CONCLUSION

Once you get the hang of canning (and that won’t take long at all), a whole world of possibilities opens up to you. You’ll find yourself able to home-can almost any foods. You’ll also discover that doing so can have a wonderful impact on your home, life, and budget.

Canning as a method of preserving food has shown a great resurgence in recent years. As this book has shown, it’s a way to live less expensively, more sustainably, and more independently. People with pantries full of home-canned (and even homegrown) foods are not at the total mercy of grocery stores and their price markups. Canning gives you a great deal of independence, even if you’re canning only small batches of a few foods. It allows you to buy more locally and more seasonally, and enjoy those foods all year round, long after they’re out of season.

Canning may be hard work when you’re in the midst of it. It may involve a lot of chopping, boiling, and packing. But once the pots are washed and the jars have cooled, nothing is quite as satisfying as surveying shelf after shelf loaded with jewel-colored jars. That satisfaction can be as simple as knowing that you accomplished something or as meaningful as knowing that if you are faced with tough economical times, you have enough high-quality food to see your family through.

Canning is one of the best ways to share good food with your family, your friends, and your community. Once you get started, you’re likely to get hooked.

ALTITUDE CHART

Below are altitudes of selected cities in the United States and Canada. To find the exact altitude of your location, use the search features on the EarthTools website (www.earthtools.org).