would let the water bath method take over.

Personally I would buy a new pressure canner but that is what makes me comfortable. What makes me un-comfortable is the stress I would have wondering if there was one jar that had botulisum. For me its a risk that I'm not willing to take but to each his own. I use a steamer canner for all of my fruits,tomatos, salsa, tomato soup ect. and don't buy into the hype from my local extension office re: the only safe tomato products must be pressure canned. I have been canning this way for over 30 years after I tossed the water bath canner and have had no problems. But again I am comfortable using this "un-approved" method.

 

[moolie]

... If you have grown your own produce, every one's GREAT grandmas did; sorry grandma is just not old enough any more to be taking credit anymore...

Not sure how old you are, but that is quite the assumption.

My Grandma passed away back in 1985 and would be nearly 100 years old had she lived till today. She was a bit of a pioneer here in western Canada, having come west to get away from a big Manitoba farm family and make her own way in the world--she met the love of her life and stayed west with him to raise their family pretty much in the middle of nowhere. She grew everything her family needed, in not the best conditions, in addition to putting up all their meat, poultry, and fish with a pressure canner with no electricity till well into the 60s. And she continued on in that way once they got electricity because she was used to it.

My Oma was 97 when she passed away just over a year ago, and she grew up in Russia and learned all the traditional preservation methods from her Mom and aunts--water bath canning (high acid foods), kraut making and brine pickling, salting down and curing meats, and root cellaring--which she passed on to my Mom and her sisters as they grew up on a farm that included 2 big gardens, a small orchard of fruit trees, nut trees, acres of raspberries (their cash crop), dairy cattle, pigs, geese, chickens--you name it, they had it.

My Mom grew huge gardens every year as I was growing up and always canned fruit and pickles (never jam though, we got it all from Oma) until we moved to the coast when she took up pressure canning salmon (with help from my Grandma). She stopped gardening at that time because of all the rain/cloud cover where we lived but we had lots of canned fruit and pickles that took us through those years and reminded us of our former home. When I first got married we lived in apartments but we always had tomato plants and a few salad things in pots, and I've always canned fruit, jam, and pickles. I began gardening when we bought our first home and we finally had our own yard and have been doing so every since. My Mom gave me her old pressure canner a couple of years ago and I've been using it monthly since I got it.

So I'm part of a long line of gardeners who've been putting food up for generations, not someone who is harkening back to my great-grandmother's day.

Both of my grandmothers taught me lots about safe food handling and preparation along with frugal meal planning, and I wish I had learned more from my Grandma before she passed (I was only a teenager). I made the time to visit my Oma many times over the years after I got married to learn to make her famous dishes--potato salad, buns, plum streusel cake, "matrimonial" date cake, almond cake, several kinds of cookies, chicken lasagne (long before it was ever cool my Oma came up with that one) and a bunch more things that I wrote down as she "showed" me how to make them, since she never used a recipe for anything.

I'm also extremely fortunate to have a handwritten notebook that was my husband's Grandma's personal cookbook--she left it to me when she passed away and I treasure it, and make things from it all the time. Hubs' Grandma was also a gardener and canner, even after she moved off the farm after Grandpa died in the late 60s, and she put up loads of fruit, jam, and pickles every year as well.

 

[animalfarm]

Actually, it is all about

1) safe food
2) safe food handling practices
3)cleanliness and personal hygiene

Even in my instruction book for the All American canner, it states that botulism spores are on the food and good washing practices will eliminate most of them. If you have grown your own produce, every one's GREAT grandmas did; sorry grandma is just not old enough any more to be taking credit anymore, then with good food handling techniques and clean hands along with a clean work space, water bath canning of meats is and low acid veggies is a minimal risk.

I have eaten and would eat in the future water bathed meats and veggies provided I knew the person who did the canning, where the produce came from, and the personal habits of the people in the household. Its all about risk assessment; most people still get out of bed in the morning and the odds are much greater of coming to harm from just getting in the car and going to work.

There is no right or wrong in the canning argument its just that some of us have lived a more rugged and practical life. There really is a lot of fear mongering in the food industry. I have a pressure canner but if it were to suddenly "blow up" I would let the water bath method take over.

Personally I would buy a new pressure canner but that is what makes me comfortable. What makes me un-comfortable is the stress I would have wondering if there was one jar that had botulisum. For me its a risk that I'm not willing to take but to each his own. I use a steamer canner for all of my fruits,tomatos, salsa, tomato soup ect. and don't buy into the hype from my local extension office re: the only safe tomato products must be pressure canned. I have been canning this way for over 30 years after I tossed the water bath canner and have had no problems. But again I am comfortable using this "un-approved" method.

I am quite comfortable with more than a few unapproved methods. These days everything is frowned upon. Actually, the government and the instruction manuals for pressure canners tell you to boil your canned goods for 20 minutes before using. What for? Because there is still a possiblity of buggsies after pressure canning. Not much of one, I could blow my brains out sneezing (maybe I already have) but still the scare mongering is there. So some food gets pre-cooked, canned for 75-90 minutes and then its supposed to be boiled again for 20 minutes. Yuck. Too much germaphobia for me.

 

[Beekissed]

Same here. I won't live in fear...it really can't be called living at all. Some things hold an accepted risk and, for me, this is one of them.

Same with driving a car, flying in an airplane, white water rafting, swimming in the ocean, being out in the sun without sunscreen, drinking well water all my life, heating with wood, etc.

 

[terri9630]

Actually, it is all about

1) safe food
2) safe food handling practices
3)cleanliness and personal hygiene

Even in my instruction book for the All American canner, it states that botulism spores are on the food and good washing practices will eliminate most of them. If you have grown your own produce, every one's GREAT grandmas did; sorry grandma is just not old enough any more to be taking credit anymore, then with good food handling techniques and clean hands along with a clean work space, water bath canning of meats is and low acid veggies is a minimal risk.

I have eaten and would eat in the future water bathed meats and veggies provided I knew the person who did the canning, where the produce came from, and the personal habits of the people in the household. Its all about risk assessment; most people still get out of bed in the morning and the odds are much greater of coming to harm from just getting in the car and going to work.

There is no right or wrong in the canning argument its just that some of us have lived a more rugged and practical life. There really is a lot of fear mongering in the food industry. I have a pressure canner but if it were to suddenly "blow up" I would let the water bath method take over.

Personally I would buy a new pressure canner but that is what makes me comfortable. What makes me un-comfortable is the stress I would have wondering if there was one jar that had botulisum. For me its a risk that I'm not willing to take but to each his own. I use a steamer canner for all of my fruits,tomatos, salsa, tomato soup ect. and don't buy into the hype from my local extension office re: the only safe tomato products must be pressure canned. I have been canning this way for over 30 years after I tossed the water bath canner and have had no problems. But again I am comfortable using this "un-approved" method.

I am quite comfortable with more than a few unapproved methods. These days everything is frowned upon. Actually, the government and the instruction manuals for pressure canners tell you to boil your canned goods for 20 minutes before using. What for? Because there is still a possiblity of buggsies after pressure canning. Not much of one, I could blow my brains out sneezing (maybe I already have) but still the scare mongering is there. So some food gets pre-cooked, canned for 75-90 minutes and then its supposed to be boiled again for 20 minutes. Yuck. Too much germaphobia for me.

I've been wondering about the whole boiling thing. We eat commercially canned food without heating. They are just as likely to be infected but I've never seen a warning on them.

 

[animalfarm]

I've been wondering about the whole boiling thing. We eat commercially canned food without heating. They are just as likely to be infected but I've never seen a warning on them.

Commercial canners reach 250 degrees while home pressure canners reach 240 degrees. Its the 10 degree temp. differential that makes the difference according to health regulations. The part that confuses me is boiling water only reaches 212 degrees so how is boiling the food for 20 min. supposed to kill off any remaining bugs if water bath canning doesn't do it?

 

[moolie]

I've been wondering about the whole boiling thing. We eat commercially canned food without heating. They are just as likely to be infected but I've never seen a warning on them.

Commercial canners reach 250 degrees while home pressure canners reach 240 degrees. Its the 10 degree temp. differential that makes the difference according to health regulations. The part that confuses me is boiling water only reaches 212 degrees so how is boiling the food for 20 min. supposed to kill off any remaining bugs if water bath canning doesn't do it?

Your information is incorrect.

It is not the temperature that the canning vessel reaches and maintains that is the issue, it is the internal temperature of the food--a combination of the temperature reached inside the vessel and the processing time. Which is one of the reasons that it is unwise to can with a pressure cooker (which is smaller and takes less time to heat up and cool down than a larger pressure canner).

For meat to be heated to the point where not only the botulism organism is destroyed but also the spores, the meat inside the jars must reach 120C/248F. This cannot be done in a boiling water canner.I have this on authority of a dear friend who is a chef and a teacher at a local polytechnic school. But you can also easily google something like "commercial canning process and temperature" and find lots of information if you don't like my source.

Oh, and home pressure canners very definitely reach 250F not just 240F (at least mine does, I've had it tested and it gets up to 122C and a bit higher when used for the correct processing time for meats--I actually end up overprocessing my foods a bit because I have a weighted gauge and only require 12lbs pressure for my altitude but must can at 15lbs pressure with the weighted gauge).

The guideline about boiling home canned food before eating is just so the people who wrote the canning cookbook/manual don't get sued if you get botulism poisoning because not everyone (as is evidenced in this thread alone) follows current canning guidelines to the letter. There are a lot of other scare tactics used in those books to try to ensure that the beginning canner follows the best practices possible to ensure a safe end product. I don't personally follow all the guidelines because I think some were written by/for idiots. But I do use prudence as it pertains to what is scientific about the canning process.

And if one starts with wrong information as given above, one naturally cannot act in a prudent manner.

Same here. I won't live in fear...it really can't be called living at all. Some things hold an accepted risk and, for me, this is one of them.

Same with driving a car, flying in an airplane, white water rafting, swimming in the ocean, being out in the sun without sunscreen, drinking well water all my life, heating with wood, etc.

As for the constant use of the word "fear" on this topic, prudence is not fear.

I'm not afraid to do any of the above and have done all of it regularly for my entire life (except river rafting because it neither interests me nor is feasible where I live or have lived in my life). I "live" my life to the fullest every single day, I've known far too many lives cut short by circumstances outside their control to do anything else. I am in no way hampered by "fear". Perhaps you have a "fear" of trying something new, in case you find that you like it?

Prudence suggests that:
-wearing a seatbelt in a moving automobile is prudent (and governed by laws)
-flying with an approved airline or a licensed private pilot is prudent (also governed by laws)
-following the safety rules of the river rafting company (or any other adventure sport company like bungee jumping) is prudent
-knowing about possible dangers such as rip tide or other hidden dangers under the surface when choosing a spot to swim in the ocean is prudent
-watching how much time is spent outdoors in the sun with no protection is prudent
(I wear long clothing when I will be gardening for long periods so as to not burn my skin--I think sunscreen is the devil and far worse for anyone than the actual sun)
-and ensuring that well water is safe (have drunk from wells most of my life till I moved to this city) before drinking it is prudent

I personally have no idea how heating with wood could be something to be afraid of, as I grew up in a home heated solely with wood and I along with my siblings learned to build a proper fire in the wood stove at a very early age--and I sorely miss that radiance in my forced air furnace home.

None of that has anything to do with "fear".

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Moolie you are a wealth of information! But I am confused... (kind of a normal state for me, lol)

"For meat to be heated to the point where not only the botulism organism is destroyed but also the spores, the meat inside the jars must reach 120C/248F. This cannot be done in a boiling water canner."

I get that - and I do follow the guidelines and pressure can for the same reason that you do. I see no reason to take an unnecessary risk.

What I don't understand is this: we pressure can to reach the internal temperature of 248F - so what good will it do to boil the food (at 212F) after pressure canning? If the botulism spores weren't killed at 248F - they're not going to be killed at 212F! (And that alone is why I pressure can instead of boiling water bath for low-acid foods.)

I guess this is just their way of trying to cover their.....selves?

 

[Beekissed]

Perhaps you have a "fear" of trying something new, in case you find that you like it?

Last I checked, pressure canning isn't something "new". My mother used a pressure canner all the time I was growing up...granny didn't, mother did. The last thing I fear is trying something new. But I'm not above keeping old, tried and true either....never did like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

There aren't too many things I fear on this Earth.

It seems weird to me that we can't each have different methods of canning without disparaging one over the other. No one is saying pressure canning is not something folks should do, they are just saying that some prefer not to do it and do not fear canning in a water bath or steam canner...and that should be okay without all the long, drawn out dissertations on how foolish we are being by not being "prudent" enough.

Each to his own, for pete's sake. I'll agree not to eat your food and I won't twist your arm to eat any of mine and that should make everybody happy.....should...

 

[ORChick]

Moolie you are a wealth of information! But I am confused... (kind of a normal state for me, lol)

"For meat to be heated to the point where not only the botulism organism is destroyed but also the spores, the meat inside the jars must reach 120C/248F. This cannot be done in a boiling water canner."

I get that - and I do follow the guidelines and pressure can for the same reason that you do. I see no reason to take an unnecessary risk.

What I don't understand is this: we pressure can to reach the internal temperature of 248F - so what good will it do to boil the food (at 212F) after pressure canning? If the botulism spores weren't killed at 248F - they're not going to be killed at 212F! (And that alone is why I pressure can instead of boiling water bath for low-acid foods.)

I guess this is just their way of trying to cover their.....selves?

This is an informative article on botulism: http://www.pickyourown.org/botulism.htm

"The botulism spores can only be killed by the high heat which can be obtained in a pressure canner. Water bath canners cannot do this. The toxin (that is produced in anaerobic conditions) can only be destroyed by boiling; so if there is any doubt, boiling the food for 20 minutes after opening the jars adds an additional measure of safety, although this is not always practical."