I would say, as a whole, canning food is totally safe. But that being said, there are a lot of variables that can make canning food unsafe. In this blog post, I will go over all the reasons that you should consider canning and all the reasons why canning food is safe, practical and the things that can go wrong. But the end of this blog post, you will be able to make the decision of if canning food is safe for you and your family.
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Canning Food Is Safe
There are many reasons that canning food could become unsafe, but as a whole, canning is totally safe. In this blog post, I am going to talk about everything that I’ve heard about unsafe and safe canning practices. I’m also going to talk about things to keep in mind as you start your canning journey and how to minimize your risk of consuming unsafe foods. But most importantly, I am going to give you as much information as I can about Botulism, which is everyone’s biggest fear when it comes to canning.
What Is Canning?
Canning is a preservation method that allows food to be shelf stable for a longer period of time. There is some debate about the longevity of canned foods. I’ll discuss more about this below but the average shelf life for home canned foods is about 18 months.
There are two main types of canning here in the US; pressure canning and waterbath canning. Pressure canning is used for low acidity foods and waterbath canning is for high acidity foods. But understand something here, the US is one of the very, VERY few countries that use pressure canning as a food preservation method.
The jist of canning is this; put food in a jar, wipe the rim, put in a pot and heat it for a certain amount of time. There is a lot more to it, but for the point of figuring out if canning food is safe, that’s really it.
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The Dreaded Botulism
Canning food is a personal choice that you REALLY have to think about. For me, it was a no brainer. But I also understand that some people may not feel comfortable risking their family like this. So I wanted to drop some information for you to digest as we move through the rest of this post.
Botulism is an anaerobic bacteria which means that it lives and thrives in an environment with no oxygen. This means that canning is the perfect breeding ground for botulism because the whole purpose of heating the food and sealing it, is to get most the air out of the jar.
But to give you some stats, in 2022, there were 19 cases of foodborne Botulism. You can go here to play with the CDC’s BEAM Dashboard and see where I am getting these numbers. You want to make sure that you are putting “Clostridium” in the etiology filter, and specifically, we are looking for foodborne cases.
To give you a little more information about what would be considered a foodborne Botulism case, it could have been home canned food OR honey, baked potatoes and minced garlic in oil.
But before you start freaking out, keep reading.
Botulism spores cannot live in acidic environments with a pH less than 4.6. Nor is Botulism found in canned food where the internal temperatures have reached, at least, 240*.
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Safe Vs Unsafe Canning Practices
This is really where you are going to protect yourself and your family against most issues when it comes to canning. What is considered a safe or unsafe canning practice? Well, I’m going to tell you.
Not washing vegetables prior to canning is unsafe. Even if you peel the skin, you should still wash both the skin before peeling and the vegetable AFTER peeling. This decreases risk of contamination.
Raising the pH of your foods that are going to be waterbath canned is always safe. Though sometimes unnecessary, it is always good practice.
Boiling food for at least 10 minutes prior to eating is safe practice. This will kill any possible toxins that have grown and to be fair, most of the time you need to heat the food anyways.
Using unsterilized jars is an unsafe practice. Your jars should be clean before you put anything in it. Personally, I do not sterilize my jars prior to canning. But I do make sure that if I’m water bath canning, I dip those babies in boiling water, this will “sterilize” them as best as I can get. My dishwasher is a 13 or 16 year old boy. I’m just working with what I’ve got.
Not reusing lids is another safe canning practice, that I don’t always do. It really depends if the lid is in good shape but normally, I do use new lids. But I can’t say that I ALWAYS do.
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The Pressure Canning Debate
The debate is this: People have used waterbath, open kettle, dry canning, and other forms of canning, instead of pressure canning, for hundreds of years and the vast majority of them didn’t die from Botulism.
And that argument is correct for the most part. With a decade worth of recent reporting, there have been less than 1,000 cases of home canned Botulism cases. The risk of death or injury from other canning methods is extremely low, but never zero.
One of the things that I really want to bring up here is a two fold thing that you should decide for yourself. Again, I am NEVER going to tell you what to do. I’m going to give you information and tell you what I do. After that, you make your own decision. I follow the “Your kitchen, homestead, home, kids, your rules” philosophy, so you do you boo boo.
That being said, there is a lot of debate about pressure canning in other countries vs the US. Above, I told you that the US is one of the only states in the world that has and uses pressure canners to can food. But the US is NOT the only country that cans food. That being said, other countries have more cases of Botulism than we do, mind you it’s still really low at 82 in 2021. But these are SEVERAL countries in Europe.
All of that to say, your risk of getting Botulism or other injury, illness or death from home canned food is extremely low, but never zero.
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How Long Does Canned Food Stay Safe
12-18 months is the generally accepted timeframe for shelf stable home canned food, depending on food type, recipe, and canning method. I have found that most of the time, the food itself is still good long after 12-18 months, but the texture, nutrition, etc are all poor.
In my home, most food doesn’t last past the 18 month mark for two reasons. One, we’ve already eaten it and two, I need the jars. But there are a few cans of food that I wouldn’t touch after 18 months; beans and pickles are the two that come to mind immediately. But anything that sits in water for a long period isn’t going to taste very good after 18 months.
But there are two ways that I ALWAYS use to check if the food is still good. I ALWAYS look at the food before I open the jar. If it doesn’t look good, it’s probably not. If there’s mold, obviously toss it. Second, I smell it. If it doesn’t smell, we are probably good to go. If it does smell, does it smell like the cooked version of that food. For example, cooked carrots have a very distinct smell. Does the jar of canned carrots smell like cooked carrots? Yes, we are good to go. No, toss it.
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✅ Hay Calculator – Plan livestock feed
✅ Garden Journal – Digital & printable
✅ Herd Health Tracker – Monitor animal care
✅ Simple Budget – Manage finances
✅ Backyard Homestead eBook – Essential tips
$99 value – now just $47! Start your homesteading journey today!
Starting Your Canning Journey
My suggestion for any new canner is to start small and easy. Don’t try to run a pressure canner without any canning experience. Don’t try and make a super difficult recipe when you don’t have a clue what you are doing. Start easy with jams, syrups, and salsa.
Once you’ve got that under your belt, start working with things like chow chow, relish, etc. Then get a pressure canner and start working on single vegetable jars like canning corn, green beans, etc.
After you’ve gotten a feel for how to use your canner, start working on harder things like beef stew, chicken noodle, etc and move on from there.
The biggest thing that I will recommend is always starting with tried, true, and tested recipes. Personally, I use recipes from all over the web. But I’ve been canning for over 15 years. I don’t always know what I’m doing, but I do know when things go sideways and something isn’t right.
But all that knowledge didn’t help me when I warped my pressure canner this year. I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t add enough water to the canner. That was an expensive mistake. But it happens.
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Canning Food Is Safe
At the end of the day, canning food is safe. It’s far safer than texting and driving (400 deaths/year on average). It’s safer running a marathon. And while that sounds funny, it really is the reality.
Canned food is safe as long as you follow safe practices and don’t try to out can your abilities. Learn, grow, and enjoy the fruits of your labor!
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