History of Water Bath Canning Low-Acid Foods
Canning has been around for a long time and we didn’t always have the recommendations of pressure canning low-acid foods.
In 1917, the USDA started the recommendation of using a pressure canner for low-acid foods. Probably due to cost of a pressure canner, people often still water bath canned low-acid foods.
Even canning cookbooks from big names such as Ball/Kerr didn’t start to really force the recommendation of pressure canning until about the 1980’s (we couldn’t pinpoint the exact year, but we know of cookbooks in the late 1970’s that still had water bath conversion charts). These cookbook instructions also noted that you should boil the contents of your water bathed, low-acid jars for 10-15 minutes before consuming (this kills botulism that may have formed).
To this day, people still water bath can low-acid foods and people in other countries still use various other methods of home food preservation passed down from generations.
