Starsplitter, My husband said I should be in product development of some sort but the thought of sniffing underarms and such gave me great pause as well. my husband says I smell things that are simply not there. He just can't smell anything but he could smell the grout. I'm not sure what a polluted clam flat smells like but I can imagine. Honestly when I came into the house while the tile guy was grouting I thought he must have used the bathroom and had terrible stomach problems. I did call the manufacturer and they acted like this was the first case of it's kind but searching the internet there were dozens of the same complaint. I could tell it was lessening or I would have torn the whole thing out. I never sealed the grout.

I agree with lazygardens. Loss of smell is a common problem with the elderly. Food doesn't even taste the same because it doesn't smell the same. It starts at different ages. It's very doubtful if you could tie Alzheimers and loss of smell together. Smokers or those around smokers lose it even earlier than non-smokers. People who work with certain chemicals are the same way. After breathing in the fumes from paint and solvents for years, painters are usually zonked out in the olfactory areas. Of course, there are always exceptions. It would be a great thing if it were possible to tie this theory down. But I doubt if it could be accurate enough to warrent medicating people just on the chance that they MIGHT get Alzheimers.

I feel for both of you! Eight years ago, I ended up in the hospital many times with Addisonian crisis. The last time, they ended up giving me tons of fluids, and within a few days, I'd gained 25 pounds of water weight, which had to be taken off with diuretics after the crisis had passed. The diuretics took away my sense of taste and smell, though I didn't realize at the time that this was the culprit. Mine were only lost for a month or so, until my doctors figured out what the problem was and game me something else, but it was just awful, so depressing. I'm glad both of you have some taste and smell back.

Siphoning only happens with pressure canning and is caused by fluctuations in the internal pressure. Pressure rises, falls, rises again. That is usually caused by making adjustments in the heat levels once it reaches pressure - something to avoid doing. Processing times in pressure canner manuals are outdated. The processing time for green beans has been 25 min for quarts for decades. It is the weight that is adjusted for altitude. Don't know your altitude. Since you did raw pack then some of the water in the jars was absorbed by the raw beans. That is one reason why the hot pack method is preferred - better end quality. Dave PS: don't know where or what link you are referring to Causes of water loss in jars