Let me explain my wording on that so that it is a bit clearer -

The canning/preserving rules DO change - but regardless - those rules should not be changed or modified.

As far as the "recipes" for canning go - the recipe doesn't matter - you can change, tweak, add or subtract the flavorings, and ingredients for personal preference.

But if you make a tomato based sauce - you still process it for the length of time specified - it can be a tomato sauce recipe from your great grandmother - just use today's standards for doing it.

Yes. Boil the jarred vegetables right. While not a canning related item, I once got food poisoning from campylobacter at a place a friend of mine recommended. Her friend started a new place that served subs and sandwiches near where I work. So I went there on a Thursday and had a chicken sub.

As a recall now, he went from preping chicken, to making my sandwich without washing hands. 2 days later, a week long episode of the worst illness of my life began. So wash you hands, wash your chicken, and cook your canning jars for long enough. And cook your chicken until it's done! Put the chicken in the grocery store in a plastic bag and wash your hands. :eek:

What is it Emeril says about the chicken police?

You better wash everything after handling chicken: Your hands, the cutting board, the counter, the inside of the car you carried the chicken home in.....:rolleyes:

Food poisining is not a joke, of course. But the food science boys have gone a little overboard, IMO. A lot of times, regulations and protocols are written simply because our ability to measure nothing gets better every day.

When I joined the staff of Package Engineering, for instance, parts per million were the common "small" measurement. When I left two years later, parts per billion were becoming the norm. Now we blythly talk in terms of parts per trillion.

But if, say, 10 ppm of boutulism bacterium were safe back then, why is it any less safe now? Has anybody tested? Or are the protocols established only because we can measure 10 ppt?

Same with the recomendations to add lemon juice to canned tomato products. There was a reason for that recomendation when it was first established. But the reason no longer applies. So is there any need for extra acid?

Further depondent sayeth not.

No longer do we need to worry about the acidity when canning - that's for sure!

Re: food poisoning - You've all seen Sophia on the Golden Girls - well picture this - blazing hot summer - 2001 - but not in Sicily! LOL - Friday - no meat - everyone orders tuna subs from the local deli - need I say more???? Over a week of pure h.e.l.l. OMG - the only thing we were able to keep down were Lay's potato chips. The entire office was almost wiped out.

Salmonella - yep - been there done that - from cleaning chickens for the deli - the knife slipped and went through my finger - sick, sick, sick, for almost 2 weeks. From running restaurants, etc. I know all about the contamination, cross contamination, etc. Never had a problem with any of that - always scored a perfect 100 for cleanliness, food dates, preparations, etc. But chicken #36 that was being cleaned that day - got me!

I agree with most of what you say there too... good stuff!