Ball, Kerr and other mason jars that are found easily and cheap in US are hard to come by under 10-15x the price here and if one wants reuseable jars I only found weck to be the ’best’ option
It would be nice to find lids or ring/lids for regular glass jars out of supermarkets that are easily avaliable but I have not found any, the closest chepest is to buy new honey jars. For some reason those are pretty cheap.
Tom, finding people who grow pure numerous vegetables, fruits, berries, wheat, sunflowers, herbs and more – will mean a nightmarish task! And where is the guarantee that for money a lot of these people will not want to produce more products called “clean”? Even a billionaire will have to spend too much time doing this. Who can I trust to feed my family? And how do you know that the food is clean?
Cancer has already been recognized as an environmental disease. It’s what we eat, what we drink, what we breathe, (even what we mostly think about). Oncology is already mowing down newborns, although some 40-50 years ago it was a disease mainly of the elderly.
In fact, there is only one option – to learn how to grow all the food yourself! We need our own land. But besides the fact that we need the cultivation technologies themselves without numerous poisons, we need own technique (try to remove and thresh your wheat crop for bread and pasta, or sunflower for oil). And after we will need knowledge and equipment on how to save it all until the next harvest.
Growing a wide range of food on your land is one of the most interesting tasks you can imagine. And it must be solved if you seriously expect to continue your kind on Earth.
Ivan Ovsinsky grew food without chemicals. 1890. After him was Edward Faulkner. 1943. We have someone to learn from!
As a universal car, you can take a frame four-wheel drive SUV. And equip it with hydraulics and numerous attachments. Up to the mounted combine harvester.
Oh, the laurels of writing do not give me rest – someday I will take it up and write at least a small book on this exciting topic. 
the only way i could justify growing myself is if i could find a way to do it with minimal input from myself. with all the things i need to do, and want to do, growing my own food seems like it would consume a lot of time. maybe im wrong, maybe theres a method that im not considering that doesnt require me to constantly de-weed, fertilize, water and maintain every time i turn around. my father made me work on a little tomato garden and it was NON STOP hassle trying to keep bugs out, animals out, weeds out, pruning, and maintaining the growth.
it just always seemed like an obscene amount of effort compared to someone who had an optimized large scale growing operation who could make hundreds of thousands times more produce than i ever could with a fraction of the effort.
No way I could do more than a small salad garden when I was working Thomas and there were no week end markets with growers possibly providing non-polluted food. We were stuck with what was in the supermarkets. It was the economic collapse of 09 that folded my building business that forced me to reconsider my priorities and they came down to water, food, heat and power.
I have transitioned to JADAM methods for growing now Marat.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=jadam+organic+farming
I am no longer purchasing fertilizer or other amendments besides bone meal which I could produce myself. I don’t till so don’t need equipment. Normally I would do some hydroponics over the winter but this year I am well stocked from outdoor planting and I have other things I want to get accomplished, so I’m done until seed starting in Feb.
I’m just going to say this here. Don’t home-can food solely to save money. You won’t save money, once you factor in the energy costs, jar and lid costs, and even minimally value your own time. Grocery store cans are always going to come out ahead on price. If you want to save even more, look at buying bulk foods. Cans are actually the most expensive way to store preserved foods, look for dried and frozen alternatives (dry beans vs canned are 1/3 the price).
If you are doing it for health reasons, or for learning self-reliance skills, or a half-dozen other perfectly good reasons, that’s great. I agree with all that has been stated above on the better quality foods available both from farmers markets and home grown in the garden. That is why we can what food that we do. But it does come at a price, and it’s not one everybody can afford. Be realistic about how you spend your time. Home canning does NOT save money over store-bought.
Where you can save money and improve your health is by cutting out prepared foods. Buy potatoes not potato chips. Buy eggs and flour and butter, not canned biscuits and pancake mix. Learn to cook from good ingredients, and you will be much better off, save a ton of money, and still have time for a 40-hour job. Shift your diet from cheap tasty carbs into basic proteins like beef, eggs, beans. You will be shocked how much better you feel, just by simplifying what you eat.
Kent,
A long-time friend of Driveonwood, May he rest in peace!
Remembering Dr. Larry Winiarski | Aprovecho
Edit: This is the video I was looking for…
Well said Marat and ChrisKY.
Same-same of why we keep annual harvesting and heating with wood as grow some of our own produce. Still nurture chickens for our own eggs. Other choosing to have meat and milk animals too.
Thinking just in terms of cost savings is a trap. A trap they/them will use against you. To keep you dependent; weakened; and enslaved to them.
The benefits of doing these are multi-dimensional.
The European city-girl had parked her ass up in her bedroom all two days of the week end. “Studying”. Gaming online. She’d asked about local walking trails. Yes. A car trip 5 and 7 miles away. Wife had wanted to take her. “NO. Later. I am busy now.”
My Wife instead build by hand stacked rocks and cast off bricks some flowers planter beds in a dead unusable driveway corner:
And she is 69 with one hip been replaced.
And I helped the handyman replace out one utility room window.
Fall regrowth mowed the lawn. First had to disassemble the two yards hammocks and stands. Moved the pieces into winter storage up stairs into the shop loft. Six trips up and down on this old body. Gnawed away some more at the old deck tear-off wood pile. Power tools. Bending. Stretching. Stooping. Rough ground walking. Wheel barrels pushing.
So as much as anything to do your own wood . . . to grow your own garden . . . to have animal in your life is how you extend your life in years and the pleasure of learned; and retained; capabilities.
How I’ve lived my life. Like Marcuses now mantra; “Go Outside”, “Get Outside!”
The real world has you outside mornings, too cold. Afternoons; sunbaked, sweating. Evenings out doing and getting bug bit. Harvest-time; dawn to dusk processing.
Asked at the dinner table if her folks have grass yards. Yes. Have you ever mowed them? No. They use commercial robots. Ha! The Wife choked on her food hearing this. She hates robot vacuums. Makes you fat; dumb; and unhealthy not able to move and do needful or enjoyable things.
Use-it Or lose-it Steve Unruh
Me and her both. Mom has one for the livingroom/kitchen part of the house and I hate that thing. Always getting stuck, sucking up cords left on the ground or being jammed by a receipt paper that fell out of the garbage can. Terrifies the dogs and they’ll make a racket. Stoop down to empty it’s little dust bin. Just a headache.
I had the first generation, and that thing always got stuck on cords, under furniture. Then my sister got my mom a later version and i noticed that actually worked better… not flawless.
not all robotic lawnmowers use the random pattern like floor sweepers. Some of them you map out the area you want to cut, and it does it’s thing in that area with nice straight paths. They usually have some obstacle avoidance but hoses are hard to see from 6" not 6’ above the area. .
Yes, I’ve admired his work for a couple of decades. Never got a chance to meet him, but you can tell what’s important to people by where they invest their time.
Regarding the canning and preserving discussion, and maybe Dr. Larry also, saving time, effort, and money isn’t necessarily wrong, but also isn’t the most important consideration. Our 8 years of farmers market and market gardening wasn’t particularly quick, easy, or profitable, but it was something we had wanted to do for decades. We didn’t make a lot of money, but we got the opportunity to make a huge number of mistakes in a relatively short time. We didn’t do it because we had to, to survive. But if the time ever comes that we do have to, to survive, it will be great to have a lot of mistakes out of the way. The more we learn to do, the less we’re likely to worry, and my Boss has told me not to worry.
edit, addendum:
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. Philippians 4:6 NASB
Easy to understand, hard to do.
Anything premade, or convenience usually has a markup on it. junk food is the worst. Then probably fast food. Cutting out buying lunch is a huge money saver. I buy bisquits on sale, but I make pie crusts and freeze them.
Once you get some kitchen tools, it is a bit of time, and if you don’t mind eating leftovers… You make a decent dinner on sunday, watching football, and eat leftovers the rest of the week. Like grill chicken or a roast on sunday, then it again monday, then a small chicken salad with it on tuesday/wednesday. Then sandwiches on thursday and friday. maybe a quiche or enchiladas on saturday, etc. Then pork is on sale the next week so you get pork and do about the same thing.
What will probably keep you the healthiest, is you are only going to eat until you aren’t hungry because half the time you made something that doesn’t taste that good, but it is still edible. It keeps obesity away.
There are a couple of options, one is container gardening, the other is probably kratky hydroponics. Neither keep the bugs or animals out really but they eliminate a lot of weeding.
It is a pressure cooker like the insta pot for around 2 hours, to soften it, then you can grind it up in like a meat grinder. That is the alternative over boiling for like 12 hours to soften it. And I think bone meal was like 10 dollars a pound so you can save quite a bit of money if you already have bones. but I am sure you knew that already.
And if you hustle around, you might be able to find a deer processor willing to give you all the bones you want.
We have a Roomba, somewhere. Our son got two dogs, Newfoundlands. They’re big. They shed. The Roomba could do about 4 square feet (~0.5 square meter) per emptying. We now have a rug rake and an upright vacuum 
.
friends on DOW, do you know conserving in beer bottles? all stuff that remains more or less liquid can be used…we mostly for tomato sauce,…the lids are extremely cheap, ant there is a little machine, working with a hand lever, to fix them on the bottles…
this system was very common here, we do it since 35 years…
for someone this system is also e good excuse to drink more beer for collecting empty bottles…
actually the twist off lids for jars are not more good, not all keep thight, after one use they have just rust inside…asia stuff.
the old european ones we used a lot of years , always reusing the same lids, never were problems…this quality is not to find more
Not saying that anyone is wrong when it comes to pricing. But no matter the way i break the math down, its cheaper to can my own green beans by $1-$2 per quart jar
this assumes im using:
my pressure cooker that accommodates only 4 quart jars
$1.20 jars from walmart
10c/kwh for 90 minutes
water and pickling salt only come out to like .006 buying a 3lb bag from walmart
the beans per jar would only cost about .45-.60 based on th retail of bushels near me
and theres a ton of wiggle room here to adjust the value, i worked it on the higher end. it doesnt account for jar/ring reusability, and assumes the lid top would be one use, and doesnt take into account any bulk discount for any of the individual items, using cheaper fuels, or larger scaled canning method.
th only real cost i can see here is in personal time. which i dont see as a great way to measure it. because while a person could potentially make 100 dollars an hour doing something, that doesnt account for a persons “down time” has little value. otherwise it wouldnt be down time, you would be using it proactively.
if i were to use a hot water bath process and use the entirety of my stove i could potentially do batches of 16-40 quart jars at a time depending on the size of the pot. in a 6 hour period canning a potential 64-160 jars. this allots each batch at 90 minutes, even though the beans realistically only need 20-30 minutes in the water once hot. i added the extra to account for water heating and other prep time
so with a saving of between 1.29 to 2.04 per can that is a saved that is a potential for up to $326.40 including all costs in the 6 hour period. (but it could also be as low as 83.85 assuming you can 4 cars per burner on a normal stove on the low end)
NOW FULL DISCLOSURE: i know there is a lot of wiggle room in this math, but the savings could be a little more depending on the time invested sourcing large batch discounts. 16 jars at a time, i feel is a very reasonable number for someone who is “bulk” canning on a small scale. and a savings potential on the small assumption of $80+ dollars in one day for 4 batches of 12 cans feels pretty reasonable.
now i could be off a little here and there, but no matter how i math it, it just keeps coming out as worth it. both money wise and health wise. the only way it doesnt work is if someone is only doing like 1-4 cans total in a day, and paying WAY too much for the consumables. because the majority of my pricing was online sources. the only item not was the bean prices, and i have been getting my beans for the last couple weeks from the Amish near me. but there are a few farms that i would always be able to use too. the price is higher right now ofc because its out of season here, but the point of canning is to preserve it ahead of time.
also important to note that the size by size saving would only be like .20-.30c for a normal sized store can. but the quart jar can hold potentially 3-4 times the amount quart compared to can. if you were doing this in smaller jars, it likely wouldnt be worth it because of less beans per jar/lid cost
A friend of mine has a robot vacuum, he also have a hunting dog…
One day he became late from work and his hunting labrador had made a “no-no” on the kitchen floor.
The robo-vacuum the smeared the “no-no” in a even layer on the Whole kitchen floor with it’s brushes…
The dog waited in a dark corner, very ashamed, and scared of the evil machine that made his “little secret” impossible to hide. 
I spent my whole life gauging my time based on how many dollars an hour I was earning. Even after I retired it took some time to get away from that mind set. If you figured your time spent scrounging materials, building and tweeking a DOW gasifier, gathering fuel, chunking and drying and storing it, I’m sure that you could buy way more gasoline by converting all that effort in to wage earning. For me it’s all about independence. I have to know that I’m not at the mercy of some A-hole robot in some political office, or some corporate mucky mucks deciding what they chose to produce for me and at what price. I may prefer to use their goods but can also turn my back on them at any time I chose. Food. I get a big kick out of starting a seed and watching it grow with clusters of hanging fruit. It’s work but luckily I have always like hard work. When my muscles ache I know I’ve done something and I’m alive. Couch potatoing in front of the TV watching the unimaginative crap they program us with is a poor use of time. The more time you spend with your hands in soil, the healthier you are going to be. It doesn’t matter how long you live but how long you live well. Wisdom you get for being old.
In our household, the wood stove is the most important piece of equipment in the kitchen, it works every day for at least 8 to 10 months of the year. We use it for cooking, heating, baking bread, meat, potatoes,… I can’t imagine a kitchen without a wood stove. My two brothers also have water heating from the stove, I also wanted to install one, but my wife wanted an ordinary one, without an exchanger for heating water. In my opinion, a wood stove is such an easy, reliable and cheap item that there is no point in thinking about a gasifier for cooking, I guess I’m lucky that there is a company nearby that makes quality stoves at a good price.
Using maths is fine ThomasF.
Using simple maths such as you have done can make a fellow abundant, and going forwards towards goals.
I began this at 11 years old picking in the berry fields. Only with income inputs a few weeks of the year allowed me to self-buy better clothes for the whole school year. 'Cause I soon realized how bottles of soda’s, chewing gum and candy would dribble it away too quickly.
With none left then for durable goods purchases.
Now maturing as an adult I learned I had to use life-vision maths as simple algebra. Using the factors of F & I; versus D and I.
Personal Freedom and Independence’s are applied as additive, and multiplying factors.
Dependencies and made-Incapabilities are applied as subtractive or dividing diminishing, factors.
Ha! Ha! Of course others use much life-maths factors of F & H.
Faith and Hopes.
I’ve never had much luck with these. Relying instead go on personal gut-it-out-willpower. That I can control. Sometimes my forcing ways breaks things. And of all of the positives I been attributed to in my life, I’ve never been called a kinder, gentler type.
I did have to learn finesse and oblique approaches.
Better energy conserving allowed more to get done in any time period when I was a working man.
Old now; like TomH says, can’t be a strong forcing bull. Energy husbanding is the only way to get anything done daily.
“I am not the man I used to be . . .
but for one-time . . .
I am as good as I ever was!”
Steve Unruh
a few years ago we bought reusable canning lids and had quite a few failures. We returned to standard lids. we can several hundred jars a year after the garden and butchering. we can buy sleeves of lids at our local Amish bulk food store. The downside is a sleeve is 200 lids, but this brings the price down.
On another note I go to a country scrapyard that puts anything they think they can sell for a little more than what they get for bulk scrap in the front half of the yard. They had 2 kitchen queen wood cook stoves, I bought one for $300 that was in great shape other than 2 of the dampers were rusted shut. After a few hours in the shop the dampers were working and we have a wood cook stove that costs $3-4000 new. heats the whole house and it is great to have a big pot of soup simmering on a snowy winter day.
For beans, you either have to pressure can them, or you can waterbath them if you pickle them first, but you also need vinegar and salt to get the ph below 4.6. We used to blanch and freeze them because it is a lot faster.
If you are waterbath canning. You are probably better served to do it outside over like a rocket stove if you are aiming to save money. It gets hot inside using a stove.
For jars, some tomato sauce jars are still glass and are mason jars but I think they are 22oz instead of 32oz now, but they are narrow mouth… The old glass mayo jars were the best.
mayo is something you can make at home fairly inexpensively.
I was looking to see if I could find some old ones, and failed. I did find stainless steel canning lids on like aliexpress.
