How we source our recipes

Home canning is one of the few kitchen tasks where a wrong number can make someone seriously ill. So we hold every recipe, processing time, headspace, and pH value on this site to one standard: it traces to a tested Canadian authority, or it doesn't go on the page. This is how that works — and what we'll never do.

Who writes this

HarvestGuide.ca is written and edited by the HarvestGuide.ca Editorial Team — Canadian home-preserving writers and editors. We're not claiming to be food scientists, and we don't put a fake "reviewed by an expert" badge on our pages. What we do is simpler and more honest: we follow the tested sources, we cite them, and we tell you when something is outside what's been tested. If a credentialed reviewer ever joins the team, we'll say so by name — until then, our trust comes from transparent sourcing, not a borrowed title.

The sources we trust

Every factual claim on the site is meant to trace to one of these:

• Bernardin — Canada's home-canning standard; the Complete Book of Home Preserving is our practical reference for recipes, processing times, and jar sizes.
• Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada — food-safety guidance, botulism prevention, safe internal temperatures.
• Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) — recalls, commercial food-safety guidance.
• Statistics Canada and Natural Resources Canada — population, agricultural, and elevation data.
• Provincial ministries and universities — OMAFRA, MAPAQ, the University of Guelph and University of Saskatchewan, and provincial public-health authorities, for region-specific guidance.

Each recipe post lists its sources at the bottom, and we link the authority inline whenever we state a method or a number.

What we will never do

• Invent a processing time, headspace, or pH. If we can't find it in a tested Canadian source, we leave it out, point you to the source, or mark it as not-yet-verified — we never guess to fill a gap.
• Publish an untested recipe. Where a food has no tested home-canning process (fiddleheads, for example), we say so plainly and point you to the safe alternative.
• Cite the USDA or NCHFP as our authority. They're excellent background, but our audience is Canadian — Canadian jar sizes, Canadian altitudes, Canadian sources.
• Copy a US recipe's numbers without confirming them against Bernardin. Bands, jar sizes, and increments differ across the border.

Why we defer the exact minutes to Bernardin

You'll notice many of our recipes describe the full method but send you to "your edition of Bernardin" or "the recipe on your box of pectin" for the exact processing minutes. That's deliberate. Those numbers are tested for specific jar sizes and altitudes, and they're updated over time — the safest place to read them is the current tested source itself, with our guide alongside it for the method, the chemistry, and the Canadian context.

Altitude is mandatory, not optional

Most Canadian preserving content copies US altitude tables and ignores that Calgary sits above 1,000 m. We don't. Every water-bath and pressure-canning guide points you at the Canadian altitude bands, because the minutes printed in a recipe assume sea level and most of the country isn't there.

Found a mistake? Tell us.

We'd rather hear it than miss it. If a number doesn't match your edition of Bernardin, a link has rotted, or something reads wrong, see our corrections policy or email [email protected]. We read everything and fix verified errors quickly. You can also ask us a preserving question and we'll do our best to research a safe, sourced answer.