No cracks, spots or bruises? Really?
 

Everything I read on canning says to choose ripe tomatoes free of cracks, spots, soft spots, etc. I have no idea what garden they are growing their food in, but if I tossed all my 'defective' tomatoes I would seriously have about 1 lb instead of 30. Why should it make any difference if I am turning them into sauce? I plan on picking through and using the worst ones for sauce and then hopefully having enough 'nice' ones left for salsa.

(And yes, I am freaked out a bit by gnarly looking tomatoes and would love for them all to look perfect and untouched by bugs, but that is not the reality of my garden and I didn't plant 30 tomato plants for nothing.)

Re: No cracks, spots or bruises? Really?
 

I think the concern is bacteria or fungus contaminating your canning.

Re: No cracks, spots or bruises? Really?
 

What Natalie said. The concern is that you won't be able to clean those areas thoroughly or that whatever blemished them (very vague term) could contaminate the canning. I cut off any bad areas with a generous cushion and use the rest of the tomato. Heck, if it's safe to eat the good parts of a nasty-looking a BER-damaged tom, I think you can eat the unblemished parts of any tomato! ETA: Surface blemishes like catfacing come off if you're peeling or milling the tomatoes.

Re: No cracks, spots or bruises? Really?
 

There's a point where I won't use some tomatoes, but for the most part, I use them all. I still have a few jars of tomatoes from two years ago and they haven't grown any mold. Now, I won't eat them because a year is about the longest I would trust MY canning but I just froze some sauce and many of them were defective.

I made zucchini chips out of squirrel (or some wild animal) bitten/clawed zucchini. I washed it well and cut off the parts that were clawed/bitten and called it good.

Re: No cracks, spots or bruises? Really?
 

That makes sense. I'm definitely one to cut plenty of cushion off, so I'm assuming everything should be ok.