Just Can It! Exploring Food Preservation
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By Sarah F. Berkowitz
A quickly growing number of Georgia families and individuals have made the commitment to buy organic and local foods and are enjoying the summer bounty of fresh produce at Farmers’ Markets and co-ops across the state. As the season of plenty heats up, food specialists recommend buying favorite fruits and vegetables in bulk and preserving them for use during the sparse winter months. The University of Georgia (UGA) is home to the USDA funded National Center for Home Food Preservation (NCHFP), an institution dedicated to educating consumers on how to safely and successfully preserve produce. The NCHFP website provides audio and visual tools, as well as a large database of pertinent articles and papers on the subject of canning and food preservation. UGA offers a free, selfpaced online course on home canning and preservation that includes general canning, and canning acid and low-acid foods.
Suzanne Welander of Georgia Organics was thankful she and her family canned peaches and tomatoes last year, “It’s quite joyful to open a can of tomatoes in the winter and eat them. Preserving foods will really help people extend their eating season,” she shares, “since there are several months of the year when you just don’t have access to as much local produce. Food preservation also gives a tremendous boost to Farmers’ Markets and other suppliers of locally grown produce.”
Dr. Elizabeth Andress, Ph.D. and Director of the NCFHP, recommends beginners start simple. She gets nervous when first time canners tell her they want to start preserving homemade vegetable soup. “Multi-food items are complicated and it’s best to start with a boiling water process, such as jams, jellies, pickles or relishes. There are even some salsa recipes on our website that have enough acid that they can be done in boiling water.”
A major advantage to preserving food at home is greater control of what goes into your food and onto your plate. Home food preservation, done properly, uses all natural preservation with the help of ingredients like lemon juice or vinegar, and high heating temperatures.
The easiest preservation process, and the one that produces a product most similar to the original in appearance, taste and nutrients, is freezing. Andress cautions, however, that some foods just don’t freeze well, and certain spices and herbs should not be added until a dish is defrosted.
In the revolutionary 80’s, Diane Keaton starred in a hilarious and heartwarming film, Baby Boom. The story follows a tough corporate woman who morphs into a super soft and loving mom when she takes custody of a relative’s baby, and eventually makes millions from her at-home business jarring homemade baby food. No one’s saying you’ve got to make a career of canning, but the beautiful and poignant message of the movie is that sometimes satisfaction can be found by focusing on the home front, and the things that matter the most. That is what food preservation is all about – relishing and treasuring the goodness and bounty in our life and making it last.
For extensive information about home food preservation, visit www.uga.edu/ nchfp/. For a list of local farmers markets and co-ops, visit www.georgiaorganics. org.
