Hey canning community! This past fall my family and I canned a bunch of garden tomatoes, everything from tomato sauce, salsa to diced tomatoes. I pulled out a jar of diced tomatoes to use for dinner tonight and noticed with several jars, all the seeds towards the top are starting to turn very dark, nearly black. Is this okay to eat and what could have caused this?
The contents smell perfectly fine, no signs of mold and the seal was still fully intact, super hard to pop off the lid. Any help is appreciated!
by cactuswig
1 Comment
Seeds can start to blacken as they age and can be pronounced in highly ripe fruit, and there are some other reactions that can occur after canning that can blacken them as well (see https://extension.psu.edu/canning-and-freezing-questions-and-answers#:~:text=this%20from%20happening.-,Question%3A%20Black%20seeds%20in%20home%20canned%20tomatoes%2C%20is%20there%20any,tight%20seal%2C%20has%20been%20maintained).
However, I’m concerned that there’s a gradient of seed colour that also seems to correspond to a change in colour of the pulp from top to bottom of the jar. It’s hard to tell because the ring is still on but that also looks like more headspace than is supposed to be there for crushed tomatoes – what recipe did you follow for this batch?