Corrections Policy

Food-safety errors on this site are treated as urgent. If a processing time, headspace value, acid addition, or safety claim is wrong, we want to know — and we will fix it, note it visibly on the affected page, and update our records.

What we correct

We correct any verifiable factual error, including:

• Processing times and headspace values — the most safety-critical content on this site. If a time or headspace we published does not match Bernardin's current guidance, that is an urgent correction.
• Acidity and pH claims — e.g. stating a food is safe to water-bath can when it is not, or overstating or understating the role of bottled lemon juice or citric acid.
• Altitude band figures — city elevations cited from Statistics Canada or Bernardin's Canadian metric bands.
• Jar sizes and equipment specifications — Bernardin sizes (125 mL, 250 mL, 500 mL, 1 L) and any other verifiable product detail.
• Attribution and sourcing errors — a claim we credited to a source that doesn't say what we said it says.

We also correct significant errors of fact that, while not food-safety critical, could mislead a reader — wrong agricultural statistics, wrong province for a regulation, etc.

What we don't alter

• Style, tone, or phrasing preferences (unless they caused a factual misreading).
• Publication dates — we don't backdate posts or remove original publish timestamps.
• Honest opinions and editorial judgements (e.g. "this canner is the better value for most Canadians") — these may be updated as new products ship, but the original recommendation is not silently removed.

How we label corrections

For food-safety corrections (processing times, headspace, acid addition, pH): we add a visible dated note on the affected page, beside the claim it corrects rather than at the top, stating what changed and what it changed from. Putting it next to the figure is deliberate: a reader who has come for that one number meets the correction where the old number used to be. The corrected content is sourced to the Bernardin edition or Health Canada document that supports it.

For non-safety factual errors: we update the content and add a brief correction note at the bottom of the article, or — if the error was minor (a typo in a non-critical number, a wrong city name) — a dated editor's note inline.

Site-wide corrections

A claim that sat in a shared component or string rather than on one page cannot be corrected page by page, so it is corrected here.

• 20 September 2026 — the “testing kitchen” sentence. A testing kitchen was something we intended to set up, and the affiliate sentence in the footer of every page — that purchases “help fund our testing kitchen” — was written ahead of it. It never happened. Now that it is clear it is not going to, that sentence has been removed, along with the same wording on the About and Affiliate Disclosure pages and a site tagline that described the methods as “tested”, which read as tested by us. No product and no recipe on this site has been hands-on tested by us. What we do instead is read the Canadian sources — Bernardin, Health Canada, and the provincial health authorities — and report them accurately, including when the honest answer is that none of them covers a question. No processing time, headspace value, pH or other figure is affected: none of them ever depended on a kitchen of ours.

How to report an error

Email [email protected] with the subject line Correction: [page title]. Include:

• The URL of the affected page.
• The specific claim you believe is wrong.
• The source you're comparing against (Bernardin edition, Health Canada document URL, or equivalent Canadian authority).

We review every correction report. If the error is confirmed, we aim to publish a fix within 48 hours for food-safety issues and within two weeks for other factual errors.

Page-level corrections are noted on the affected pages rather than collected in a log; corrections to a shared component or string are listed above. If you reported an error and would like confirmation that it was addressed, reply to your original email.

Our sourcing standard

The reason this policy can be specific is that our sourcing standard is specific. Every processing time and headspace value on this site must trace to Bernardin — the Complete Book of Home Preserving (ISBN 978-0-7788-0137-5) or bernardin.ca. Health Canada publishes the rule to use a tested recipe, not the figures. We do not paraphrase US sources (USDA, NCHFP) as primary authority — our audience is Canadian, altitude tables are Canadian, and jar sizes are metric. If you believe a number we've published doesn't match Bernardin's current guidance, that is exactly the kind of correction we want to hear about.

See the About page for the full authority-sources list.