Pantry stocking ...

[moolie]

It is all in what you like, and are use to using and eating.

This Absolutely

For us, keeping root veggies and gourds "fresh" is the most convenient both from a "preserving" point of view as well as a food prep point of view. We don't like canned veggies (other than hubs' love for French-style seasoned green beans so I do up some each summer) so we freeze rather than can the veggies that won't keep "fresh". I've had many comments on this forum about the amount of fruit we can each year, and for us it's a necessity.

Our family eats a lot of fruit year round, so we buy it/pick it when it is in season and can it (peaches, pears, apples, applesauce, fruit cocktail, low-sugar jams) or freeze it (saskatoon berries, raspberries) to supplement the boredom of winter-available fruit (which for us is pretty much apples, oranges, and bananas because everything else is super expensive if you buy it out of season). Local (well BC) apples are a fall crop, so are generally priced ok around here September thru March, then they usually go up a bit into the spring and especially the summer months when their quality goes down due to storage time. Oranges are an imported fall/winter crop and are generally priced ok around here November thru June. Bananas grow in the tropics and are imported, but we like them, and they seem to be the same price year-round so we buy then when we want to eat them.

On the apple side of things, we are seriously looking at buying a second-hand fridge for our basement to keep crates of apples in because we can get good organic apples for a song in September/October and it would be so nice to stock up and have a ready supply. But they need cold storage to really last, we can only do so much with our basement--and canned apples are just not the same as eating a fresh apple out of hand.

 

[moolie]

2. Think about convenience. This what I don't like about that article. It doesn't take into mind that maybe we all don't have the time to cut up squash and cook. Maybe we need home canned anything for a quick meal. My case for canned meat, it is so quick to use!!!

3. Canning foods is better for indefinite storage. Canning works better for people who "prepare". It keeps indefinitely most times under good storage conditions. Hence why we would want to can cheese, butter, or lard. No risk for the fridge to fail in the summer, or when the freezer goes down in a massive power outage.

Canning isn't always the "best" storage method due to nutrient loss. For us the losses are acceptable when it comes to meat/convenience dishes and fruit, but not for veggies--there is a significant loss of "quality" in terms of colour and texture when veggies are canned, and unless you also use the liquid for soups/stews etc. you are throwing away a third of the nutrition that was preserved. We even use the canning liquid from our fruit for this reason.

There have been a lot of recent conversations about "what are you preparing for?" on this forum lately, and it's interesting to me that you say that "canning works better" for people who "prepare". If you are preparing for a short-term situation, sure, maybe. But if you are truly living your life in a way where you are "prepared" for as many possible situations that might occur, it is a cycle just like the rest of life. You grow/buy, you save for when you can't grow/buy--lather, rinse, repeat. The truly "prepared" don't just have a stockpile, they live in a sustainable manner. Canning everything in sight doesn't make anyone more prepared than the person who "keeps" or "preserves" their food in a variety of ways.

Also, back to the nutrient loss point, canning food changes the character of the food--in the case of foods like cheese or sauerkraut it kills what makes those foods extra good for you in the first place. Milk is great, cheese has added benefits. Cabbage is great, sauerkraut has added benefits. The seasonal eater can enjoy both. There are so many different varieties of cheese because of the different organisms (molds, yeasts) that combine to make that particular variety. Heating cheese kills the live cultures and therefor the flavour (along with any health benefits) and you just end up with cheese whiz without all the salt and sugar. Same with fermented foods like sauerkraut, why can something that doesn't actually need it--especially if you remove the health benefits of eating that food?

It's one thing entirely if you want to process cheese into another product because you like it. Absolutely do what you want in that case. We all do that whenever we make pizza or bake our lasagne with cheese on top, which changes the character/food value/taste and texture of the food because we like it that way.

But you're not actually "preserving" it any better than it would keep in its natural state and you are actually degrading the food value. Same for butter--clarified butter or "ghee" lasts indefinitely, Indian cuisine is based on it and India is one of the hottest places you can live and try to preserve food. Lard, if properly cleaned, will also last till next season's lard-making without much more than a lid. And I have no idea about what "waxing" a cheese does, I'm more inclined to rely on the natural rind that is produced during the cheesemaking process than petrochemical wax added after the fact.

The bit I keep mentioning about "next season" is truly important. All of the "preppers" who build up mountains of commercially canned and dried food, or even their own canning and drying, will eventually run out of that food supply at some point, if their fears about the end of society come to pass. Some may have bought "seed vaults" in order to grow their own food at that point, but unless you are living the seasonal life it's a rough start-up when you are suddenly "forced" to do something new--and gardening is learnt over many seasons, so many skills to master and for most of us it's a lifelong situation where we learn new things every year.

FWIW, I'm not trying to be a "know it all" because I simply don't know it all. I know only a small portion, so much information was lost with my grandparents that I'm working hard every day to learn and put into practice. And from a scientific point of view, we have the ability to know so much more than even those lost generations knew--they knew the "what", "when" and "how", we can now also know the "why". It really bothers me when someone takes my words and twists them to be something they are not--this forum is a place to share and to read.

We don't all have to agree, stopping the conversation entirely because we don't is totally counterproductive. We each speak from a unique place and perspective, what works for me and my family in our location probably doesn't work for plenty of other people and vice versa. But I keep reading along and keep on taking part in the conversation regardless, and I learn new things each day--for me, that is what life is supposed to be about.

 

[moolie]

For those of you who mention not having the convenience of a basement, or not having any way to keep things in a root cellar or other cold storage, we have the other side of that coin. We have the basement, but cold winters mean that we can't have a root cellar outdoors and that our basement is heated along with the rest of the house during the cold months. Sure, we have colder or cooler areas down there that are away from the forced air heating, but we essentially have the same situation as people who live in hotter regions.

It's a tough situation to try to remedy. As I mentioned above, we are seriously looking into getting a second-hand fridge for the basement so we can keep certain things (specifically apples, but I know we'll find other uses) for longer than we can currently keep them.

I've read several books on root cellaring, and none of the ideas will work in my location. We could renovate a corner of my finished basement to create a cold room complete with a duct to bring in outdoor cold air, but that would be super costly and we don't want the expense of drilling through my concrete basement walls for the cold air duct and for the warm air return, so we're stuck without a root cellar. Our choice really, based on expense--cheaper to try to work around the situation than to pay for something that might work.

 

[ORChick]

2. Think about convenience. This what I don't like about that article. It doesn't take into mind that maybe we all don't have the time to cut up squash and cook. Maybe we need home canned anything for a quick meal. My case for canned meat, it is so quick to use!!!

3. Canning foods is better for indefinite storage. Canning works better for people who "prepare". It keeps indefinitely most times under good storage conditions. Hence why we would want to can cheese, butter, or lard. No risk for the fridge to fail in the summer, or when the freezer goes down in a massive power outage.

Canning isn't always the "best" storage method due to nutrient loss. For us the losses are acceptable when it comes to meat/convenience dishes and fruit, but not for veggies--there is a significant loss of "quality" in terms of colour and texture when veggies are canned, and unless you also use the liquid for soups/stews etc. you are throwing away a third of the nutrition that was preserved. We even use the canning liquid from our fruit for this reason.

There have been a lot of recent conversations about "what are you preparing for?" on this forum lately, and it's interesting to me that you say that "canning works better" for people who "prepare". If you are preparing for a short-term situation, sure, maybe. But if you are truly living your life in a way where you are "prepared" for as many possible situations that might occur, it is a cycle just like the rest of life. You grow/buy, you save for when you can't grow/buy--lather, rinse, repeat. The truly "prepared" don't just have a stockpile, they live in a sustainable manner. Canning everything in sight doesn't make anyone more prepared than the person who "keeps" or "preserves" their food in a variety of ways.

Also, back to the nutrient loss point, canning food changes the character of the food--in the case of foods like cheese or sauerkraut it kills what makes those foods extra good for you in the first place. Milk is great, cheese has added benefits. Cabbage is great, sauerkraut has added benefits. The seasonal eater can enjoy both. There are so many different varieties of cheese because of the different organisms (molds, yeasts) that combine to make that particular variety. Heating cheese kills the live cultures and therefor the flavour (along with any health benefits) and you just end up with cheese whiz without all the salt and sugar. Same with fermented foods like sauerkraut, why can something that doesn't actually need it--especially if you remove the health benefits of eating that food?

It's one thing entirely if you want to process cheese into another product because you like it. Absolutely do what you want in that case. We all do that whenever we make pizza or bake our lasagne with cheese on top, which changes the character/food value/taste and texture of the food because we like it that way.

But you're not actually "preserving" it any better than it would keep in its natural state and you are actually degrading the food value. Same for butter--clarified butter or "ghee" lasts indefinitely, Indian cuisine is based on it and India is one of the hottest places you can live and try to preserve food. Lard, if properly cleaned, will also last till next season's lard-making without much more than a lid. And I have no idea about what "waxing" a cheese does, I'm more inclined to rely on the natural rind that is produced during the cheesemaking process than petrochemical wax added after the fact.

The bit I keep mentioning about "next season" is truly important. All of the "preppers" who build up mountains of commercially canned and dried food, or even their own canning and drying, will eventually run out of that food supply at some point, if their fears about the end of society come to pass. Some may have bought "seed vaults" in order to grow their own food at that point, but unless you are living the seasonal life it's a rough start-up when you are suddenly "forced" to do something new--and gardening is learnt over many seasons, so many skills to master and for most of us it's a lifelong situation where we learn new things every year.

FWIW, I'm not trying to be a "know it all" because I simply don't know it all. I know only a small portion, so much information was lost with my grandparents that I'm working hard every day to learn and put into practice. And from a scientific point of view, we have the ability to know so much more than even those lost generations knew--they knew the "what", "when" and "how", we can now also know the "why". It really bothers me when someone takes my words and twists them to be something they are not--this forum is a place to share and to read.

We don't all have to agree, stopping the conversation entirely because we don't is totally counterproductive. We each speak from a unique place and perspective, what works for me and my family in our location probably doesn't work for plenty of other people and vice versa. But I keep reading along and keep on taking part in the conversation regardless, and I learn new things each day--for me, that is what life is supposed to be about.

I heartily agree

I have a second refrigerator in my garage. I use it to store some of the grains that I keep in smaller quantities - maybe not strictly necessary, but I have the room for them in there. I actually bought it to keep the fermented things that I make, like the gallon jar of Sauerkraut, and some other pickles. I can keep them for rather longer than if I were totally depending on room temperature - Summer room temperature here wouldn't be good for them. As a bonus, I can use the veg. drawers for some extra fruit and veg.