Home Canning / Food Preservation

(Connie) #1

I’m a beginner canner. I was really disappointed when I received a Ball Home Preserving book and found that 85% of the recipes were for jams and jellies with no options for sugar substitutes other than Splenda (I don’t care for Splenda). I’ve searched Amazon books but I wonder if any one here does canning (is “keto canning” a term? lol) and would have a suggestion?

(Arlene) #2

I have done plenty of canning. These days I only can things like tuna, barbecue sauce, maranara sauce, and just whole tomatoes when the garden is bursting with tomato goodness. Sometimes I might can some bone broth, but I prefer to freeze it because canning seems to destroy the gelatin, which is very healthful.
What are you wanting to can? If you are making preserves or jams, you will need to find pectin sources that don’t require sugar, then choose whatever your alternate sugar source is, and sweeten to taste.
I just don’t eat much sweet anymore, including jam, but if I want to preserve some jam, I always choose a freezer jam over canning it. Just tastes SO much better.

#3

I have had success making no sugar pickles, by just substituiting whatever sugar substitute in a pickle recipe. I am waiting for more pickling produce to hit the shelves for cheap before I start on non-traditional pickled vegetables.

Currently my fridge is full of mason jars, but they are all with “Egg bites”, not that this helps, but it is a use for mason jars. :slight_smile:

(Jane Reed) #4

Authoritative sources demand sugar to preserve fruit (aside from the Splenda exception) because it is considered unsafe to do otherwise. They are right. Better to freeze with alternative sweeteners, or none at all.

(Jennifer) #5

Water bath canning is done with food that is acidic. I have canned applesauce using organic no sugar apple juice and a bit of lemon juice. Pickles in a brine can be water bath canned - I have done dilly green beans and asparagus. Otherwise, you will want to preasure can.

If you are thinking about canning veggies - might want to look at fermenting instead? I do that too - adds those nice bacteria to your diet.

It can be done - an initial search on the internet turned up a lot of links.

(Jan) #6

Check out Pomona Pectin. Works great. I usually use erythritol for my jams…blueberry is my favorite. I get it at a local health food store but I think Amazon sells it as well.

(Connie) #7

Thank you for all the responses! I’ll definitely check out MSU. I’m interested in canning basically to learn the skill so I expanded my garden this year. I also have blackberry, raspberry, blueberry and elderberry plus a couple of fruit trees. I do have a deep freeze but it sits on my back porch and it’s been turned off a few times by accident so I’m always nervous about really filling it up. Plus we live in a hurricane prone area, even with a generator a deep freeze is a risk when it comes to food saving (and if we have to evacuate there goes a whole freezer-full of food :anguished:. I think I’ll try freezer jam in small batches anyway because of the food safety issue using Swerve. My family isn’t keto (yet!) so I may make a few regular jams just to chalk it down for experience.

(Connie) #8

Are you actually canning your blueberry jam? Any issues with long term storage? I’m very curious about this. The Ball book mentions the pectin used for sugar free jams but also only recommends Splenda for canning. The science behind high-sugar with high acid food is that it retards bacterial growth making water bath canning possible (according to Ball). Splenda wouldn’t have that same function so why is it safe but other sugar substitutes aren’t? Now that I’m thinking about it, could I pressure can jams? Would that work to use erythitol/Swerve?
Update: Whoops! Should have read the MSU article before this! Very good article that answers my questions. Thank you to birddog27!

(Connie) #9

Thank you for this great article! It led me down a few more paths to enlightenment!

(Connie) #10

Thank you for this suggestion! Did some searching and I think this will be perfect for what I want to do and I found a related canning book on Amazon to get me started. Awesomeness!

(Connie) #11

Lol love mason jars! Love pickles too. What are your “egg bites”?

#12

The Egg bite name is from the new item on the Starbucks Menu starting this year, but has a horrendous amount of Carbs. So you make them at home Ketostyle.

Basically little Quiches in Mason Jars, cooked in a water bath (Sous Vide). Using the time and temp of the Anova recipe listed, I just make mine with Whipping Cream and Eggs (ala Alton Brown’s Quiche, Refrigerator Pie recipie). Adding in the Cheese, Meat or Veg of choice. Currently the family favorite is Ham & Cheese. The silk smoothness of the eggs are eggsquisite (haha ok that was a bad pun). :slight_smile:

(Jan) #13

Pomona recommends a 1yr expiration date for sf jams. Their recipes are for small batches, usually 4-6 pts jars. Mine never last very long -they get eaten. And according to Pomona, any sugar sub will work.

(Connie) #14

Just wanted to follow up. I canned my very first jam this past weekend and it was so fun! I went to a u-pick farm for fresh strawberries and used Pomona Pectin and Swerve confectioners-style sweetener. It turned out fantastic - intense strawberry flavor, not too sweet and perfect consistency! I ended up with 9 - 4 ounce(118 mL) jars. For macros, I used Calorie King and Pomona’s site for nutritional information. The totals are 1.2g carb, 0g fat and 0g protein per Tablespoon (14.8 mL). Regular store-bought strawberry jam has about 10g carb per Tablespoon! Thank you all for your suggestions!

(Karen Maxwell Bowden) #15

I’m a little confused by this article. It says any alternative sweetener that measures 1:1 like sugar will work, but it also approves Stevia, which is almost 4 times as sweet as sugar. If you used Stevia cup for cup, you would have a horrible tasting product.