Canning! Documentary Shorts!

Howdy there. This weekend was filled with canning of green beans and other hijinks.

The beans totaled 40 pints, which came out to $0.65 per pint including jar lids. Not bad for a day's work. Cook for a day, eat for a year. Seriously, can we eat 40 pints of green beans this year? Let's hope so.

The canning dilemma was as follows: Whether to buy locally grown, non-organic beans OR distantly grown, organic ones. Which is worse, the chemicals used in conventional agriculture (gack!) or the chemicals used to truck stuff around the country (double-gack!)? We opted for local produce without an organic label. And I just looked it up, and green beans are on the top 10 foods to eat organically, because they're a high-pesticide food. Greeeeeaaaaaaat.

Once again, a little information proves dangerous. Without memorizing that list, I callously assumed that green beans were safer. Rats! Next year, I'm planting 10 times as much and canning my own. I swear.

And if you haven't seen it yet, go to Brooks's website www.brookssmothers.com and watch his documentary film. Do it now. I'm serious.