Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
"Ophelia" wrote in message
...

Not so much speechless as awestruck, I think.
Different countries have different standards for "the norm." I
don't particularly think it's anything but a different way of doing
things. Do you can/bottle/jar other stuff, O? Like tomatoes? If
so, are those commonly processed in a waterbath?

Yes I do Barb. I also have a canner I got from Ross.


I hope that when you process tomatos in a waterbath that you
acidify them with lemon juice. Many varieties of tomatoes today
have been found to not have enough acid to be safely BWB canned
without adding acid.

Barb was kind enough to send me a Ball blue book some years ago which is
what I have followed since, when bottling/canning

For most healthy adults, about the worst you will get from a
contaminated high acid canning is a case of the Hershy Squirts. It
can be a lot worse for older folks or children, though. But, there's
a number of cases of people killed and/or severly sick from botulism
poisoning as a result
of canned tomatos that were not acidified, or pressure canned. There
was a case not too long ago where the CDC tested around 50 jars of
home-canned tomato sauce that was BWB. 48 of the jars tested
negative, 2 had rip-roaring Botulism cultures going, that were
centered in large chunks of tomatos in the jars. A pretty game of
Russian Roulette, that.

(They tested the 50 jars because the family that did the canning had
a number of members that had to spend a couple weeks in Iron Lungs,
surviving a Botulism attack)

I have been preserving food for more than 40 years and have never made
anyone ill so far.
When my children where at home I did a lot. In later years much less but I
still enjoy doing a little