The Incredible Pinto Bean

In these times of food uncertainty, nutrition and calories are paramount in my books. What I am going to write about pinto beans could generally apply to most shell beans, such as lima or navy. I have had some questions about canning pinto beans so I will include what I know and have experienced here.

First off, if you can find dry beans, I would recommend you buy them. As many as you can afford and find available. I tried to look up bulk pinto beans in preparation to write this article and find that many bulk providers are out, or only have one pound bags or like Amazon, who has a 24 pound bucket for $63.92!! or a 25 pound box for $57.69 or a 20 pound bag for $54.25. I am afraid most people cannot afford these prices. If you have waited this long to try to stock up some long term nutrition, I am afraid you probably waited too long.

We received an email with some information about bulk food items that may be useful to you. We appreciate the effort this person made in sharing a resource with all of us. Here is the email in part:

You mentioned, however, that bulk foods are getting difficult to find. I am LDS and have used the LDS Home Storage Centers for years. You may know all about them. But in case you don't, they are open to everyone and carry bulk items. You can choose to buy 25 pound sacks of wheat or you can buy #10 cans of wheat in cases. You can buy it In a home storage center or you can buy it online and have it shipped to your home. They just want people to have food storage, so there is not a huge markup. Most of the packaging is done in Salt Lake by missionaries who are donating their labor. The older couples who run the centers are also donating their labor.

All of their locations are listed here:

https://providentliving.churchofjesuschrist.org/self-reliance/food-storage/home-storage-center-locations?lang=eng

Here is their product and price list:

https://providentliving.churchofjesuschrist.org/food-storage/home-storage-center-locations-map?lang=eng

Many of their items are out of stock with all of the crazy buying that has been happening over the last few months, but my local center has restocked many of the products that I use and my brother, who uses a center close to his home in Virginia, tells me they have many items back in stock as well. I just bought more white wheat, red wheat, elbow macaroni noodles, and spaghetti. So if you are interested, it is worth calling the center nearest to you and asking what they have in stock.

I don't know if this is of any interest to you, but in times like this we should help each other however we can. 

Nutrition. Everyday, but now more than ever, I turn to foods I know will provide good nutrition. This will be crucial as food supplies continue to be impacted by the Plandemic and resulting economic disruptions. I use this website for comparing nutritional values on many foods.

Beans, pinto, mature seeds, cooked, boiled, with salt

As you can see, one cup of cooked pinto beans with water and salt packs a powerful punch, thus our preference for it. It is often said that beans and rice make the perfect protein. We don't eat rice, but we do eat wheat in the form of sourdough bread or tortillas. We prefer wheat to rice for the comparative nutritional value the wheat provides.

We have a number of buckets of pinto beans that we have had for at least 10 years, which by the way, came from the LDS Home Storage Center in Oklahoma City. We bought in bulk and stored in our own buckets with Gamma Seal lids. If you're not aware, LDS stands for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or commonly called Mormons. I have long thought theses beans would be too hard to cook and eat, and that is true. I also thought they would be too hard to can. This is one of those instances that I was more than happy to be wrong.

Last winter I wanted to get more pintos canned and on the shelf for everyday eating, and to have if the country and world went south. I bought several four pound bags from Wal-Mart, before the virus when they were still available, and we canned a batch of 32 pints. Then recently, we decided to find out if those old beans were still usable. We put three pounds of beans in eight quarts of water and brought them to a boil in the late afternoon. Let them boil for five minutes, then let them sit until morning. I turned the fire on low when I got up around 6:00am and let them simmer until morning chores were done and we were ready to fire up the canner. Here are both types of beans. Both great, on the shelf and ready to eat. The 2010 beans turned out great, good texture and flavor. The older beans are on the left and the Wal-Mart beans are on the right in this picture. Some of the benefits of having beans canned and ready to go is that if you want a quick meal, or the world doesn't allow time to cook a pot of beans, you have nutrition, water and salt ready to nurture your body.

This summer one of my goals is to grow, harvest and can as many pinto beans as possible. In a survival scenario we need calories for energy and adequate protein. Pinto beans provide 245 calories per cup, a healthy form of carbohydrates that does not cause an insulin spike with a quick drop off in energy, and a good level of protein. In my books, an excellent form of nutrition any time.

Our first harvest of beans yielded 10 1/2 pounds from about two 30 foot rows of plants. Now this is not equivalent to the same weight of dry beans because they were fresh. Some were partially dried, but most still retained a lot of moisture. We canned 32 pints with enough beans left over for another 3 pints. I was very pleased with the yield and hope the plants will continue to bloom and provide another harvest or two before fall.

To can fresh or dried beans, we bring them to a boil the evening before, then let them sit overnight. In the morning, simmer until ready to can. We use the liquid from the pot to fill the jars. In pint jars, fill with beans about 2/3 full, add 1/2 tsp. non-iodized salt, fill to within 1/2" of the top with bean liquid, then pressure can at 10 pounds for 40 minutes. This timing comes from our Stocking Up canning book.

Jacob's Cattle Beans

Something I learned about canning fresh beans as opposed to dried beans. Fresh beans tend to be much softer when you cook or can them. I prefer a bean with a more firm texture, like the old beans and the Wal-Mart beans. We grew Jacob's Cattle beans a few years back. It's another shell bean very similar to a pinto. We also canned them fresh and they were much softer, just like the pintos we just harvested and canned. I always thought the softness was just the nature of the Jacob's bean and never thought about the difference in canning fresh instead of dried. Accidental learning can be a very interesting teacher. Now, instead of canning our next harvest fresh, I will dry them first and see if I can get the type of canned bean I prefer instead of the softer variety. One benefit of the soft beans is the ease at making a type of refried bean for tortillas. By the way, if you have trouble finding pinto bean seed to plant, the ones from Wal-Mart work just fine.

A few years back we tried a different method of canning beans we had read somewhere. In quart jars we added dried pinto beans to half of the jar, filled with boiling water and 1 tsp. salt, then canned according to recommended time (I don't remember now how long.) They were tough and crunchy. I don't know how old the beans were or any other details, but we found out for us, this process didn't work.

Ground pork, pintos & salsa with sauteed cabbage

There are many different ways to add beans to a meal for a nutritional boost. I've already mentioned refried beans and a bowl of beans. You can add them to soup or to just about any dish. Like this. But folks, nutrition and energy is, and will be the name of the game as our future continues to unfold. I pray the day never comes that I can't sit in my comfortable, air conditioned home and type on a computer on the internet. Just how much infrastructure has to remain in place for me to continue doing this? How long will it last?

We will never forget someone asking us why we go to all this work to raise and preserve our harvest. Why do all that work when you can just buy it at the store, they asked. Because now you have a hard time finding or affording the humble pinto bean at the store. Grow it or buy it, food is of utmost importance right now for everyone. Like I've said before, regardless of the events surrounding us, peace or anarchy, without food, you are dead.

Until next time - Fern

Why Acidify Tomatoes?

Since tomatoes are naturally acidic, why do we have to acidify them? If you grow an old heirloom tomato that has all of it's old fashioned acidity and has not been tampered with like some of the newer hybrid low-acid varieties, do you still need to acidify them? Why?

All of my canning books and several places online all agree that tomatoes should be acidified before being canned. It is the pH of the tomatoes that determines whether they are acidic enough alone, or require additional acidity to be safely preserved through the canning process. As I have learned to can more things, I have come across some techniques that I have never heard of before. The question "Why...." tends to come to mind often. This question of acidifying warranted some research on my part to understand why.

To this end, I read through my canning books. Stocking Up and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving both recommend always acidifying any tomato product that is canned. The Penn State Extension website explains that the onset of most acidification recommendations came about because of a couple of very unfortunate botulism cases in 1974, which were caused by home canned tomato products. None of us ever want that to occur because of the techniques we used in canning. Jackie Clay's Growing and Canning Your Own Food also points out the need to add lemon juice to any canned tomato products to insure adequate acidity. Putting Food By points out that "Nowadays home-grown tomatoes often nudge the 4.6 pH cutoff, beyond which they are considered low-acid...", thus, they would need to be acidified for safe canning.

Tomato Sauce

So, this body of research definitely points to the need to acidify tomatoes. But, back to my original question. If you grow known old-time tomatoes that have been around for 100 years, like the

Arkansas Traveler, do you still need to acidify? There have been many new tomatoes developed with varying levels of acidity. Another thing to consider is the conditions under which the tomatoes are grown and how that may affect acidity. Wiser.org has an interesting article about heirloom seeds. In part, it says, "How are heirlooms defined? A tomato becomes an heirloom after seed savers have grown the same open pollinated (non hybrid) variety over time. A more definitive, but still arbitrary guideline defines an heirloom as being in cultivation for 50 years or more. There are some old commercial varieties that meet the open pollination definition, some of them cross bred from family heirlooms, such as Arkansas Travelers." Does that mean my Arkansas Traveler tomatoes should be fine for canning without added acidity? It is still a question I have.

While I was pondering and researching I thought I would ask some of my fellow bloggers their opinions on this topic. Here is the question I posed to them and their responses.

Salsa

Question: "If we grow old heirloom tomatoes, why do we need to acidify them when we can? I have read all of my canning books and some online sources and everyone says that since we can't determine the acidity of our tomatoes because of the difference in growing conditions, we always need to acidify them. Why? I know there were a few deaths back in the 70's, and there have been many tomatoes developed for their low acid flavor, but what if we don't grow those? I guess I feel like some things are just overboard. I thought I would do a post on it and wanted to see if you would contribute your opinion."
 

Patrice Lewis: "In theory, heirloom varieties of tomatoes don't need extra acidifiers.  In reality, however, it's **always** wise to add them.  The reason for this is, many new heirloom varieties have been developed in the last thirty years.  An heirloom variety simply means it breeds true, not that it's an ancient line.  A low-acid hybrid can become open-pollinated ("heirloom") after only seven generations, or seven years.  That's why you always want to add acidifiers to tomatoes, regardless of whether they're heirloom/open-pollinated, since you never know if it's a newer "heirloom" with a low acid content.
Hope that helps... Patrice"

The Canned Quilter: "Ya know, I canned tomatoes for years and years and NEVER added lemon juice. My mother never canned her tomatoes with lemon juice. Lemon juice is usually pretty cheap and I add it when I have it. I have been known to can a jar here and there without it though when I just do not feel like running to the store when I run out, etc... I grow, like you, all heirlooms tomatoes with presumably high acid content though, so I do not really sweat it too much. I am sure if you ask the powers that be that they will come up with a plausible reason and so I humor them most days for the sake of argument. Otherwise it is like Vegas, "What goes on in my kitchen, stays in my kitchen!"

Hugs, CQ"

Leigh: "That's a good question. I've pretty much blindly followed the rule to add lemon juice or citric acid to my canned tomato products, but have always wondered if I really needed to. Looking at Putting Foods By (mine is a 1991 edition), tomatoes seem to be on the borderline of "safe" for water bath canning, with too many variables to not add additional acid.
I agree that heirloom tomatoes ought to be more acidic by nature but canning directions seem to assume that folks will be canning hybrids. Perhaps testing various hybrids with litmus paper might be an interesting experiment.
I agree that the increasingly strict food guidelines are an overreaction to unfortunate, but rare or isolated incidents. Sadly, I think our culture is becoming afraid of food, real food. We're afraid of dirt, we're afraid of "germs," we're afraid of raw food. I think, too, that the "experts" assume that we ordinary folks are dumb and unable to reason things out. I don't know of anyone who deliberately wants to botch a canning job and potentially poison themselves. Yet it seems to me, that industrial, commercial food preservation isn't actually any safer. Unfortunately our public food supply is sterile and dead. The sad consequence seen in the general deterioration of health.
Out of curiosity, I took a garden pH meter I'd purchased but never used, and used it to check the pH of the tomatoes I'm working on. These are mostly Amish Paste that I popped into the freezer to process at a future date. There are a few hybrids in there as well. I don't know how accurate those meters are, but the cooked down tomatoes (no water except possible ice crystals from being frozen) registered a pH of 6.3. My applesauce (water added to cook down the apples) was 5.0. I reckon I'll definitely be adding that citric acid to this batch.
Very best wishes, Leigh"

There are several pieces of information I want to highlight:

• Some 'new' heirloom tomato varieties may only be seven years old. One of the things that struck Frank was Patrice's statement. Just because a seed variety is called an heirloom, doesn't mean it has been around for a long time.
• Keeping that in mind, it doesn't mean that my heirloom tomatoes are really the old, high acid varieties I thought they were. So, unless I can find some definitive research that supports a specific variety as being high acid, then I cannot make the assumption that my heirlooms are indeed the old, high acid varieties that I would like to grow.
• Not everyone uses additional ingredients to acidify their tomato products when canning as CQ pointed out. I think Leigh's technique to measure the acidity of her tomatoes is very interesting and could be another way to determine whether any additives are needed for safe canning.
• The growing conditions for any plant will affect the amount of minerals contained in the vegetables produced. So, even if I am growing a known high acid variety of tomatoes, my soil and the weather may affect the level of acidity from month to month and from year to year. 

Arkansas Travelers

My conclusions at the end of this research are this. We must all make wise, educated decisions when preserving food for our families. Don't take a shortcut because it makes the task easier for you. Do what is necessary to preserve good, nutritious food that is safe and will last. 

Frank and I try to grow the most natural, healthy foods that we can. We also limit the number of additives in what we cook and preserve. That doesn't mean I can leave out ingredients that will make our canned foods safe, just because I am trying to eliminate as many 'produced' preservatives as possible.

I hope this helps. Be wise. Be healthy. Keep at it. Learn a lot. And thank God for everyday we have.

Until next time - Fern