Sunday, April 15, 2012

Trying to be healthier...we shall see

The last few months I have been thinking more and more about what we put into our bodies in the Pittman house.  With Sarah having to check her blood sugar constantly and us needing to constantly keep a log of her carbs etc. I find myself reading the labels of all of the food that we consume. This new found review of nutrition labels told me that we were putting way too darn much crap into our bodies. 

Years ago I used to can food at home.  Fruits and Vegetables galore.  I loved doing it. But it is a time consuming process and can be a costly start up.  Jars cost between 10-15 dollars for a dozen (they usually come with the lids and rings) and then you keep reusing the jars and rings but have to buy lid's each time. It's just not worth reusing the rings as it's a safety hazard.  You will also need a pressure canner (Water boils at 212 degrees,  it is impossible to kill the bacteria etc with just a water bath canner (how they did it in the older generations and please remember, many families were wiped out because of botulism etc so use a pressure canner.)  Now you can use a water bath canner for things like tomato's and high acid foods  I have not yet done this as I've not seen tomato's and things like that on sale enough that I want to do my own salsa...but that's coming.  Because nothing tastes better than home made salsa!

My oldest daughter Ashley and I started out with potato's which are incredably simple.  We measured out and got everything right.  And we now have over 24 jar's of yellow and red potato's.  We then moved on to carrots which were easy as can be.  Tonight we are doing Beans.  You can call them refried beans however because of how thick refried beans are we do not yet mash the beans until we are ready to use them however once they are done and canned, they are ready to eat out of the jar if you want..but I like them mashed.  For now they are just Pinto Beans with lot's of seasoning.  We added garlic, onions and a little taco seasoning.  That way once we get them out of the jar...they are ready to be mashed and eaten...YUMMY!

This summer as new foods come into season and are available, I plan on canning more of the foods we as a family eat a lot of.  Potato's are not unhealthy per se but I found that we as a family ate a lot of dried potato's and boxed potato's.  This way we just open the jar and drain the water off and either heat them up to mash them or toss them in a frying pan to fry. or toss them in a roasting pan to roast (heat up because they are already cooked I mean)