Can the smell be dishwashing detergent?? If the jars are washed and initially rinsed in a mild bleach solution they should be rinsed well and allowed to air dry. Lids can have an odor, but its usually due to the silicone ruber seal or its primer coatings. As people get older, their sense of smell and tastes seems to change. I have problems with smelling many things now, and think I have BO even if I shower daily with good soaps, and wear clean clothes. I go around the house and try to find the offensive odor and have not yet found it. My sinuses are toast.. I do know that when I dry dill weed and place in a canning jar, remove the air with a FoodSaver canning jar adapter, that its smell is always there when I open the jar and use some dill.

I love glass jars -- either canning jars or other types -- for pantry storage. It's easy to wash, and although it's not 100% bug-proof, it's bug-resistant. In my opinion, it's the most practical item for pantry storage. Details about how I use glass storage: - I have lots of old Mason jars and Ball jars in all sizes. The quarts and half-gallons are most useful. I use only clear glass for my pantry. I use my blue glass for bathroom storage (q-tips, etc.). - I am building up a collection of homemade chalkboard tags. On one side I write the name (say, Pinto Beans) in white paint pen. When I put beans into the jar, I write the expiration date on the back side in chalk (so it can be changed later). If it's something like pancake mix, I write 1 cup mix to 1 cup milk (because all mixes aren't identical). I keep the tags in a little basket, and I reuse them. If right now I don't have pancake mix, I'll put the tag away in the basket 'til I do have it again. - I like glass containers because glass "matches" other glass. If you want to add a couple more plastic containers years from now, you'll probably have a hard time matching the size /color. In contrast, you can add a different glass container, and it just looks like a collection.

Barb -- Even as an instructor, I've always found home canning to be an expensive method for food preservation if you have to purchase the food, and especially if you have to purchase canning equipment. In the home canning class I teach, we do cost analysis charts so people get a better idea of the true cost. Not to mention the hours of food preparation it takes from garden to the table. I used to break down the cost of utilities, but it changes periodically, and now there isn't just one cost, it varies throughout the day, so I don't bother with that anymore. It's not worth my time and trouble to plant, care for, harvest, and process 8-10 pints of pickled beets (about the average we would use in a year) when I can purchase them for 67-cents per can. That's one of the few commercially canned foods I buy. It's expensive for the cost of the utilities to process home canning, and for the extra energy to cool your home with an air conditioner while you process it. Do you have the kind of stove you can do home canning ON? Are your burners large enough (size and B.T.U. out-put) for the size of canner you are using? For a LOT of reasons, freezing or dehydration is a less-expensive choice for home food preservation. I also believe unless you have access to fresh-picked produce in the amounts it takes to fill a canner, you are probably wasting your time AND money because it means your home canned food won't have much in the way of nutrients after the delay from picking until it's canned if you have to wait several days to get the large amounts you need. It definitely doesn't pay to only fill a canner with a few pints/quarts when it takes nearly the same amount of energy to process a canner that is full. I also think most home canned foods are inferior when it comes to nutrition due to the lag time from harvest to processing, as well as from the heat processing, and how long and under what conditions they are stored in. And not everyone likes to eat home canned food.... Most of my friends and most of my students now can a favorite family recipe or two and jam/jelly/apple butter for gift-giving. Dehydrating takes very little energy, other than what it takes for blanching (but not everything requires blanching). I place my dehydrator in the basement where the heat it produces dissipates quickly. The exception is onions, which I do in the garage because of the smell. Kale can get a bit smelly, too. Dehydrated foods takes up less space than canning. It's amazing how many dried apple slices or dried tomato slices you can stuff into a canning jar!!! The FoodSaver product you are considering is fine for what it's designed for, but I think you would be happier with one of the full-size units which are more expensive. I have one of those small units and rarely use it (purchased it at Tuesday Morning for $19 several years ago), while I use the regular one many times each day (and have been using them since 1986). I'm into home food storage and have a whole room in the basement filled with vacuum-sealed dry goods. The FoodSaver is the center of my long-term storage, so it's a must-have for me. I have a new one, still in the box, I purchased on sale, ready to go if the current one quits. My entire freezer is organized with vacuum-sealed items, because they last longer in the freezer. No more freezer-burned food! I can pull out a plastic storage basket and flip through it for vacuum-sealed fruits or vegetables, all in a single layer in the bags. Cut the bag open, remove the amount needed, and reseal the bag and put it back in the basket in the freezer. I freeze soup/stew/chili in serving sizes. Pop it out of the freezer container, stack the "cubes" and vacuum-seal them a FoodSaver bag. Take out what I need and reseal the bag. I have all our breakfast meat in serving amounts and vacuum-sealed. I divide bulk amounts of chicken, and other meat products, into several bags and vacuum-seal it - both raw and pre-cooked. My pantry shelf is lined with foods in canning jars of various sizes. Instead of standing them up-right on the shelves two and three deep, and having to move them to see what's in the back, I lay the jars down on their side with the lid to the front. I have my shelves adjusted so they are the distance apart of one 1/2-gallon jar space (which is the largest jar I use). I spray painted the lids with chalk board paint, and I use a chalk board pencil or liquid chalk board markers (in fun electric colors) to mark the chalkboard lids. Some jars are covered with plastic Ball jar lids and you can write on them with liquid chalk markers. Not all of these are vacuum-sealed, but many are (especially those that contain freeze-dried foods). So my pantry is lined with canning jars filled with dry gluten-free pasta, dried and freeze-dried fruits and vegetables, baking aids like cacao nibs, chocolate chips (several kinds and sizes), chia seeds, palm sugar, arrowroot, whole grains and homemade cereal products, crispy nuts (soaked and dehydrated), pinto bean flakes, dried parsley..... And even more in the food storage room. You will have to determine whether a FoodSaver will meet your food storage needs and goals. -Grainlady

Glass jars using a glass lid that was clamped in place: That type of jar will have a pair of deep indentations on its side and under the top rim where the bail hooked in place. The seal was a flat, large diameter rubber washer. If the toggle-bail is gone, those indents will identify this type of canning jar. If those indents are missing, then this jar was intended for some other use besides canning, maybe a jar having a lid with a knob. Canning jars with screw-on metal lids were sealed with a flat rubber gasket. The inside top of the lid was usually lined with glazing to keep the contents from contacting the lid metal. The sealing gasket may have had a tab that protruded beyond the lid. Its purpose was to help unseal the can at opening. One pulled on the tab to pull the seal ring from under the lid. This relieved the vacuum and made it easy to unscrew the lid. Both of these types were superseded by a jar having coarse threads at the top and used a thin metal scew-on ring with that held a relatively flat lid. This lid was slightly domed and had a thin elastomer seal bonded to it. This lid had a superior feature in that it indicated if the jar was properly sealed. During canning, after tightening the ring, the dome would snap down with a 'pop' sound as the contents cooled and drew a vacuum. The canner could test a jar for seal quality by pressing the center of the lid. If a good vacuum existed, the lid would already be snapped down and taut; If sealing had failed, the lid would be domed upward and could be pressed down. That can would not be stored and its contents used shortly. If desired, the caned goods could be stored without rings, and the rings removed for use on the next batch. However, those rings were inexpensive and most canners left the rings in place as added assurance that a lid was not lifted. After storage, the canner could check his/her stored stock for seal integrity. To open this jar, remove the ring and pry the lid off; Discard the lid, the ring is reusable.