# Amish Food Preservation. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 13, 2018, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539 "2018-08-13T18:43:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/21 "2018-08-14T22:21:42Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Uh, aren’t they dependent on those outside the community for gas? > > If that’s all it is, then why not just wire up the house and use a generator? Technology _per se_ is not a problem. It’s just that (being slightly hyperbolic), if you are going to run the house on electricity, it’s a slippery slope to filling it with robot slaves while you sit around watching TV and playing video games all day. > [@Caesar](#): > > …Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent important… ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2018, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/22 "2018-08-14T22:37:18Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I was in an Amish furniture store in Colorado a few years ago complete with a horse and buggy outside for the operator and gas lights inside. I really liked some of the furniture but didn’t have a way to get it back home so I asked the operator if they did shipping. He said, sure “Just go to our website!”. > > Amish people aren’t really against technology as noted. They can generally use telephones, computers and power tools for work. The idea is to maintain a tight community that is generally semi-isolated from the “English” world. Don’t even get me started on the rumspringa. Amish teens get kicked out of their community for a few years and can be hellions. I used to live in an area with a large Amish population. They really aren’t any different from us, in every way, and that includes commission of crimes. An Amish man went to prison for child molestation (this was on the news) and most of the puppy mills in this region were also run by them. ☹ They were regularly patients in the hospital where I worked; they rarely had health insurance (the Mennonites often did) but always managed to pay their bills. Unfortunately, a lot of them weren’t vaxed because they believed God would protect them and/or they had never been in an environment where it was required, and I was involved in treating a few people who had vaccine-preventable diseases. This was where most of our local pertussis cases originated, and in addition, most of them did not pursue prenatal care unless something was going drastically wrong, because they do not consider pregnancy a disease. In addition, most of their babies were born at home, delivered by lay Amish midwives, but ZOMG those midwives were VERY good at knowing when they were in over their heads, and did not hesitate to call an ambulance, usually on a cell phone with a solar charger. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/23 "2018-08-15T00:11:56Z")
It’s also worth mentioning that there’s no Amish Pope, nor any other sort of global hierarchy. Each community makes and interprets their own rules. ---
**Author:** ![RetroVertigo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b38774/32.png) [@RetroVertigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RetroVertigo)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/24 "2018-08-15T04:12:23Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It’s also worth mentioning that there’s no Amish Pope But how cool would that be? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/25 "2018-08-15T04:34:27Z")
> [@Anny\_Middon](#): > > Actually, the potato salad is less likely to make you sick than other ingredients, particularly if it’s made with store-bought mayonnaise. Mayo is pretty acidic, so it functions as somewhat of a preservative. If you’re worried about a picnic food making you sick, stay away from any meat that hasn’t been stored at the appropriate temperature. > > Plenty of folks can potatoes; I’ve done it myself. Stored properly, potatoes will keep maybe 4 months. Canned potatoes have a shelf life of at least a year. Plus canned potatoes take a lot less time to prepare. Mayonnaise is not a good preservative. It’s not very acidic, only minimal amounts of citric acid are added. It has a lot of oil in it that can block oxygen from reaching ingredients but unfortunately many ingredients of a mayonnaise salad, especially chunky things like potatoes, will already have enough bacteria growing on them and contain sufficient oxygen to make you quite ill if the salad is not refrigerated for a while. Then everyone blames the mayo for going bad even though it’s the rest of the ingredients that are the problem. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2018, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/26 "2018-08-15T15:49:14Z")
To be fair, I haven’t seen a lot of evidence that foods produced and sold by the Amish are a serious threat to public health. That said, the potential for harm (including from the sale of raw milk by Amish producers to “food clubs”) exists. I don’t think they should get a pass on food safety regulations on the grounds of tradition or “religious freedom”. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/27 "2018-08-16T01:09:20Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Here’s a hint. Amish potato salad sold in grocery stores is not made by Amish people. Right, ok… Mennonites then. Whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Mrdeals](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@Mrdeals](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrdeals)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2018, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/28 "2018-08-16T01:49:25Z")
> [@RetroVertigo](#): > > But how cool would that be? Imagine the size of that guys beard… ---
**Author:** ![qualityleashdog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/9f8e36/32.png) [@qualityleashdog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qualityleashdog)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2018, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/29 "2018-08-19T03:23:59Z")
There’s an Amish produce/flower auction near where I live, and it mainly serves us English that want to vend at farmer’s markets/flea markets/produce stands. Or if you really want a lot of something to can or preserve. I remember some excitement a few years back because the leadership of the local Amish church changed, and with it came a change in the rules of what modern conveniences would be allowed. There was some excitement among us English because that meant there would be a flood of goods offered up at the auction since the Amish owners would no longer be allowed to use them. I didn’t go, so I don’t know exactly what was sold. I also worked in Kroger (nationwide grocery, just under different names, depending on where you live) manufacturing, and made iced cakes. Many of our cakes had 2-4 roses on them, and since we ran an assembly line, the roses were pre-made and dry iced for handling. Sometimes we sat and made the roses in overtime or when we had extra employees, but you had to pay an hourly wage to get about 60 roses in a good hour, less in a bad hour, out of an employee. So the rose making was also contracted out to the local Amish, at a per-rose rate. They’d put them on cardboard, and stack them in the plastic totes stores get their cigarette shipments in, and deliver them to the factory. We’d get the roses out, and find cat hairs all over the roses. Turns out the Amish would sit around their kitchens, making roses where the cats roamed free. Plant management tried to claim it came from our sideburns, which weren’t covered by hairnets…argument didn’t fly, since the tainted totes were all Amish, and we didn’t shed like cats, and there’s a difference between cat hair and people hair. I wouldn’t eat anything Amish that didn’t come out of a facility inspected by the local health department or USDA. ---
**Author:** ![Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cabin_fever_1/32/2908_2.png) [@Cabin\_Fever\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cabin_Fever_1)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2018, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539/30 "2018-08-19T22:07:15Z")
I mistook this topic as “Amish Foot Preservation” I worked in a shoe store at a mall in Ellkhart, Indiana. and had many Mennonites and possibly Amish, although I am still unclear of the distinction. The kids picked out those sneakers without question, with rolling eyes from the parents. Good people, sit down on a patio on your way south/east/west and enjoy. They are not that different. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amish-food-preservation/819539.md?page=1)