Nation Experiences Pandemic-Fueled
Mason Jar Shortage
InsideHook,
by
Tobias Carroll
Original Article
Posted By: StormCnter,
10/11/2020 10:32:23 AM
For plenty of people across the United States, the pandemic has prompted a resurgence in cooking at home more and experimenting with food preparation in general. For a number of home cooks, that has ended up involving the purchase of plenty of Mason jars — some for cooking, some for storage and others for preservation. And that, in turn, has led to a nationwide Mason jar shortage.
It’s not the most unpleasant side effect of the pandemic by a long shot, but neither is it minor:
Reply 1 - Posted by:
NorthernDog 10/11/2020 10:37:29 AM (No. 569127)
Let's hope cases of Botulism don't follow. Improperly preserved foods can be deadly if not done correctly.
4 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/11/2020 10:45:27 AM (No. 569134)
What #1 said. Home food preservation is more about science than art.
And the writer sayt the Mason jars are used for cooking as well as storage and preservation. What and how does one cook with Mason jars?
Fluff filler on a Sunday from a guy who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Carroll is a free lance writer who’ll write anything they pay him for.
5 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
Kate318 10/11/2020 11:43:49 AM (No. 569189)
Maybe the author is separating the cooking part of preservation, from the storage part, #2? I don’t know that much about preserving food, either, but adding “cooking” to the dilemma makes it sound more dire, doesn’t it? Perhaps, I’ve just become too cynical, apropos the times. I will say that herbalists use mason jars quite a bit when making medicinal tinctures, glycerides, syrups, lineaments, etc., but only for the storage part of the process.
2 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
padiva 10/11/2020 12:12:17 PM (No. 569223)
The Mason jar makers are now learning code.
5 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
JL80863 10/11/2020 12:35:53 PM (No. 569252)
Thousands of Americans have taken steps to become more self reliant. The pandemic has given them the time and motivation to learn to learn how to preserve foods using water bath and pressure canning. It is not difficult but directions and precautions must be followed just like coutless other adult skills.
6 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
mackrand 10/11/2020 12:43:50 PM (No. 569260)
Sometimes posters here appear to not have any real world experience at all.
I have to tell you first is that a family cook takes it as a personal failing to have any canned stuff “spoil” !! Personal observation of a person canning is what I would imagine a “gene” manipulator doing as part of their experiment. For example, boiling and sterilizing the mason jars, the lids, and the rings. Taking extreme care to prepare the food to be canned and capping the process, making it a process under very careful control. That means making sure the pressure cooker is primed and cooking before starting the timer.
Millions of cooks taking care in the process is what it is all about. Unease when contemplating the family food supply and thinking about Venezuela and other socialist countries where even the basic canning supplies, much less extra food to can, is simply not available. Americans see what is happening and just like guns and ammo, canning food for the future just makes sense.
I wouldn’t worry much about botulism, as one poster opines about. Worry about that extreme socialist pair running for the presidential team and making sure they do not disrupt our lives to the point of not being able to “Can” !!!
11 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 10/11/2020 12:45:39 PM (No. 569264)
I would suggest that people try Amazon for restocking their supplies for preservation. The lids it seems to me are probably the hardest to keep in stock for yourself. I do know there are reusable lids out there right now, but I have never tried them.
3 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
chumley 10/11/2020 12:54:44 PM (No. 569269)
Its gotten so bad my local moonshiner is asking people to return their empties.
8 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
hurricanegirl 10/11/2020 1:16:06 PM (No. 569286)
As for "cooking" in Mason jars, yes, you can. For example, I've made cheese cake in Mason jars before, and I'm sure there are many other recipes.
By the way, there's this handy thing called a "search engine," and when used, it can make you look like a genius--rather than the opposite, which is what some of you are looking like today.
5 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
ramona 10/11/2020 1:46:26 PM (No. 569317)
How many of you had to stand in the pantry, waiting to count the number of lids that "popped" on the Mason jars filled with home-grown produce after they came out of the hot bath?
Ramona (the Pest)
6 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
bighambone 10/11/2020 1:57:38 PM (No. 569326)
Besides the jars and lids being in short supply, so are the spices that usually are used in canning foods and sauces.
2 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/11/2020 2:54:29 PM (No. 569401)
Granddaughter of, daughter of, niece of multiple canners and a former canner myself. All of those smart, talented women who went before me taught me well about the danger of botulism. Don’t pooh pooh those who know.
As for Tobias, if you read his mini-article you will find it’s something he picked up from CNN and thought “I can sell a little piece on that.”
Cooking in Mason jars makes no sense unless one is a microwave cooker and must not use metal. I am not. I have done wonderful Hollywood Bowl picnics when chilled gazpacho in Mason jars accompanied homemade fried chicken in baskets, but that too is ancient history. An alcoholic bachelor I once knew liked Mason jars for his bar glasses as they held nice big drinks.
5 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
DVC 10/11/2020 3:02:37 PM (No. 569409)
IMO, this is a good thing. Anyone who has planted much of a garden knows that preservation is needed, you will essentially always have way too much at one time.
#1, botulism is very rare, mostly from canning meats, which is relatively rarely done. Most folks put up tomatoes, pickles and similar items which due to acidity, or jams and jellies which due to high sugar content, are hard to mess up.
Canning is very safe if you can read, follow directions and if you avoid canning meat. Canning meat can be done safely, but requires care to get the jars properly up to the right temp, and care to be certain that they are sealed. A pressure canner is generally used, raises temps higher.
1 person likes this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
BirdsNest 10/11/2020 3:02:58 PM (No. 569410)
I am a cancer. Finding jars is nearly impossible. I did score some lids at 2 WalMarts. Bought them all. Some months I jar over 200 various size jars of relishes,jams,jellies and conserves. I have a network of friends that go to yard sales and thrift stores and buy jars for me. If I give you a jar of jam, I expect you to return the jar to me or NO MORE goodies will come your way. House Rules.
7 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
BirdsNest 10/11/2020 3:04:01 PM (No. 569413)
Sorry for the second post...my spell check changed canner to cancer.
4 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Timber Queen 10/11/2020 3:32:07 PM (No. 569439)
I just found out about the shortage personally last week. I scoured both the towns south and north of us and not a mason jar to be found. A friend in L.A. is not canning this year and she's going to mail me a dozen on Monday. Although I'm inconvenienced, I agree that the more Americans that become self-sufficient is a "good thing" as Martha Stewart would say.
3 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/11/2020 4:10:07 PM (No. 569476)
Meats and vegetables are problematic. If you don’t pressure can, forget about them.
Here is as good a guide as I’ve seen.
https://extension.umn.edu/sanitation-and-illness/botulism-take-care-when-canning-low-acid-foods
0 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
anniebc 10/11/2020 5:43:13 PM (No. 569562)
I was looking for some really good jars--the ones that have clamps and the rubber/silicone gadget--for my homemade sugar and salt scrubs that include dried orange and grapefruit zest; those things are hard to find too. I have one really good one, but I have no idea where I got it. Amazon has a lot of versions, but not all of them are created equal; I need to see before buying. Mason jars are completely missing from the shelves.
1 person likes this.
Oh great. Now they will be going from one store to another to buy them up to resell online.
If you don't know what you are doing and those caps don't pop, you can get very sick.
0 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
Goose 10/12/2020 7:27:05 AM (No. 569921)
First, toilet paper. Now mason jars. Oh, the huge manatee!
0 people like this.
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