Ongoing research

Low acidity, a lack of oxygen, moisture and moderate temperatures are a perfect storm for toxin production.   Home canning is about more than creating a quality, shelf-stable product. When it really comes down to it, the home canning process is about making a safe product. That goal entails…

Storage guidelines for homemade and commercial pies.  Whether you’re cranking out all the pies for the winter holidays (and are then faced with the question of where to keep them all), or you are making a single beautiful pie to bring to a hot summer gathering, keep your pies food safe with these…

It's easy to replace a portion of sugar with honey. Whether you want to use less refined sugar, don’t have quite the amount of sugar called for in a recipe,  or just would like to add the flavor of honey in your preserved fruit products, it’s very easy to substitute a portion of the sugar for honey…

Keep your canned fruit looking light and fresh. Many light-colored fruits, as well as the stem-ends of cherries and grapes, can discolor and darken when exposed to oxygen. To retain good color and flavor when canning fruit, use high-quality fruit at the proper maturity, and place prepared (peeled,…

There are no safe methods for home canning pumpkin butter. Pumpkin butter is a delicious autumn fruit spread that many folks love to preserve and sometimes give as gifts for the holidays. While canning pumpkin butter was once common, decades ago scientific studies found safety issues with the home…

Proper handling and preparation of eggs are important for safety.  Eggs are a wonderful, nutritious food that come so conveniently packaged in their own individual shells. But raw eggs can harbor Salmonella – both on the shell itself and inside the egg, too. Egg shells can be contaminated from…

Be safe when handling raw flour Flour is, generally speaking, a raw agricultural product which has not undergone any treatment to kill pathogenic bacteria – such as E. coli and Salmonella – that can cause foodborne illness.  Several disease outbreaks associated with flour and flour products …

A warm March followed by rain in April and May in many parts of California has set up the perfect conditions for the development of an unsightly and damaging tree disease called fire blight. Pome fruit trees like pear and apple, and other related trees like pyracantha, are all susceptible to this bacterial…