Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Follow up for butter canning

Thanks for the great questions ladies. Here's the Q&A on the butter canning:

Q: Why would you can butter if you can freeze it?
A: The purpose in going to the trouble of canning butter is to add to your food storage in the event of the following types of emergencies/situations:

  • Job loss- butter can be expensive, it would be nice to have some on hand!
  • Oil freeze or super inflation!- trucks/transport vehicles wouldn't be able to get foods to stock grocery store shelves for a period of days, weeks etc?
  • Pandemic- what if you were confined to your home for weeks to months?
  • Natural disaster- no power (again probably no food in stores for periods of time)
  • Evacuation- it would be nice to have portable food!
I don't count the food in my freezer as long term food storage, I use it in my rotating 3-9 month supply, so it fluctuates a lot. Something with a long shelf life would be far more valuable depending on the type of crisis that could occur.

If you canned butter once/year or every other year, you'd be in good shape for having some fats that you can cook with if the need arises. Fats are a great source of much needed calories in a food shortage and also you need them to cook with! But keep up on storing your oils too! I recommend & have) the following fats in my storage: canned butter, butter powder, oil, canned cheese, frozen butter, crisco.....

Q: More of a comment, butter that has melted & then "set" again has an undesirable texture- although the taste is okay.
A: Yes, that is true. However, butter that has melted or been caused to melt doesn't go through the same "shaking" process as outlined in the instructions. Doing this re-distributes the fats & solids so they don't separate and lose that texture, I know it's not perfect and nothing will have the same taste/consistency as fresh butter, but this is a great method and addresses that concern to some degree.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The canning of butter is extremely dangerous and should NEVER be done for home consumption. The National Center for Home Food Preservation at the University of Georgia-Atlanta says that it is not an acceptable way to preserve butter. You aren't "processing" the butter to kills the bacteria...you are only heating the jars to form a seal. This still allows botulism to grow and flourish in the butter....and because botulism is odorless, tasteless and colorless, it can be toxic to your family! Check out their website www.uga.edu/nchfp for more information.


I hope this information is helpful to you all. Keep up on your food storage, it truly is a lifelong commitment, so keep it up- every little bit helps!

1 comment:

Shelley said...

I just found your blog and as i was reading I noticed the blog about canning butter. The canning of butter is extremely dangerous and should NEVER be done for home consumption. The National Center for Home Food Preservation at the University of Georgia-Atlanta say that it is not an acceptable way to preserve butter. You aren't "processing" the butter to kills the bacteria...you are only heating the jars to form a seal. This still allows botulism to grow and flourish in the butter....and because botulism is odorless, tasteless and colorless, it can be toxic to your family! Check out their website www.uga.edu/nchfp for more information. You should also re-blog with the correct info. for liability reasons.

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