Why Preserving Food Can Save You a Ton of Money
Preserving food (canning food, freezing food) is massively green and eco friendly. It’s great for the environment, and it’s great for you too!
Yes, preserving food can take a little time, but it’s well worth it. Here’s why:
Keeps Money in Your Pocket
- You’re buying food when it is at its cheapest – when it’s in season. Whenever something is in abundance, the price comes down.
- You can buy in bulk for even more savings. Buy what you need for now, plus more to preserve, so you’ll get the best bulk price.
- Then when the produce is out-of-season, you’ll have it on hand and won’t have to spend any money on it at the supermarket, when the prices go up.
Better Nutritional Benefits
One of the best benefits associated with canning, bottling and freezing your own food is the fact that you know exactly what is in the jars. When you buy canned and frozen foods at the store, you don’t have this luxury.- If you want your food to be canned / bottled / frozen with less sugar or salt, you have the power to control just how much goes in the jars when you do it yourself.
- In addition, when you do it yourself, the processing time is a lot shorter as you don’t have to wait for it to make it to the supermarket’s shelves nor do you have to drive to the supermarket to pick it up!
- Foods that you can, bottle and freeze yourself don’t have any of the preservatives, artificial flavours and artificial colors of many products at the grocery store.
- You control the portion sizes.
- You also control the quality of the food that you preserve. You know where and how the food was preserved and who did it.
One of the best benefits associated with canning, bottling and freezing your own food is the fact that you know exactly what is in the jars. When you buy canned and frozen foods at the store, you don’t have this luxury.Toxin-Free Packaging
- Glass jars are often used to preserve food, and glass is free from toxins – the same can’t be said for tins. Tins of tomatoes for example, have one of the highest levels of BPA in food, from the chemical that is used to line the tin.
Glass jars are often used to preserve food, and glass is free from toxins – the same can’t be said for tins. Tins of tomatoes for example, have one of the highest levels of BPA in food, from the chemical that is used to line the tin.No Wasteful Packaging
- Supermarkets and even some farmers markets use considerable amounts of plastic and polystyrene packaging on their fresh produce. When you buy in bulk you can often avoid wasteful, single-use packaging.
- Tinned goods (e.g. tins of tomatoes, tinned fruit) are single-use containers. The metal can be recycled, but it rarely is. Most of it goes to landfill.
- When you preserve food you generally use re-usable containers such as glass jars.
Reduce Food Miles
- Because people have become used to having fresh produce available throughout the year, food is shipped, flown or trucked around the country, adding to food miles and increasing carbon emissions and air pollution.
- If more of us preserve food, we’ll have abundance all year round, without needing all that transportation.
 Reduce Waste
- Whenever food is transported, there’s going to be waste. By preserving food in season, we reduce food waste.
- Once we get into the habit of preserving food, it becomes easier to just quickly make a plan if we’ve got food at home that we know we won’t eat soon. So there’s less food waste at home too.
Whenever food is transported, there’s going to be waste. By preserving food in season, we reduce food waste.Satisfaction
- There’s a certain amount of satisfaction in knowing you have the skills to preserve food yourself, especially if survival on that food ever becomes necessary.
- It’s also very satisfying to know that your home is stocked with good, nutritious food with no preservatives or additives or unknown substances.
It’s Good Year Around!
- It doesn’t matter when you get the notion to eat strawberry shortcake or whip up some fresh green beans with bacon.  When you can, bottle and freeze your own produce, you’ll have these items in stock no matter the season.
- If you want these items and others like them (tomatoes, corn, squash, etc.) in the colder months, you’re going to have to pay a pretty penny for them…and they won’t taste nearly as good as yours!
Great Christmas Gift Ideas
- A lot of people make their Christmas gifts while they’re preserving food in the summer months. For example, homemade jam and herbal vinegars are wonderful Christmas gifts to give to family and friends because they are inexpensive and usually well-received.
A lot of people make their Christmas gifts while they’re preserving food in the summer months. For example, homemade jam and herbal vinegars are wonderful Christmas gifts to give to family and friends because they are inexpensive and usually well-received.If you enjoyed this article, please Share it (buttons below) – thank you!
Freezing fresh fruit particularly is always a good idea in season. When I was growing up we would freeze kilograms of strawberries and raspberries in season as the season was very short which meant we could have them right throughout winter and early spring the following year. A few tricks though to getting it correct!