Many centuries ago, canned food was normally kept in glass jars. However, through the industrial revolution, the metal cans became the most popular container for canned food because it is lightweight, cheaper to manufacture, and takes less space without sacrificing the volume of material that it can hold.
But then, even with the most recent advances in technology, the risk of toxic metal contamination is always present in canned food. Dangerous metals like lead can be released from the packaging material, contaminate the canned food, and cause serious health hazards among humans. The rising popularity of canning using paper derivatives may have partially solved the issue, but the resulting product is oftentimes more expensive because paper is more costly to produce and process than its metallic counterparts.
Canning Supplies
Furthermore, most commercially canned food contains preservatives that are made of various compounds of sodium. This is a very big issue as this greatly amplifies the salt content of many canned foods. Salt, when taken in excess, is known to be a major cause of hypertension, among other deadly diseases.
Many companies boast of salt-free or less-salt products, but the resulting product either turns out tasteless, or are laden with more exotic preservatives whose long-term effects are still unknown. This can be cause for alarm, as there may be a possibility that these manufacturing are trying to solve one problem using an even bigger problem.
So far, we have pointed out metal leaks and sodium content. Now, we will talk about bacterial growth. Food that is canned with inferior processes are at risk of being the breeding grounds of several deadly microorganism like clostridium botulinum and salmonella.
A lot of people trust large companies because they believe that these companies have designed their manufacturing processes well simply because they have the funds to do so. However, this is not necessarily the case. Just a few years ago, a famous peanut brand recalled its stocks all over the world after it was found out that one whole batch of its products was infected by salmonella, the most common cause of food poisoning.
Hence, the age of home-based canning has begun.
