Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with canned

lazy cook and lazy math

Jason and Laszlo — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:49:16 -0800

dried beans --> canned beans conversion my recipe calls for 1/2 lb of dried white beans. I will be using canned beans. How many cans/ounces of canned beans do i need? thanks!

Loooking For Scorpions To Eat

Lokisbane — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 22:36:51 -0800

Where can I find scorpions (either jerked or canned) in New York City? I'm making a Scorpio themed meat pie and would like to go literal with the ingredients. It know they are eaten in Thailand but so far no luck finding them at the Thai markets I checked. If anyone knows a shop that sells them that would be great.

Help me save a friend from killer tuna

Acheman — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:28:31 -0800

I just found out that my friend is eating seven tins of tuna fish a week. I'm concerned about the levels of mercury he may be ingesting. He says he'll consider cutting down on the tuna if I can suggest an alternative that's high in protein, low in fat, not in need of refrigeration, portable and cheap. Any ideas? Any convincing arguments that my concern is groundless? This came about because he's asked me to do his online shopping for him, for reasons that are another story altogether. While I'm OK doing it, I'm not happy buying him enough tuna to poison himself with neurotoxins. I'm willing to consider evidence that this isn't in fact enough tuna to poison himself with neurotoxins.

Part of the problem seems to be that he is hearing about the risks at third hand - leading him to apportion them less weight - and isn't prepared to spend time investigating them himself. But he seems prepared to lower his consumption, if only to stop me from being so upset about it, so long as it doesn't have a significant impact on his lifestyle - bodybuilding (hence the high protein), dieting (hence the low fat) and not spending very much on food are all pretty central to him. I proposed nuts, for example, and he said they were too fatty and too dear. So: what's exactly like tuna, only safer?

One beet, two beet, canned beet

parmanparman — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:42:53 -0800

After months of diligently shopping healthier, I have come to the realization that I just cannot get through the fresh vegetables I buy in a timely manner. Having decided to go back to cans (except for cabbage and onions), tell me what I should be on the lookout for, in terms of great-tasting things to try.

Eeeew, we can't eat that!

DiscourseMarker — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:58:24 -0800

Catfilter: What is the texture of your cat's wet food? So my vet is concerned that the current wet food I've been feeding my cats has too much sodium and is urging me to get better food for them. They also have weight issues (overweight) and I just got the labs on one of the cats and she is a little dehydrated, so I really need to get them to eat more wet food, less dry.

So here's the thing: my cats (obligatory picture) are finicky, particularly with respect to the *texture* of their wet food. As in, they just won't eat food that has identifiable chunks of real meat. It has to be minced/pate/whatever you want to call it, or they just stare at me and yowl. I read through this thread and am interested in Evo or Wellness, but I can't tell from the websites what the food actually looks like in the can.

So those of you who use these brands--tell me about the texture. Are specific flavors of either brand chunky/minced? Somewhere in-between? I really don't want to buy more food (I've already been burned this week!) that I know they won't even look at.

Oysters in a can, alas

Listener — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:18:22 -0800

Know any good ways to prepare canned oysters? They're good for health and convenient to keep on hand, so I want to eat them sometimes. Only question is how to make them delicious, if possible.

Will really old canned juice kill me?

shinybeast — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:22:19 -0800

Assuming there are no signs of spoilage, is it safe to drink 10 year old grape juice that I canned myself? If not, can I safely use it as a syrup (vino cotto) if I reduce it by simmering?

Adding water to soup.

who squared — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 16:41:49 -0800

Why do canned soups have a warning that says "do not add water?" I take it as a warning because the phrase is always capitalized and bolded.

Know anything about canned butter from the 1950's?

phonebia — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 19:22:33 -0800

Help me figure out the name of the brand of canned butter my mother loved as a child growing up in Taiwan. I'd love to present her with a tin of this stuff for her birthday. A long shot, for sure but I have to try. :)

She grew up in the Kaohsiung area of Taiwan, in a village that translates into Six Turtle (Liu Kuei or something similar), and remembers this sweet-flavored canned butter from her childhood. She would have had access to it during the mid 1950's-early 1960's. Apparently the Catholic church passed it out to the local people along with flour and such.

There are some traits of this elusive butter that she is quite insistent upon:
1. It was in a round tin, diameter approximately equal to that of a CD.
2. It had a cow on the side.
3. The stuff definitely tasted sweet. In fact it was so awesome that "[she] can still taste it now."

This Red Feather Pure Creamery Butter is the closest thing I could find (Googling yielded some notes about how it was imported to Asian parts of the world also), but it doesn't have a cow on it. Also, the ingredients don't seem to indicate that it would taste sweet.

Can you help me figure this out?

Sitcoms without the laughter

destro — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 10:46:00 -0800

Are there videos of typical sitcoms that use canned laughter without the laugh track? Something on the order of Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, or older shows where the comedy is highly dependent on the canned laughter.

cooking fresh, frozen, canned vegetables

mrkohrea — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 15:33:52 -0800

I've decided to eat more vegetables, and I have a few questions about the necessity of cooking them, the nutritional content of frozen vegetables, and how cooking affects the nutritional content. 1) What vegetables need to be cooked before eating? What happens if you don't cook them first? How long do you have to cook them (boiling, steaming, stir-frying or whatever method)? I'm not looking for fancy recipes. Just the vegetables by themselves pretty much.

2) I've heard rumors that frozen vegetables can often be more nutritious than "fresh" vegetables which have actually been sitting around quite a bit by the time you buy them. Any vegetables in particular? Are there any canned vegetables that are more nutritious than their fresh or frozen counterpart?

3) And if you have more to add to an old Mefi thread, Does cooking affect the nutritional value of vegetables?.

cheap omega-3 from fish filter

mrkohrea — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 00:22:12 -0800

I've decided that I'd like to get more omega-3 fatty acids from fish in my diet, and I'm wondering what the most cost effective way to get it is. (The omega-3 from plant sources such as walnuts and flax appears to be different than the omega-3 from fish.) Judging from a quick google search, canned sardines and canned wild salmon are good sources of omega-3, and judging by a trip to my grocery store, canned pink salmon and sardines seem to be the best choices on a value basis. However, there seem to be quite a few links on the web saying that the double cooking of canned tuna used by large companies is bad, because of increased mercury and/or decreased omega-3.

Are canned sardines and canned wild salmon a good source of omega-3 (and in the case of salmon, a relatively low source of mercury)? If yes, how is the canning of sardines and salmon better than the canning of tuna?

It's Bread! In a Can!

mzurer — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 10:42:32 -0800

Has anyone here ever enjoyed canned bread? Is this a New England thing? An Olde England thing? No need to post the reviews from the first page of google - I see that it is big in Japan, and that somebody made a lunar lander out of it. I'm looking for personal anecdotes and esoteric knowledge!

Am I Hallucinating Canned Vegetables?

kitschbitch — Thu, 29 Dec 2005 15:02:26 -0800

Tinned celery in the UK - have I been hallucinating canned vegetables? I mentioned to my boyfriend that one of my weird food habits is that I'm partial to some canned vegetables right from the tin, such as hearts of palm or celery hearts. He then said 'what do you mean canned celery?' and said he'd never heard of such a thing. I dismissed him as a philistine and went to google and online supermarkets such as Tesco, Sainsbury's To You and Ocado to prove that of course canned celery existed. Except that the only evidence I can find on the whole of the interweb to show that I haven't imagined buying cans of celery (from my local Waitrose), was from the US FDA approving catering sized barrels of celery hearts.

Has anyone else in the UK ever bought (or even seen!) cans of braised celery hearts in the canned goods aisle at their local supermarket or food shop? When I'm back home in London I'm determined to go and check I'm not losing my mind, but if anyone could help convince my better half - and indeed myself - that these do actually exist, I would be most grateful!

Food safety for canned goods and extreme temperatures

wildblueyonder — Wed, 20 Jul 2005 17:12:02 -0800

Is well-canned food that has sat around in extreme temperatures safe? I recently bought some canned goods, let them sit in the back seat of my car in 100+ degree temperatures, and when I went to pick them out, they were painfully hot to the touch. Would this alter their safety for consumption?