Canning with Ball Jars

Canning with Ball Jars. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Canning. It was a process that both my mother and grandmother spent hours laboring over and of course it was well worth it to have those wonderful foods available all year long. Canned good were a rarity in our house. It was the very familiar sight of all those canning jars filled with colorful produce. Lauren Devine-Hager, Product Research and Test Kitchen Scientist for Jarden Home Brands, makers of Ball canning jars gives us some history.

HAGER: They first came out in 1884. They started as fruit jars and over the years of course sizes and colors and different things have changed with them but I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is really the quality. The same quality over 127 years which is absolutely fantastic for a brand to be around that long.

I know for a fact that Ball jars have been used for many other things including catching fireflies and more.

HAGER: Just about everything else that is for sure. Obviously it started with canning and really anything from salsa to pickles to your jams to your green beans so anything you can get that’s fresh from your garden or from a farmer’s market. But we know people use them for other things. We do have some crafting projects on our website and of course for dry storage. Even flowers.

But many people are rediscovering the year-round delicious benefit of canning.

HAGER: People are into it again. It’s definitely a hot trend we’re seeing. We were even on some top 10 list this year for trends to watch out for. So canning is really popular and of course it started as a necessity but today people are really getting into it for various reasons and really it’s all about the benefits of canning. You’re able to preserve your fresh, locally grown food and you can enjoy it all year long.

Hager says that having food available all year is a benefit but it seems more and more people are canning to have more control over the foods they eat.

HAGER: I’ve talked to a lot of people and the control over food seems to be something really important right now to people. They want the fresh produce, they want organic produce and they want to be able to preserve it and eat it when they want. And they don’t want to have to worry about artificial preservatives in their food so with canning you control everything that goes into that jar. Even get to control the sugar and salt intake.

More tomorrow on canning with Ball jars. For great buys on Farm Equipment visit BigIron.com’s internet auctions. Every second and fourth Wednesdays.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.