Franklin County held it's first Food Preservations in Franklin County which was sponsored by the Nutrition Education Program.  Eight females and one male attended the Franklin County Food Preservation Workshop.  Participants expressed excitement, appreciation, and an eagerness to learn throughout the workshop.  

Retired Family and Consumer Sciences Agents taught participants how to use a pressure canner to can low acid foods and a boiling water canner to preserve high acid foods and how to add additional acid to tomato and tomato products to ensure a safe acidity level to preserve these foods in a boiling water canner.  

Agents led participants in hands-on activities.  Participants pressure canned green beans, canned tomatoes, and salsa in the boiling water canner, dried apples, and tomatoes in the dehydrator, and prepared corn for the freezer and strawberry freezer jam. 

Several of the participants had some experience canning but did now have a clearer understanding of low acid and high acid foods and that low acid foods must be processed in the pressure canner.  One lady said that she had canned for many years and had always used a boiling water canner for all foods.  She told us that she volunteers as a missionary and teaches cooking and food preservation skills to women in Kenya and New Mexico.  Since she has only used a boiling water canner, this illustrates how easily unsafe canning methods can be spread throughout the world and one reason why these workshops are so important.  

Comments made by participants indicated that they all learned new food safety procedures that they had not been using to preserve foods.  The newly acquired skills learned during this workshop will have far-reaching effects indeed - to women in other countries through missionary work - and to many parents and grandparents in several counties since one lady attended from a neighboring county and has a daughter in yet another county.  One participant took many instructional photos and videos and will share with her daughter and on social media.