Home Cook’s Guide Safety Rating = Don’t eat this!
This is a question I get all the time. You stumble across your grandmother’s stash of home-made preserves from the 80’s and don’t want to waste them. She made the best canned peaches….
In theory, a properly processed hermetically sealed jar is sterile and cannot grow any bacteria that would cause spoilage, and therefore should be safe to eat indefinitely. If I was in a survival situation, I would probably consider these a good option (after careful inspection). However, I think it’s safe to assume that as you are reading a blog post you are not in a survival situation and there’s a number of things that make these old preserves somewhat risky. And this risk just isn’t worth taking.
You don’t know if it was processes long enough.
If it was not processed long enough during the canning process, there could be food spoilage bacteria and yeasts in there causing all sorts of problems. Some people can things by adding a hot brine or syrup to cold packed produce, putting the lid on, and flipping the jar upside down. This is not a recommended method and it’s not sufficient heating to kill all micro-organisms. Do you know how long these jars were processed for? Probably not. Don’t risk it.
Re-Used lids aren’t dependable
Back in the day, it was very common to reuse canning lids. Even lids not intended for home canning as the picture shows. This is not a recommended practice today. You may be able to get away with it once or twice but that’s just a chance your taking and the probability of the seal degrading overtime, especially with drastic heat fluctuations (as there are in garages) increases with every month the preserve sits around.
High Acid or Low Acid? Water-Bath or Pressure Canned?
Is this a high acid preserve or a low acid preserve like green beans in water or beef stew? If its low acid, did granny use a pressure canner? If you don’t know, definitely don’t eat these. If you can’t tell if those green beans are in water or a vinegar solution, don’t eat these. It used to be common to can low-acid foods in hot water canners and then the preserved vegetables, stew or sauces were boiled for 10 minutes before eating to destroy any of the deadly botulism toxin that might be present in the canned goods. Do you want to eat canned green beans boiled for 10 minutes? No thank you!
Botulism is scary.
Clostridium Botulinum is one of those bacteria that I have literally lost sleep over. I’ve done a lot of research about botulism poisoning and how to avoid it. Studies I have found suggest you can destroy the toxin by heating the product to 170 F for 10 minutes. Magnus Nilsson, renowned Swedish chef (who I love) in his book Faviken has a section for “Pasteurization” by water-bath processing in which he recommends heating non-acidic preserves to 175 F to make them safe from clostridium botulinum. No disrespect to my man Magnus, but I would not do this unless I was in a survival situation. I would be too paranoid that my husband or kid wouldn’t know that the product needed special heating and would accidentally be poisoned to death. That being said if you are going to mess around with water-bath canned low acid foods, make sure your thermometer is accurate or boil the hell out of it.
Even if the preserves are safe, it’s just not worth it.
Over times vitamins, color and cell structures break down making the product of poor quality. After 10, 20, 30 years, these are definitely going to be a let down if you do eat them.
What is the shelf life of home canned foods?
Typically 1-2 years. I’ll generally eat them up to 5 years old so long as the seal is unbroken, nothing looks suspicious and they were in a fairly controlled environment. The quality is best when kept in a cool dark place with consistent year round temperatures.
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