links for 2009-10-26

  • The Ball, Kerr, Golden Harvest, and Bernardin brand canning jar lids are coated with bisphenol A, Organic Gardening magazine reports. D'oh. (All four brands are owned by Jarden Home Brands.) The solution is to switch to glass-lidded containers, such as those made by Weck…but at $3.25 per 3/4 liter jar, that could get expensive quickly. We've got enough Ball jars to can for a small army. I think I'll hold out for a BPA-free traditional-style canning lid.
    (tags: bpa health food)
  • The source code to today's xkcd is giving me flashbacks to 1996. The whole of the web used to look like this. It was awful. But not at the time. At the time, it was THE FUTURE(tm).

Published by Waldo Jaquith

Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Char­lottes­­ville, VA, USA. more »

5 replies on “links for 2009-10-26”

  1. That’s the only way to can, unless you own a factory. :) Canning is the process of heating up jars, filling them with whatever you care to preserve, putting a lid on, and then boiling the jars again. Once they cool, the air in the jars contracts, which sucks down the top of the safety lids (providing a satisfying popping noise). Goods canned at home are stored in jars in this manner.

  2. Well there goes all the work I put into organic canning this year. Dang. Time to hit up tag sales for the old-style glass jars with the glass tops than use the metal latch to fold them down. I’ll miss the satisfying plunk sound of the metal tops popping inward during cooling, now I’ll have to find another way of ensuring that a vacuum is present for air-tight integrity.

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