Top 7 Reasons Why You Should Start Canning

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Canning, something that used to be an essential way of life, suddenly turned into a quaint, old fashioned hobby about 60 years ago. When canned goods were so inexpensive and easy available at every corner market, who wanted to take the time to preserve foods through canning?

Canning has now taken on an entirely new meaning and the sales of classic mason jars have skyrocketed in the past 10 years. With more and more people becoming concerned about the safety of canned foods, not to mention the additives, canning has become the smart and cool thing to do.

If you haven’t jumped on the canning bandwagon, check out the top 7 reasons why you should!

1. Health concerns

If you are like many people, you are concerned for your health and the health of your family. You probably take great care to read labels and try to serve whole, natural foods. If you have been concerned lately about the recent reports about the BPS in commercially canned foods, as well as the preservatives, added salt, and, occasionally, added sugar or aspartame, then canning your own food makes perfect sense! When you can your own veggies and fruits, you know exactly what’s inside and when you use glass mason jars, there are no worries about BPA contamination.

2. Save a ton of money

Although today’s modern farming allows us to eat almost any type of produce year around, it does cost us more due to the costs of transportation. You can save a ton of money, and still enjoy summer foods year around by canning it for later consumption.

If you grow your own fruits and veggies, do you find late in the summer that your neighbors avoid you so you won’t give them bags of tomatoes or zucchini? Canning allows you to save the extra fruits ( and veggies) of your labor, instead of making everyone in your family eat so many cucumbers they start throwing them at you, or worse, throwing them away!

You will be shocked when those decadent looking jams you want to buy in January only cost you pennies to make yourself.

If you don’t grow your own veggies, you can still buy them at their peak of the season, for example, in July when tomatoes are less than a dollar per pound, and can them to eat later, such as December when tomatoes are about 4 dollars (or more!) per pound. Canning supplies themselves are inexpensive and can reused over and over again.

3. Environmentally friendly

Since you can reuse the glass jars, it’s even more “green” than recycling and much less carbon gets dumped into the air since your canned tomato sauce doesn’t have to travel thousands of miles to reach your grocery store.

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Photo credit: bigstock

4. Might become a necessity

Canning is a skill most prepper’s will tell you is a necessity, and they might be right. No one can ever be certain that there won’t be a food shortage the next season, or a terrorist attack that leaves money in short supply and people stuck in their houses. For many years, people canned their summer harvest and it was enough to provide them with food for the winter, and sometimes beyond. Since we never know what the future might bring, perhaps this is a skill we should all acquire.

5. Quality and Taste

It’s not a matter of personal preference, it’s a fact; no commercially canned product will ever taste as good as something that you grow at home, or from locally grown, harvested in season home canned goods. It gives one a huge amount of satisfaction to select your own produce, at its peak of flavor and ripeness, and can it for later enjoyment. You can bet that when you sit down to those homemade peach preserves in February, you will taste that rich flavor, as well as the care, that went into it. Read more about ways to eat organic on a budget.

6. Passion and social connection

If you think those who crochet are passionate about what they do, wait until you meet those who enjoy canning! You will find a huge network of those with a great deal of experience in home canning on blogs and social media sites such as Facebook. You will make new friends who are willing to share their experiences, and you might just find a new hobby you can really feel passionate about.

7. Gifts

Of course, nothing in the world says “You are special to me” like a big jar of cherry preservers for Christmas. You will find that no matter the occasion; birthdays, 4^th of July parties, or New Year’s Eve, you will have a gift ready to go if you have a pantry stocked with jams, jellies, sauces, and pickles!

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