Gaye Levy
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Canning is a blessing and a curse. For seasoned canners, preserving the local bounty not only saves money but is a relaxing and stress-free experience. These same canners giddily prepare fully cooked meals in jars, to be opened and reheated at a moment’s notice.
And everyone else? They suffer a fear of the canning process, botulism, and of blowing themselves up along with their kitchen. Don’t let this canning curse prevent you from learning and benefiting from this important skill. In The Prepper’s Canning Guide, my good friend Daisy Luther teaches you how to can without fear!
Not only that, she shares the latest in safety tips plus tried and true recipes from her own prolific kitchen. These are recipes every prepper will embrace because they were developed by a prepper, for a prepper. Meats, veggies, beans, jams, and pickles – they are all here along with useful hints and tips that will ensure your success.
With that introduction, today I share an interview with Daisy plus I have three copies of her book up for grabs in a giveaway.
An Interview with Daisy Luther, Author of The Prepper’s Canning Guide
This is your sixth Backdoor Survival Prepper Book Festival which speaks to your success as an author in the preparedness and survival niche. That being said, how do you differentiate this book, The Prepper’s Canning Guide, from your previous books?
People who have purchased my original canning book, The Organic Canner, will recognize some of the recipes from that book in the new one. The difference is, the new book is written with preppers in mind. It has lots of “kitchen sink” recipes to help you preserve whatever your garden happens to be overflowing with at the moment.
It has a section on canning off-grid, a section on the supplies a canning aficionado will want to have on hand, and even tips for canning the things in your refrigerator so they don’t spoil during a power outage. There are quite a few new recipes and the book is professionally produced and edited.
If you happen to be new to food preservation, you’ll find all the information you need to help you get started canning with confidence.
Do you ever suffer “prepper burnout” and if so, how do you deal with it?
Definitely, especially with the current climate in the United States right now. There is so much political animosity. We’re so divided. I’ve always spent a great deal of time reading and researching current events, but lately, it is so difficult to get to the truth. All of the sources seem extremely biased, and there’s so much anger in every article. It was really throwing me off my game.
Finally, I decided that the most important thing I could do was focus on the things that I can actually control. For example, I can’t win fruitless arguments on the internet. I can’t change the minds of people who are dead set in their opinions, no matter how much logic and reason I apply.
But there are lots of things that I CAN do. I can learn skills. I can store food. I can grow vegetables. I can read books – there are MANY things we can all control, and we should focus on those.
People seem more stressed than ever before. How can we combat this?
Have fun. I am not on board with the philosophy that prepared people have to be grim and serious all the time.
Take time every day to do something just because it makes you happy. Even though we are all focused on getting prepared, that shouldn’t mean that you exclude the things that make life worth living. Make memories with your loved ones. Travel when you can. Pet baby animals. Lay down and watch the clouds cross the sky on a beautiful day.
Survival shouldn’t just be about existing. It should be about taking every chance you can to find more joy in your life.
What, in your opinion, are the greatest challenges we face going forward?
A lot of people think that the economy has been magically repaired, but it hasn’t. The damage done and debt created over the past years are something that can’t be fixed overnight, and I think our situation is very precarious. The second issue is the current unrest – unless people can find some common ground, I think it’s only going to continue to accelerate.
Some people stopped prepping after Trump won the election and I think that was a big mistake. The problems that existed before the election are still there, and now we’ve added these societal issues. Prepping has never been more important than it is right now.
Two acronyms are bantered about among survival and prepper types. They are SHTF and BOB. How do you feel about these two terms and do you use them yourself?
I don’t use a whole lot of acronyms for the simple reason that jargon can be hard to understand and this can be intimidating for someone who is new to prepping. I prefer to use language that is easy to understand, even if someone hasn’t been at this for decades.
What advice do you have for a young person in their 20s who has shown an interest in preparedness?
When you’re younger, you tend to move more often. Maybe you’re changing jobs, getting transferred, getting married – there are all sorts of reasons you might need to be more mobile.
For someone who isn’t firmly settled, focus on having a couple of months’ worth of food, a water supply, and the skills and tools you need to survive. This is a great time to learn skills – you are young, fit, and a lot more suited to roughing it than someone who is older.
Tell me about your own website. Was is its focus and who is the target audience?
My website is The Organic Prepper. I started it back when I lived in Canada, so the URL ends in “.ca” for that reason.
I write about a pretty wide variety of topics. I’ve always had a strong interest in health and nutrition, and I combined that with my love for preparedness when creating the site. I write about frugality quite a bit too – as a single mom raising two kids, my ability to stretch money has meant a much more stable lifestyle for us.
I like to connect current events with the need for preparedness. For example, in January and February of this year, our area was subject to storms lasting for weeks. This resulted in mudslides, avalanches, floods, and giant sinkholes. Roads were crumbling as people drove over them. From this, I was able to write a lot of content that was applicable to our real-life situation.
Other current events to watch out for are issues with the market, politics, weather events, crises in other parts of the world, and civil unrest. By watching these events unfold, we can learn what to expect if similar events happen where we live. This can show us the things we need to do to prepare for such events, and can also help us to predict what may happen next in our own scenarios.
Can you drop some hints about your next book?
So many books, so little time. I have a few topics in mind and I’m not sure which will come next. One thing I’m considering is writing about specific preps for specific disasters, instead of the broader view.
Other potential topics are frugal yet healthful food, prepping for people with dietary restrictions, and maybe even some fiction.
Do you have some advice or a personal message you would like to pass on to Backdoor Survival readers?
Don’t be discouraged.
There is so much ugliness in the world right now. There are so many people having life-altering financial problems. Serious health issues are on the rise and will affect nearly every family at some point.
It can make you feel hopeless.
But no matter what is going on in your life, if you face it with a survivor’s attitude, the journey will be easier. Even if it doesn’t result in the outcome you would like, you can alter your path positively. Never lose hope that tomorrow will be better than today.
The Giveaway
Daisy has reserved three copies of her book in this newest Book Festival Giveaway.
A special word about the giveaway question/comment: Please read the question and respond accordingly, even it the answer is “I don’t know”. This week’s question is:
Submit a question about canning or preserving food that you would like answered in a future article.
The deadline is 6:00 PM MST Tuesday with the winners notified by email and announced on the Rafflecopter in the article. Please note that the winners must claim their book within 48 hours or an alternate will be selected.
Note: Due to customs requirements, this giveaway is only open to individuals with a mailing address in the United States.
The Final Word
Before closing let me tell you something about Daisy. She is a mom of the highest order, nurturing two daughters and farm animals which she has named. She is also a blogging colleague, friend, and the nicest person you will ever meet. As busy as she gets, she always has time to help out when needed, even it takes precious time away from her own workday.
Aside from those personal qualities, she is a fantastic author who shuns fluff. Her writing is well researched and often comes from personal experience. Her book, The Prepper’s Water Survival Guide, is a best seller in its own right and must-have for every survival library. I could go on and on, but for now, will just say this: The Preppers Canning Guide along with the Ball Book of Canning and Preserving and the USDA Canning Guide, are the only books you need to set yourself on a path of home-canned goodness.
For more information about the books in this latest book festival, visit Prepper Book Festival 14: Books to Learn, Prepare, and Be Ready for Anything.
If you enjoyed this article, consider subscribing to email updates. When you do, you will receive a free, downloadable copy of our e-Book, The Emergency Food Buyer’s Guide. Also check the Facebook page regularly for links to free or almost free eBooks that we personally review just for you.
You can also vote for Backdoor Survival daily at Top Prepper Websites!
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Spotlight: The Prepper’s Canning Guide: Affordably Stockpile a Lifesaving Supply of Nutritious, Delicious, Shelf-Stable Foods
A practical and approachable guide to amassing an emergency food supply filled with your own natural dishes
As the disaster drags on for days, weeks, months or even years, food scarcity and starvation will fuel people’s desperation. Even preppers like you will need more than dried beans and rice to survive. With The Prepper’s Canning Guide, you’ll learn the lifesaving techniques to take your food storage to the next level, including how to:
•Store nutrition-packed foods
•Create delicious MREs
•Can protein-rich meat and poultry
•Make canned produce last longer
•Use time-tested water-bath methods
•Utilize modern pressure canning
From food safety guidelines to grid failure canning tips, this book will guarantee your family stays safe, secure and well-fed.
170 Responses to “Prepper Book Festival: The Preppers Canning Guide”
I hate heating all that water to do a “water bath” canning, and it is so heavy, so I think it is unsafe. They sell “steam bath” cookers, but some people say no to steam. I know that steam will get hotter than water and it seems to me a great way to go. I use my pressure canner/cooker and just leave the jiggler off. What is Daisy’s opinion?
The USDA has approved steam canners (finally!) but I’ve never used one. I’m sorry, but due to lack of experience, I can’t give you much more information than that. Here’s the paper on steam canners.
//fyi.uwex.edu/safepreserving/2015/06/24/safe-preserving-using-an-atmospheric-steam-canner/
I have used my pressure canner for water bath canning too. As far as safety is concerned. I generally just remove the jars with my jar lifter and leave the pot on the stove until it has cooled off to the point it won’t burn me. Then, I dump it into the plugged sink and use it for a load of dishes. 🙂
I would like to know how to determine how much produce you would need for ‘x’ cans or how many cans would be needed for ‘x’ amount of produce.
This is a question that the publishing company asked me and it is one I was unable to answer.
There’s so much variation in your foods. Let’s take tomatoes, for example.
One variety might be a super-dense tomato. This would make a lot more sauce with a lot less cooking down than an incredibly juicy large heirloom tomato, for example. For the heirloom, you might strain it to get out some of the water, and then be left with only half of the end product, even if you started with the same weight as the dense tomatoes.
The same holds true with other fruits and vegetables, and even meats. Even the same variety can produce different amounts – perhaps one was raised in a drought-ridden area and one had tons of water and fertilizer. The end result will be very different.
That’s a long way of saying, I just don’t know. It’s possible to generalize, but you can’t really be specific. It’s very imprecise.
I wonder about canning small amounts. I have only done large batches of applesauce (3-4 bushels). Any tips about efficiently canning small batches (when you have enough produce for just a few jars)
Good question! Our household is down to 2 people and I am cooking a lot of cut down recipe’s made for 2 people. If something happens and my daughter’s family end up at our house I can always open more jars or make bigger batch of something.
Not sure how safe it would be, but my mother canned a few pints in her pressure cooker. She followed the recipe for the bigger canner. They lasted longer than she did. She died about 2 years after she did all her canning. You might need to check with a canning company to make sure it’s safe.
Thanks for the info I will check on that.
Now that my oldest daughter is out on her own, there are only 2 of us at home also. I don’t recommend using a pressure cooker (sorry – I know someone suggested that) because it isn’t exactly the same as a pressure canner. But here are some things you can do:
* Can in pint jars
* Get a second rack so you can stack pint jars and do a double batch of smaller jars
* Fill your canner by doing a batch of beans in the extra jars when pressure canning (there are always dried beans around that you could cook up.)
* Can more than one food at a time – just make sure they have the same time/pressure requirements or go with the longest time or highest pressure.
I hope this helps!
I would like to know if I can can corned beef. Cook first, partial cook or raw?
Short answer is YES.
Long answer – you may not want to add all of the salt and spices normally added to corned beef because they will intensify as it processes and sits in the jar. If you DO add all the spices you will probably have to use it in small amounts in dishes like corned beef hash. (I learned this the hard way with ham.)
I nearly always raw pack meat when canning and would also raw pack this.
While I don’t have my mom’s original dill pickle recipe, I remember them being tart, crisp & had garlic & probably all spice, maybe other ingredients that I’ve forgotten over time. I found a recipe that seemed similar to what I remembered but the picles never crisped. I tried several batches with different ways, I limed the cukes and even tried pickle crisp. They were all soft. The flavor was good but they were NOT crisp. Anything you recommend? I would really like to re-create my mom’s pickles. She’s been gone for almost 30 years now, and her recipe was probably from the 40s or earlier.
Make sure you always cut the blossom end off of the cucumber for crisp pickles. As well, you can add something with natural tannin to the jar. Grape leaves, blackberry leaves and raspberry leaves placed in the bottom of the jar can help.
Someone once asked me what can you can? I tell them that if there is anything in a can or bottle at the store you your self can can it. You just need to make sure that you are doing it right.
Does the transparent glass of jars (allowing light to the food) degrade the contents faster than commercially canned food (in cans)?
Thanks to both Gaye and Daisy for providing excellent content that will ultimately save many lives.
Dean, it’s best to keep your jar canned foods in a cool dark place out of direct sun light.
There are issues with both methods. If the glass jars are exposed to light, especially direct sunlight as Deborah mentioned the food in the jars will degrade faster. But the glass jars are more chemically neutral than metal cans, so if they are kept in a cool dark place the food in the cans will degrade faster.
Will water that’s been softened (ex: potassium chloride or sodium chloride) change the chemistry of canned food?
Very soft water can make canned foods “mushier” while very hard water can look quite cloudy when the minerals settle due to the high temperatures during canning. Hard water can also make food a little bit tough. Neither is harmful but can be a bit off-putting in appearance.
If you water is extremely soft, you might consider buying distilled water for the purposes of canning.
I have very limited storage for canned goods and supplies. Where do I start?
The nice thing about canned foods is that they are something you replenish every year. It’s sort of a pioneer-style way of eating. You preserve your food in the summer in fall when it is at the best possible prices. Then, you enjoy it all winter long when things get more expensive.
Our home isn’t huge either. We put risers under our beds to make more space, use the backs of closets, and use trunks instead of coffee tables. We have many unusual hidey-holes for our food!
What method provides the longest shelf life, water bath or pressure canning?
The shelf life is the same – approximately one year. The difference is based on the type of food you’re canning. Low acid foods must be pressure canned, while high acid foods are fine to water bath can/