Battle Creek, MI -- (SBWire) -- 04/08/2014 --High food prices and worries about food safety have led to a resurgence in gardening and heirloom skills like home canning. Available worldwide as an ebook or audiobook, The Home Canning Guide for Everyone Who Eats by Tracy Falbe explains how the process prevents food from spoiling in the jars.
The audio excerpt at Falbe Publishing lets people quickly hear the information and learn about the safety and efficacy of home canning. Novices to the arts of home food preservation are often nervous about poisoning themselves and their families with spoiled foods.
“I was just as worried as anyone else about failing when I started home canning,” Falbe said. “But people who knew how to do it said it was easy and just follow the directions.”
Following the directions in modern home canning recipes is very important because certain temperatures need to be achieved to ensure the killing of all germs and spores within the food. Then the sealing of the jars that results by using the proper equipment keeps new microbes from invading the food. Therefore the food in the jars remains safe to eat for up to a year.
For example, hazardous enzymes are destroyed at 140 degrees F (60 C), molds die at 140 degrees F to 190 degrees F (60 C to 87.77 C), and bacteria and their toxins are destroyed in temperatures from 190 degrees F to 240 degrees F (87.77 C to 115.55C).
The time honored boiling water bath method achieves temperatures up to the boiling point of 212 degrees F (100 C). Low acid foods require the highest temperature of 240 degrees F during cooking, and the pressure canner must be used to achieve this heat.
The Home Canning Guide for Everyone Who Eats explains how to use both the boiling water bath and pressure canning equipment, and teaches which foods require which process.
The author taught herself home canning in 2007 when she began pursuing a local food lifestyle. After reading many books on the subject and following all types of recipes, she gained proficiency at home canning. At the time she lived in Chico, California and was invited by the local Grange to give a home canning presentation in 2008. This soon led to an appearance on the green lifestyle podcast More Hip Than Hippie.
As a novelist Falbe was familiar with self publishing and decided in 2011 to develop her presentation notes on home canning into an ebook that sells at all major online ebook retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and at Falbe Publishing.
In 2013 she hired voice talent Kris Keppeler to read the guide and create the audiobook. Audio cookbooks provide an alternative for people with vision impairments. The audiobook is also meant to let anyone listen to the information when otherwise busy so that he or she has a good foundation of knowledge when getting in the kitchen with a home canning recipe.
The Home Canning Guide for Everyone Who Eats includes 11 canning recipes and also guidance on how to find other dependable recipes. The guide is meant to be a quick instructional read with some inspiration because it extols the many benefits of home canning.
“With home canning you can preserve food that tastes better than anything at the supermarket. Money really can’t buy this level of quality. You have to do it yourself,” Falbe said.
