judydel, Many people, like you, have canned tomatoes with adding only a little acid or even no acid for many years and have never had a problem. Tomatoes are right on the borderline of being acidic enough to be sure to kill any botulism spores that might end up in them. So usually it's fine, unless folks use particularly low-acid tomatoes. Botulism is rarely found in tomatoes, and even if it is, your canned tomato sauce is probably acidic enough to kill it, especially with the bit of acid you've added, which was the recommended amount for many years. I personally would happily eat your tomato sauce (definitely sounds thicker than juice to me!) because the CHANCES of it not being safe are small. But.... Dave is right that the recommendations have changed to call for adding more acid. The reason is that you can't tell, at home, for SURE how acidic your tomato products are; sometimes the kind of soil, the weather, how ripe they are, etc. can affect them, and it's possible to get some that are not quite acidic enough to kill botulism for sure. AND... while botulism is rare, it's VERY dangerous --- often fatal --- and it happens to grow in vacuum environments like canned goods, if they aren't acidic enough --- and there's NO WAY to tell if it's in your cans, because it's odoourless and tasteless and invisible. So the latest recommendations are forumlated for guaranteed safety. A lot of people prefer to go with the guarantee rather than the "only a small chance of a problem." To follow the latest regs and be perfectly sure of being safe, you need to add more acid than you've been doing. The recommendation is four tablespoons of vinegar for a quart. IF you use lemon juice, you can use only two tablespoons because it's a stronger acid (bottled lemon juice is recommended rather than fresh, because its acidity level is known). You can also buy citric acid, which is really concentrated and has almost no flavour, and use only a half teaspoon. Welcome to the forum! Isn't home-canned tomato sauce a wonderful thing? Cheers, Z

Basically what you are making is quarts of tomato sauce and doing it correctly except for the issue of the peels and seeds and that is a gray area that boils down to your choice. The reason for the recommendation is that a) the peels are the primary source of bacteria and potential contaminants - remove them and you reduce the bacterial count significantly. Leave them and if properly acidified and processed it is safe. So it's a marginal safety issue. And b) the seeds if left can often impart a bitterness to the taste of the sauce if left. I remove them, others do not. Your choice. Try some small batch without the seeds and peels and see if you note the difference. OK? Dave

Lots of tomato sauce made over the years and I honestly can say I've never seen anything like you describe. Can't imagine what it might be either. Only thing that comes to mind is seeds that may have germinated inside the tomatoes - that happens now and then. What does the inside of one of the tomatoes look like when sliced? What variety of tomato? How are you processing them - Foley, mill, chinnois - and with what steps? Is it possible the fibers came from your tomato mill or other kitchen tools? Dave

I use the Vitamix for: --Making almond (or other nut) milk, coconut milk, oat milk, quinoa milk, and an assortment of other non-dairy milks. --Blender batters (Quinoa Protein Power Waffles, Sprouted Lentil-Oat Waffles, Sue Gregg's Blender Batter Waffles/Pancakes - Blender Batter Coffee Cake with GF grain options - Blender Cornbread - Blender Crepes - Blender Muffins. --(Before going gluten-free) Cindi's Lifestyle Treasures - No Wheat Grinder Wheat Recipes http://cindislifestyletreasures.blogspot.com/p/books.html These recipes use cooked whole wheat berries as the base for making cookies, breads, muffins, etc. --I make many recipes from the Vitamix Getting Started Plus cookbook, as well as recipes I found on-line, like this one from https://blenderlady.com/recipes/: Raw Applesauce This is a quick, delicious, and HEALTHY applesauce that hasn’t been cooked (which destroys enzymes!). I use the skin, but remove the seeds because I can taste them in the applesauce: Two whole apples (thoroughly washed and seeds removed) The juice of half of a lemon* Cinnamon to taste Dates (I use 3-6 depending on the sweetness of the apple) *If you are going to eat all of the applesauce right away, you can use 1/2 of a lemon peeled (there are bioflavanoids in the seeds and white pith), but if you are going to store this, use juice only. Citrus seeds and pith are not bitter when consumed right after blending, but turn bitter over time (I’d consume before 1/2 an hour has elapsed to prevent bitterness from developing). At home I like to put the apples into the freezer before I make applesauce – not so long that they freeze – just long enough that they are VERY COLD! This is because they tend to heat up as they are blending in the Vita-Mix. Place apples into Vita-Mix whole. Add the other ingredients and then mix on high (using tamper vigorously – this is a great “anger management” recipe). Pound the apples hard, pushing them into the blades until they turn into applesauce. After it turns into “sauce”, I usually blend on variable speed 5-6 for 10-20 additional seconds to be sure that I’m producing a nice, smooth applesauce. This recipe is full of healthy fiber, alkalizing + Vitamin C-giving lemon juice, and the enzymes have not been destroyed by cooking! If you add some water, maple syrup, and more dates it will become runnier and sweeter and you can run the Vitamix on High until it is a hot fruit syrup! If you don’t add water, but add more dates, and blend until it is hot – it becomes very much like a hot apple butter! -Grainlady