Is my self canned tomato sauce safe to eat?

[flowerbug]

Here ya go. I remember coming across this article, and decided never to worry about how old my canned goods were. Fruit can get kinda weird in texture, but otherwise...

Scientists Found Canned Food from 1865, Discovered It Was Still Safe To Eat

In 1974, canned food from a boat that sank in 1865 was tested by chemists and was found to be still safe to eat.

funfactz.com

the fun thing is that while the calories might be safe they may not taste all that great and a lot of the nutrient value of certain vitamins are lost (others are more shelf stable).

i am sensitive enough to tastes and off tastes that i don't use any spices in the tomatoes we put up either. when we did salsa for a few years Mom is such a wimp on hot peppers that it barely had any heat so the only spices in there were from the garlic and onions which store well (we are both rather immune to garlic and onions in any quantities ).

after about 3yrs the tomatoes may be edible but i don't like 'em so we can use those in other things where there are more spices like a chili. we don't pressure can anything here.

 

[tortoise]

Amazing.
That wasn’t my canning though! Haha.
I’ve only done it a handful of times so I’m still not 100% confident in my abilities to not kill whoever eats what’s inside!

The seals are different now. Only made to last 18 months. Although the food is safe for as long as the seal holds (if it has been packed and processed correctly). If you stock up on canning lids, keep them rotated. They degrade in storage and should not be stored for over a year.

@DelcoMama82 your confidence in your canning will grow with experience. Follow the National Center for Home Food Preservation, check your processing time each canning season because they may change, if you use a dial gauge pressure canner get it calibrated yearly. Follow recipes exactly, and if you ever decide to forge your own path for water bath canning acidic foods you can buy pH test strips specifically for canning to be sure your food will turn out safe.

 

[flowerbug]

Amazing.
That wasn’t my canning though! Haha.
I’ve only done it a handful of times so I’m still not 100% confident in my abilities to not kill whoever eats what’s inside!

the most important things are acidity and decent prep skills where you are removing any potentially hazardous things before they get put into the jars. if you are making anything with low acid chunks in it (in a higher acid brine or tomato sauce) those need to be cut small enough or cooked so thoroughly that there is no risk of botulism in there. since we do not can anything low acid at all there is very little risk from what we do. we don't can meat or meat sauces, we don't can potatoes, etc. those are things that really should be done in a pressure canning set up.

please read up on these topics there are many good web-sites from the government that cover safe canning techniques.

if something higher acid goes off it usually is just a fermentation from lactobacilli which are very common and on almost any garden vegetable. they are what make pickles and saurkraut when those are fermented naturally.

if you are in doubt ask, but also keep studying and learning as it is so nice to be able to have confidence in what you are doing and to stop worrying.

in the ancient days when Mom was canning a lot of low acid things she was using techniques recommended back then and none of us got sick from the things she put up, but it took a lot of energy and a long time of processing to get there. i don't consider those results worth it, i would rather eat things fresher and not so mushy. so they can be frozen or pressure canned if it becomes that big of an amount of things to put up now.

 

[YourRabbitGirl]

I had plans last night to try some of our canned tomato sauce last night. However when we tasted it, there were some strange flavors like beef bouillon or Worcester sauce.
It didn’t taste sour or bitter, however it is likely to be 2 or 3 years old.
Any advice?
Thanks!!!!!!

High-acid canned foods such as onions, tomato sauce, fruit and pickles or other vinegar-based foods are good for one year. ... If the food has been properly cooked, there are no obvious signs of mold or spoilage, so if the food tastes good, it will be healthy to eat, although the contents do not taste fresh.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I have some peaches that I found from 5 years ago. I went to throw them out but they smelled good and looked ok. I tasted them "a tiny bit" and they taste fine. No foamy, no slimy, nothing wrong with them except they are a little dark.

Not brave enough to eat the whole jar. Chickens loved them!

 

[flowerbug]

that is why we leave the rings on because we have to stack them, we also put flats of cardboard between the boxes so there is two layers of cardboard between the jars and the rings holding things on. we've not had more than one or two seal failures over the years (thousands of quarts) and i know one of those was from a jar that had a chip on the rim that wasn't caught.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Leaving the rings on encourages moisture to collect between the lid and the ring, causing rust and eventual failure.
Every time I get ready to can , I go through the rings and throw away the ones that have gotten too rusty. At the present time, I store all the canning stuff down in the basement. However, this is Wisconsin and we get humidity during the summer. Metal on metal causes rust.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I have eaten apple pie filling that I canned 5 years ago. The taste had faded some, but it was still good.

 

[Britesea]

I can't imagine an 8-year-old canned tomato can still be consumed, I mean, even "properly canned branded tomatoes have expiration dates that won't be more than 2 years right?

Those expiration dates on commercial goods are there because they are required by law. I have even found "best by" dates on containers of salt! They were designed to protect the consumer, but what they actually do is cause people to waste money by throwing out perfectly good food and buy more.
That being said, I know that canned tomatoes and other acidic foods like dilly beans and pickled beets DO have a shorter shelf life, because the acid can eat the metal of the can, particularly if it's dented so that the metal's strength has been compromised. That takes years though, and it's easy to tell when it happens.

 

[Hinotori]

The dates aren't even required on most things in the USA. It's used as a tactic to get people to toss perfectly good food and buy more. There has been talk on making them standardized because it's all over the place