Its Calcium Chloride and is not being offered by Ball anymore. Its used in some commercially canned whole tomatoes to help them retain firmness. Its a 'buffer' that 'tames' the acid in vineger. The vegetables that are pickled would need at least n 80:20 ratio of 5% vinegar to be safely canned. You didn't mention what 'vegetables' you plan to pickle, but if its peppers, onions, carrots, cauliflower, and cukes, they should hold a bit of firmess after a longer than 6 month storage. The Calcium Chloride is now offered by a Web Site- Bulk Foods. And is a bit larger granule size, so a teaspoon per quart is needed in each jar. Its added at packing time, or once the jars are being filled with boiling brine. Using FRESH vegetables is always important. I can never find whole small white onions in my local supermarkets, so I grow a mini purple type insead. Use Clear Jel for the thickener as opposed to any flour. Also, I like it sweetened with Splenda, but use a small amount. I also use yellow and brown mustard seeds as well as grind them with celery seeds in a small coffee grinder (blender type). I find that the veggies exude a lot of liquid and seem to get 'lost' in all that mustard sauce. Tumeric is used to give it yellow color and I like the Colemans dry mustard powder/flour too. I also add a few cut up pieces of sweet red peppers for added color. I may consider treating the veggies with lots of pickling salt prior to canning. This will draw out some of the water in the veggies. I had leftover mustard, and mixed with finely chopped pickling cukes and onions to be used on hotdogs as a relish.