My best friend and I also made dill pickles! So delicious and easy to make! I think we'll do this every year from now on! These would make great gifts and an even better snack!

 I don't think we'll have to buy pickles for at least two years! It was
surprisingly easy...getting the pickles into the jars was by far the biggest battle in our case. Please learn from our mistake...use widemouth jars, and don't can 40 lbs of cucumbers, it's too many!!!
Our recipe came from this link:
 http://low-cholesterol.food.com/recipe/blue-ribbon-dill-pickles-241139

 Now the ingredient list on store bought pickles is quite bizarre and varies a ton from jar to jar. There are a LOT of additives in pickles. Dyes are the most irritating to me.... cucumbers, water, distilled vinegar, salt, calcium cholride, sodium benzoate (preservatives), polysorbate 80, natural flavor, yellow 5...and a lot of them have sugar and lots of other ingredients...(natural flavorings as an ingredient are a blanket term for so many things that it can mean literally ANYTHING!)

In Europe they have never used food dye like we do in America. If they do use dyes the government forces them to label it. Both dyes and GMO's must be labeled, in at least 27 member states, which is the entire European Nation! For good reasons...check it out.  http://cspinet.org/new/201007201.html  There are behavioral problems linked to food dyes and additives like sodium benzoate... and yellow #5

I'll make my own pickles thank you! Our 4 year old eats quite a few pickles a week, and sometimes day...I couldn't imagine if he ate the kind with blue lake and yellow number 5, sugar, and who knows what else...where it came from...what it is? What is food dye? SCARY, that's what!

Ahh, I should knit my pickles a safety vest and don them with a medal!