The New Old-Fashioned Approach to Canning

Canning is sustainable, right? It takes the available bounty and preserves it for the off season. It reuses jars again and again, eliminating purchases of "canned" goods whose containers are either recycled (if possible) or end up in the land fill. All good. And of course canned foods are satisfying in a way that only things you make yourself ever are. They are the product of your labor, represent your tastes and make wonderful, always-appreciated gifts. But...

Canning takes a lot of water. Washing the produce, sterilizing the jars, boiling water baths for processing and maybe even boiling water to add to the jar as in cold packed tomatoes. And then there are the lids. Every year they need to be replaced. In the old days women (women did most of the canning) knew how to conserve water because they had to, living off wells, and the canning jars and lids were glass, so unless broken, they weren't discarded. Yes, we've come a long way in terms of canning technology, but we (at least I feel I) use more water and hate throwing out those lids after a single use. So I reverted back to some old-fashioned simple ways to be more sustainable. 

First I reused the water in the big water bath kettle. I had always done this when doing multiple batches of processing on a single day, but this year I saved the water over night and reused the next day. No reason it (it seems to me) it couldn't be saved for several days in high canning season, adding to it as it depletes rather than starting new every time. It seems obvious, yet there was the competing need to clean up the kitchen after canning (using yet more water than necessary.) Now I no longer do that, saving at least 10s of gallons of water. It's not hard to leave a full water bath on the stove.  

Then there are those lids. I ran across some reusable canning lids in Mother Earth News but upon checking them out, decided they were too expensive. A knee-jerk reaction to a cost today that saves cost over time, perhaps. But I couldn't get it out of my mind that they were a wiser, sustainable thing to use, rather than throwing out all those lids as I canned more and more. So I gave in and purchased their starter pack (free shipping) that got me three dozen each of regular mouth lids and wide mouth lids. That many one-time lids would be approximately $18. These were about $50. But it would take only three uses (not years!) for them to pay for themselves and I've been known to put up things in the dead of winter. So I would quickly come out ahead. I will know how they work in terms of keeping food as I open what I've canned, but so far so good.  They can be found at here. 

It feels good. My canning is now much more sustainable and economical. No question there is still more I can do. I'll continue to work on that.