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I'm not convinced. 100 years ago, home preservation was a way to save money, so it made sense that people might shift toward it as a way to economize. Today, th

I'm not convinced. 100 years ago, home preservation was a way to save money, so it made sense that people might shift toward it as a way to economize. Today, though, the food supply chain is such that it's both cheaper and less work to buy canned goods from the supermarket than it is to buy fresh food and preserve it yourself. There's a much more parsimonious explanation: People are are bored at home and looking for new hobbies. I'm guessing the people who are buying up jars and rings and flats now are mostly the same folks who were buying up flour and yeast back in the spring. I wouldn't be at all surprised if yarn and knitting needles become a scarce commodity this February.

chrisdinn 6y ago
As someone who buys almost all my produce from local farmers to eat, preserve, & ferment I totally agree with this. It’s not a good way to save money, really. Maybe a little but only if you are careful to avoid wasted produce, and that kinda ruins the fun. Industrial food supply chain is truly very efficient, probably thanks to scale. You should still do it though, if you can (eg have access to real farmers and enough time). It’s very spiritually rewarding and helps to build communities. Farmers make more per pound at the farm stand and you pay less. It generates less landfill waste and, not sure how to explain it, but it’s very rewarding labor. I’m headed to the farm stand right now to get some broccoli and brussels sprouts, fresh from the field, to freeze and eat in the spring.
dangrossman 6y ago
I was looking for flour and yeast back in the spring because there was no bread on the shelf in my supermarket, not because I wanted to take up a new hobby. Luckily the bread hoarding or shortage or whatever it was didn't last too long.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Around where I live (NE US), the flour shortage seemed to last quite a bit longer than any bread shortage--at least for the type of semi-artisanal bread I tend to eat (i.e. made in house by supermarket and similar mid-volume producers). In fact, I'm not sure I ever had much trouble buying bread. But flour, especially of my preferred brand, took a good couple months to get back in stock.
- Cerium 6y ago
  The reason I, and I suppose so many other people took up bread making was because it was an interest that was limited by available time in the house. I used to rarely make the bread I wanted because I'm not home enough on a weekday and on a weekend I am too active to make sure I can tend the dough. Now taking a break at 3 to start some dough for dinner is an easy reality.
pmoriarty 6y ago
What you're going to miss out by buying your preserved goods is assurance of quality and variety. There are a lot of deceptive labeling practices in the food industry. Things like an ingredient list that says your food contains "natural flavors" without saying what they are, or not having an ingredient list at all. When ingredients are listed it's common not to have quantities listed, and virtually never do you see any account of the sources of those ingredients. Of course there's no way to tell whether they're telling the truth either, and no way to know how the food was prepared or how sanitary the preparation or ingredients were, what mistakes or accidents happened during the manufacture, etc. As to variety, there is usually not very much variety at all in preserved goods at the grocery store. Pickled or fermented goods are packaged at the time of the manufacturer's choosing, so you really have almost no choice as to what stage of ripeness or what flavor the product is to have. Compare this with preserving your own food, where you have complete control over and knowledge of the ingredients, source of the ingredients, method of preparation, flavor, degree of ripeness, and virtually everything else. You can completely customize everything to your needs and desires, and don't have to settle for whatever the manufacturer chooses to give you. It really opens up a whole world of possibilities that store bought food just doesn't offer.
- mumblemumble 6y ago
  Sure, but I don't see how any of that challenges the point I was making about TFA's explanation for people's sudden interest in canning jars being implausible. Sure, there's a lot to be said for making things yourself. But people who are hunkering down for economic hard times are not going to suddenly become interested in spending more money on higher quality food. Doing just the opposite of that is more likely.
  - kyubey 6y ago
    The people who are doing it to hunker down for hard times are the people that would go to every grocery store for miles during the first few months of COVID and find that each store had been entirely bought out of canned goods. That was reality for many rural areas for a while when all this started.
NateEag 6y ago
It's probably not cheaper to process your own fruit and veg. The quality can be hugely higher, though - my wife's applesauce is the best I've ever had, and consistently so. If you live in an area with local agriculture, it can probably make you more resilient against supply chain failures, too (as long as you keep a good stock of lids on hand).
- gambiting 6y ago
  >>The quality can be hugely higher, though - my wife's applesauce is the best I've ever had, and consistently so. I wonder if it's simply because she can put more sugar in that any store bought brand. Over here the law limits both the amount of sugar and salt that products can have, so sure, I can make tastier things at home by just using the "proper" sugar and salt amounts. In fact most store bought things are hugely improved by just adding a bit of salt, since they are not allowed to salt them more by law. Most likely not the healthiest thing to do but that's where the taste difference comes from for me.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    That's sort of funny because in the US, I'd have said the more common issue would be an excess of sugar and salt over the what's really required for preservation and taste.
    - Stratoscope 6y ago
      That was my feeling too. The applesauce I buy is from Trader Joe's, and it has exactly one ingredient: organic apples. It's easy to add more sweetness if I want, for example if I mix it with unsweetened plain nonfat yogurt then I will add a bit of maple syrup too - yum! Same for other similar products. Most fruit jams are way too sweet for my taste. The excessive sugar is probably required by law in order to be called "jam" - yuck! There are some "fruit sweetened" spreads that are sweetened with grape juice, but then the grape dominates the flavor. We used to be able to get Kozlowski Farms fruit spreads that were sweetened with apple juice - a much better pairing for berries. I haven't seen them in a while locally though.
im3w1l 6y ago
One thing that Factorio drilled into me was compression. It's easier (=cheaper) to transport compact processed goods than bulky raw materials. In the real world, shelf stability is also important, it allows cheap-but-slow modes of transportation.
- jfim 6y ago
  Keep in mind that shelf stability refers to the food safety of the product, not its quality. One of my friends used to work at a candy factory, and the difference between freshly made gummy bears and the ones picked at retail (that have been sitting in a warehouse and on shelves for a few months) is very large. One of them is filled to the brim with flavor, while the other one is much less flavorful and drier. They're both edible and safe to eat, mind you, but it was much better to get fresh ones. Or not eat candy at all.
  - MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
    I think it's like being a native american that has never have been exposed to christianity. Why spoil something you don't truly want to know that could alter your worldview haha! edit: I was referring to this joke/quote https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/annie_dillard_131195 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/annie_dillard_131195
chiph 6y ago
The other reason to home can was to time-shift your produce. Fruits & veggies ripen at certain times of the year (pumpkin in the fall, for example) and if you want to enjoy some later you'll need to have some stored away, because fast global produce transport didn't exist yet. Something I was surprised to see is in short supply is playing cards.
MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
This is it exactly. Some bourgeoisie yuppie needed to find a new hobby so they started doing this and play pretend that it's somehow a new trendy way to save money. My mother cans food all the time. Not because it's cheaper though. She does it because it's homemade stuff and she can give them away as gifts. These bored people forget the cost of electricity to heat water that seals cans, the jars upfront costs, the pressure cooker for the canning, and proper storage. I won't be shocked if these people try turning it into another lululemon type of deal and make another pyramid scheme to not lean into.
NoOneNew 6y ago
Dude, canning is a lot like cooking. You get to make exactly what you want instead of being at the whim of someone else's choices thousands of miles away. There are still people who like doing for themselves. I know it's hard to imagine, but even in this day and age, people still like being able to wipe their own ass.
grossvogel 6y ago
I thought the article was pretty careful to attribute the rise of canning more to psychological factors than to household budgets: In times of economic insecurity like the last recession in 2009, when McClellan started her Food in Jars blog, people turned to canning to soothe their fears, and mason jar sales took off. ... “When there are these big downfalls of trust in systems of government or economy or institutions, there’s this desire to retain control wherever we can find it,” she says.

chrisdinn 6y ago

As someone who buys almost all my produce from local farmers to eat, preserve, & ferment I totally agree with this. It’s not a good way to save money, really. Maybe a little but only if you are careful to avoid wasted produce, and that kinda ruins the fun. Industrial food supply chain is truly very efficient, probably thanks to scale. You should still do it though, if you can (eg have access to real farmers and enough time). It’s very spiritually rewarding and helps to build communities. Farmers make more per pound at the farm stand and you pay less. It generates less landfill waste and, not sure how to explain it, but it’s very rewarding labor. I’m headed to the farm stand right now to get some broccoli and brussels sprouts, fresh from the field, to freeze and eat in the spring.

dangrossman 6y ago

I was looking for flour and yeast back in the spring because there was no bread on the shelf in my supermarket, not because I wanted to take up a new hobby. Luckily the bread hoarding or shortage or whatever it was didn't last too long.

ghaff 6y ago
Around where I live (NE US), the flour shortage seemed to last quite a bit longer than any bread shortage--at least for the type of semi-artisanal bread I tend to eat (i.e. made in house by supermarket and similar mid-volume producers). In fact, I'm not sure I ever had much trouble buying bread. But flour, especially of my preferred brand, took a good couple months to get back in stock.
Cerium 6y ago
The reason I, and I suppose so many other people took up bread making was because it was an interest that was limited by available time in the house. I used to rarely make the bread I wanted because I'm not home enough on a weekday and on a weekend I am too active to make sure I can tend the dough. Now taking a break at 3 to start some dough for dinner is an easy reality.

pmoriarty 6y ago

What you're going to miss out by buying your preserved goods is assurance of quality and variety. There are a lot of deceptive labeling practices in the food industry. Things like an ingredient list that says your food contains "natural flavors" without saying what they are, or not having an ingredient list at all. When ingredients are listed it's common not to have quantities listed, and virtually never do you see any account of the sources of those ingredients. Of course there's no way to tell whether they're telling the truth either, and no way to know how the food was prepared or how sanitary the preparation or ingredients were, what mistakes or accidents happened during the manufacture, etc. As to variety, there is usually not very much variety at all in preserved goods at the grocery store. Pickled or fermented goods are packaged at the time of the manufacturer's choosing, so you really have almost no choice as to what stage of ripeness or what flavor the product is to have. Compare this with preserving your own food, where you have complete control over and knowledge of the ingredients, source of the ingredients, method of preparation, flavor, degree of ripeness, and virtually everything else. You can completely customize everything to your needs and desires, and don't have to settle for whatever the manufacturer chooses to give you. It really opens up a whole world of possibilities that store bought food just doesn't offer.

mumblemumble 6y ago
Sure, but I don't see how any of that challenges the point I was making about TFA's explanation for people's sudden interest in canning jars being implausible. Sure, there's a lot to be said for making things yourself. But people who are hunkering down for economic hard times are not going to suddenly become interested in spending more money on higher quality food. Doing just the opposite of that is more likely.
- kyubey 6y ago
  The people who are doing it to hunker down for hard times are the people that would go to every grocery store for miles during the first few months of COVID and find that each store had been entirely bought out of canned goods. That was reality for many rural areas for a while when all this started.

NateEag 6y ago

It's probably not cheaper to process your own fruit and veg. The quality can be hugely higher, though - my wife's applesauce is the best I've ever had, and consistently so. If you live in an area with local agriculture, it can probably make you more resilient against supply chain failures, too (as long as you keep a good stock of lids on hand).

gambiting 6y ago
>>The quality can be hugely higher, though - my wife's applesauce is the best I've ever had, and consistently so. I wonder if it's simply because she can put more sugar in that any store bought brand. Over here the law limits both the amount of sugar and salt that products can have, so sure, I can make tastier things at home by just using the "proper" sugar and salt amounts. In fact most store bought things are hugely improved by just adding a bit of salt, since they are not allowed to salt them more by law. Most likely not the healthiest thing to do but that's where the taste difference comes from for me.
- ghaff 6y ago
  That's sort of funny because in the US, I'd have said the more common issue would be an excess of sugar and salt over the what's really required for preservation and taste.
  - Stratoscope 6y ago
    That was my feeling too. The applesauce I buy is from Trader Joe's, and it has exactly one ingredient: organic apples. It's easy to add more sweetness if I want, for example if I mix it with unsweetened plain nonfat yogurt then I will add a bit of maple syrup too - yum! Same for other similar products. Most fruit jams are way too sweet for my taste. The excessive sugar is probably required by law in order to be called "jam" - yuck! There are some "fruit sweetened" spreads that are sweetened with grape juice, but then the grape dominates the flavor. We used to be able to get Kozlowski Farms fruit spreads that were sweetened with apple juice - a much better pairing for berries. I haven't seen them in a while locally though.

im3w1l 6y ago

One thing that Factorio drilled into me was compression. It's easier (=cheaper) to transport compact processed goods than bulky raw materials. In the real world, shelf stability is also important, it allows cheap-but-slow modes of transportation.

jfim 6y ago
Keep in mind that shelf stability refers to the food safety of the product, not its quality. One of my friends used to work at a candy factory, and the difference between freshly made gummy bears and the ones picked at retail (that have been sitting in a warehouse and on shelves for a few months) is very large. One of them is filled to the brim with flavor, while the other one is much less flavorful and drier. They're both edible and safe to eat, mind you, but it was much better to get fresh ones. Or not eat candy at all.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
  I think it's like being a native american that has never have been exposed to christianity. Why spoil something you don't truly want to know that could alter your worldview haha! edit: I was referring to this joke/quote https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/annie_dillard_131195 https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/annie_dillard_131195

chiph 6y ago

The other reason to home can was to time-shift your produce. Fruits & veggies ripen at certain times of the year (pumpkin in the fall, for example) and if you want to enjoy some later you'll need to have some stored away, because fast global produce transport didn't exist yet. Something I was surprised to see is in short supply is playing cards.

MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago

This is it exactly. Some bourgeoisie yuppie needed to find a new hobby so they started doing this and play pretend that it's somehow a new trendy way to save money. My mother cans food all the time. Not because it's cheaper though. She does it because it's homemade stuff and she can give them away as gifts. These bored people forget the cost of electricity to heat water that seals cans, the jars upfront costs, the pressure cooker for the canning, and proper storage. I won't be shocked if these people try turning it into another lululemon type of deal and make another pyramid scheme to not lean into.

NoOneNew 6y ago

Dude, canning is a lot like cooking. You get to make exactly what you want instead of being at the whim of someone else's choices thousands of miles away. There are still people who like doing for themselves. I know it's hard to imagine, but even in this day and age, people still like being able to wipe their own ass.

grossvogel 6y ago

I thought the article was pretty careful to attribute the rise of canning more to psychological factors than to household budgets: In times of economic insecurity like the last recession in 2009, when McClellan started her Food in Jars blog, people turned to canning to soothe their fears, and mason jar sales took off. ... “When there are these big downfalls of trust in systems of government or economy or institutions, there’s this desire to retain control wherever we can find it,” she says.