Issues of safety have been coming to mind over these past few weeks while I have been filling my cupboards with all sorts of jams, sauces, preserves, pickles and so forth. Of course, when it comes to food hygiene I am from a food background and there are stories I can tell!! LOL
So, down to the basics - what do I really think and believe about food safety and all of this anti-bacterial, highly sterilized stuff that we are supposed to eat? Not a whole lot. For instance I do not feel it is proper or right to drink sterilized, chemically treated water... and the list just goes on from there, I can assure you.
All of the attention paid to using anti-bacterial soap, dish liquids, even clothes (socks etc.) is doing far more harm then good. These are not necessary in the kitchen or anywhere else for that matter. We are living beings, that means inside as well as outside - when you deliberately kill off these organisms, on our bodies and in our food chain - disaster results.
Our bodies, hands, skin, guts, and everywhere else is supposed to be ALIVE with bugs (that means bacterial colonies) to enable our immune systems to function properly as well as digest our food, make vitamins, essential fatty acids, participate in removal of toxins, keep inflammation in check and play a role in recovery and repair.
Now does that sound like something you must eliminate at all costs from your body, food and life? Without these little critters, there would be no life.
To get back to our food, I have seen things that would make your hair stand on end - perhaps another time, I will tell some stories from the food industry. However, suffice it to say, a lot of this resistance that I have been experiencing (energy that is not my own) has been focused on issues of food safety.
And I am tackling them one at a time while I continue on with my glorious journey into creating my own homemade foods. Food that we cook ourselves is perfectly safe - of course, we are not idiots, some things must be cooked, surfaces need to be clean (hot water and soap works for me), I do sterilize my jars and process my preserves according to instructions.
However, there also comes a time to be reasonable as well. For instance, yesterday I mulled over what to do with the 2 jars of jam that did not seal. I know that they will keep perfectly well in the fridge for a few weeks, but I didn't want too many jars in there either.
When I went online to read up on re-processing the jams to see if they would re-seal, the amount of FEAR that I encountered in peoples' comments was astounding. You can't do that, you mustn't do this, the jam will go off, the jar is no longer sterile, there is risk, this is a food hazard blah blah.
It would have been laughable if it wasn't so sad. These same people were sterilizing their jars with bleach, had jams with twice as much sugar as fruit, were using paraffin wax in their sealing and treated tap water to cook their produce - they had all bought into the food safety scare mongering.
But, with not a clue that the chemicals in bleach, water, and wax and of course sugar are far more toxic! There was one lone voice amongst the melee, an elderly woman who mentioned that she had been making jam for many years and of course as long as you follow the procedure of canning, there is no problem.
I wanted to bring this up for one main reason - the jams that I have been making at home are lasting far longer then the ones (superior quality) that we used to buy at the shops. The only reason I can put forward at this point, after having made quite a few jars myself, is that I am using ripe organic healthy fruit, no preservative, sweetener or pectin, with clean (living) water....
I have a feeling this plays a far larger role in our food chain then anyone would want us to think.
Have a healthy day,
April
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| Coriander seeds coming up |
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