Talking FACS
Host: Dr. Jennifer Hunter, Assistant Director for Family and Consumer Sciences Extension, University of Kentucky
Guest: Annhall Norris, Extension Specialist for Food Safety and Preservation
Episode 10, Season 3
0:01 Welcome to Talking FACS; what you need to know about family, food, finance and fitness. Hosted by the University of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Program. Our educators share research knowledge with individuals, families and communities to improve quality of life.
00:20 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Hello and welcome to Talking FACS. This is your host, Dr. Jennifer Hunter, Assistant Director for Family and Consumer Sciences Extension at the University of Kentucky.
Today, I'm pleased to be joined by Annhall Norris, our Extension Specialist for Food Safety and Food Preservation. Welcome Annhall.
00:37 Annhall Norris: Thanks, Jennifer.
00:38 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Annhall, I love having you here because you often serve as our myth buster when it comes to food preservation and food safety. Today we are going to talk about oven canning, which I think is one of those topics that maybe has gained some publicity this year on social media. I just want to start by asking the basics. What is oven canning?
1:06 Annhall Norris: Well, it's basically just what the name says. It is an older concept, it is unsafe, and you're right, it has found recent popularity on social media. I think that part of that is because canning is so popular this year.
Everybody has gone out and bought boiling water bath canners and pressure canners, so they're hard to find right now. People are putting food in their oven thinking that it's actually being canned. You and I know that canning is a method of preserving food; it's not just cooking food.
To get back to your question, oven canning is filling glass mason jars with food, either cooked or uncooked, putting that food in a warm oven for an hour or longer, and then once the food has cooked you put the lids on and put it on the counter and allow it to form a seal. Of course, that jar will seal.
1:58 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: When you're talking about food, you’re just talking about random food; are you talking about fruits and vegetables; things that people would normally put in their water bath or pressure canner?
2:08 Annhall Norris: I have heard it both ways. The question I have gotten most frequently is about green beans and corn. They want to put their green beans in there, put the oven on 300oF or so, let it sit for a couple of hours and then bring it out and let it cool.
I've also had people ask me if they could do that with spaghetti; pasta and meat sauce, cooked and put in a jar, so then they would have their own kind of canned Chef Boyardee. That’s really not canning that product; you're actually just baking that food in that jar. You can't just let it sit out at room temperature; it hasn't been preserved at all.
But I mostly hear (this) with vegetables. People are trying to can their vegetables in the oven, as opposed to using a pressure canner.
2:55 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Is there any type of research-base to oven canning at all?
3:00 Annhall Norris: No, it isn't a research-based method. What we do know from research is that you need moist heat when you're canning in order to preserve that food.
Moist heat gets hot. You can get it to 212oF in a boiling water bath canner, and the steam inside that pressure canner allows you to get to 240oF. Just because you turn your oven on 300oF or 350oF, it doesn't mean that the food inside that jar has actually gotten to 300oF or 350oF.
You can stick your arm inside the oven when you open the door when it's set on 350oF and it's safe for your arm to be in there. Dry heat does not preserve food like moist heat, that’s what science tells us. We don't have any research proving that this is a safe method to preserve food; we have research saying that it is not safe to preserve food.
3:55 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: I've also seen on social media about folks wanting to can things like flour or pinto beans to make them last longer. Is this the same type thing?
4:08 Annhall Norris: It is the same type of concept. That’s called dry canning, you're still using the oven, but you're taking food that is already dried so it's already been preserved. It’s had the water removed, for the most part.
They're (canning) flour, pasta, pinto beans, and oats. They're taking them out of the original package, putting it in a glass mason jar, and then putting it in the oven with the lid on it. Then as they pull it out of the oven, it forms a seal.
But what they're actually doing, and this is research-based why it's unsafe to do this, is that all of those dried foods still naturally contain a little bit of moisture. When you heat that food up in the oven, it brings that moisture to the surface and that could allow mold growth or bacteria growth. So you have actually taken a preserved food, put it in a jar, introduced some moisture to it, and you're making it unsafe.
A better way, if you want to keep your beans or your pasta your oats longer, is you can still put it in a glass jar, just don't put it in the oven and warm it up and bring any of the natural moisture (that’s) still in it to the surface because that can allow for bacterial growth.
5:21 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Annhall, thank you so much for helping us sort through what is fact and what is fiction when it comes to oven canning or dry canning.
Like you say, I think that it's just gained popularity this year and there's a shortage of supplies so folks might be kind of reaching to figure out new and different ways for food preservation. But really and truly we need to stick to the traditional methods of using our pressure canner or our water bath canner for the appropriate product, when we're talking about preserving our food in glass jars.
5:57 Annhall Norris: That's correct. Thanks, Jennifer, I could not have said it better.
6:00 Dr. Jennifer Hunter: Excellent. I was paying attention. Thanks so much Annhall.
6:04 Annhall Norris: Okay.
6:06 Thank you for listening to Talking FACS. We deliver programs focusing on nutrition, health, resource management, family development and civic engagement.
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Visit us online at fcs.uky.edu to learn more about the University of Kentucky Family and Consumer Sciences Extension program or contact your local extension agent for Family and Consumer Sciences. We build strong families. It starts with us.