National Canned Food Month - a Look at Canned Foods

February is National Canned Food Month, and canned foods are certainly something to celebrate. Canned foods provide great nutrition at a very reasonable price, especially when the canned food is produce that is currently out of season. Canned foods also provide the convenience of pre-chopped items for the busy cook. Almost any food can be canned now, including fruits, vegetables, juices, chicken, tuna, oysters, soups, stews, and meats. While many people associate canned foods with the casseroles of the 1950s, canning actually began about two hundred years earlier in France.
During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon Bonaparte offered a cash prize to anyone who could develop a consistent method for food preservation to feed his troops. Nicholas Appert came up with the idea of preserving food in bottles, much the way that vineyards bottled wine. After much experimentation, he found that food could be heated to a sufficient heat and sealed in airtight containers to prevent spoilage. While this was sufficient for food preservation, Appert was using glass containers that did not travel well because they were breakable. Peter Durand, an Englishman, developed a method of sealing food in tin containers that were unbreakable, and two other Englishmen perfected his process and established the first canning factory in England in 1813. Campbell's, one of the most widely recognized providers of canned goods, was founded in 1869, and in 1896 John T. Dorrance came up with a method of condensing soup by halving the amount of water in the soups then canning them.

One benefit of canned foods is that they maintain their quality for long periods of time. Once cans are sealed, the food inside them is safe to eat for over two years as long as the cans are not damaged. Additionally, most canned foods are packed at their peak freshness because canning facilities are usually located within a few miles of the harvest. This location also helps cut down on the cost of canned foods as transportation costs before packaging are kept relatively low. Furthermore, because foods are canned at their freshest, they are also at their nutritional peak. This means that often canned fruits and vegetables have more nutrients than their fresh counterparts.

Because of their long life, canned foods are a perfect donation to local food banks to help feed the hungry. Often churches, Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops, and schools host canned food drives to gather nonperishable items for local food banks. Additionally, Feeding America (www.feedingamerica.org) provides a search tool to find local food banks to donate directly.

Because of their long shelf life, canned foods have become staples in almost all American kitchens. One website, Mealtime.org (www.mealtime.org), has a searchable database full of recipes using canned items. Canned items can be kept in the pantry for a long time, meaning that all the ingredients for a quick meal are often already in your house. One favorite is six can chicken tortilla soup. This delicious favorite is made by simply dumping 1 (15 ounce) can of corn, 2 (14 ounce) cans of chicken broth, 1 (10 ounce) can chunk chicken, 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, and 1 drained (10 ounce) can diced tomatoes with green chiles into a pot and heating them up. If you use low sodium canned goods, this is even a healthy, low fat meal!

Home Canning

Canned goods have sometimes been snubbed by cooks as lesser quality. However, these items are often as good, or better than, fresh counterparts. Give canned foods a try to prepare quick, easy, and delicious meals while lowering your monthly grocery bill considerably.

Citations:
Campbell's Soup, "History." CSC Brands, LP.
James T. Ehler, "About Canned Food: Whence It Came: The History of Canning." FoodReference.com.