People may not know this, but this is an ESSENTIAL skill to have in bad situations.

Star and flag sir. This is very good info.

LOL this may sound weird but I really love canning! Starting canning taco meat recently, Yum Yum. I have actually been on this site before, your right, all kinds of great information!

I learned canning and jam making from my Mom. We used to can all summer long; everything and anything. We used to get asparagus from the local growers, sometimes we'd buy other times glean it. We would freeze the tender tops and then we would peel the lower stalk cook it and can quarts of cream of asparagus soup. We ended up with almost no waste.

Every summer I go pick wild fruits and put them up. Drying food is something I'm still trying to learn; I have a great dehydrator but it's total operator error. This site is very helpful thanks.

If anyone has a good recipe for sourdough starter I'd be grateful.

Got news for all of you!

After visiting a friend in Virginia and helping her make homemade coleslaw, I decided that I and my family should get into home canning.

Now the capital costs are expensive. You will need jars (about 8 or 9 dollars canadian for 12), water bath canner, pressure canner, 20 litre stainless steel pots (I can't tell you the exact cost because it will depend on how many jars etc but I spent about $4,000 in capital costs)

My family consists of 1 daughter (family of 4), another daughter (family of 4) and my brother (family of 3) and myself. Each family contributes about $1000 / year to cover food costs, lids and consider the cost of energy to cook and process and freeze the food)

Last year, I canned 1700 jars of food including 8 types of homemade soups, spaghetti sauces with meat and veggies, chili with meat and veggies, 12 types of vegetables, and 8 types of fruit (including fruit cocktail). Additionally, I filled 3 freezers with various cuts of meat including 110 lbs of homemade sausages of 5 different types. There are also a few specialty items (jams and pickles)

Each family reports that average monthly grocery bills dropped from
Typical grocery bills decreased from $600 / month to less than $200 / month saving each family about $4500 / year (about $14,000 in savings). This tripled my return on capital investment.

I know what is in all my food. For example: mandarin oranges cost about $3.50 for 4 1/2 cup servings to send in kid's school lunches. A 500 ml jar of mandarin oranges cost $2.50 Commercial mandarin oranges are soaked in lye to remove the pith and therefore have very little actual flavor. My oranges are not soaked in lye and cost $1.30 for the same 500 ml jar.

Potatoes - bought in the fall at harvest for $1.00 / lb and jarred in 1 L jar (enough for 4 servings of 1 cup each). Jarred 400 pounds of potatoes. Cost is about 0.30 per jar. Potatoes can be used to make home fries, mashed or roasted. The texture is completely different from commercial canned potatoes. No potatoes are wasted or go bad.

Time investment was about 12-15 full weekends throughout the year.

Each member of each family is completely involved and everyone works and plays and talks while doing the jarring (family togetherness and bonding is priceless). Everybody has a job and everybody is expected to get it done.

Kids gladly eat food that they helped jar even though it was sometimes difficult to get them to eat their veggies. Cooking time for each family is decreased to about 20 minutes to make a meal (Important for working mothers)

Are in debt? Having financial problems. Learn how to preserve food and you will see what a financial, psychological god-send it all is!

Tired of Control Freaks

Thanks Man...Finally a post with some useful information.....S & F

Awesome,a useful survival thread! I plan on getting into this in a few months,as I have someone close by who has experience andcan guide me.
I plan to pick up one of those turkey deep fryers so that I can do this all outside. It's getting pretty warm out, so I don't need the heat in the kitchen and if I mess up, it's better outside than inside.
Since I do lots of hunting as well as gardening, I plan on canning a whole bunch of stew. Not sure what else,maybe some fruits. Oh yeah,and chili too, a whole lot of chili!