31–40 of 231 posts
Despite this being reasonably well-known, usually, you still get idiocy like this: https://www.fda.gov/food/alerts-advisories-safety-informatio...
> The lethal dose when consumed orally is around 30 billionths of a gram, which if you want a relatable comparison, is about the same as if you cut a single poppy seed into ten thousand equal pieces and ate one of them. It is an amount so tiny, it really doesn’t make sense. That's right - it makes no sense. How could such a small amount of anything do enough damage to shut down your entire body? According to wikipedi…
Yes, I have noticed this many times. Tomato sauce is naturally acidic, but ready-made, bottled tomato sauce is much more acidic than what you can make from scratch.
Acidity can be fought by adding just a little baking soda.
Do you ever buy frozen vacuum-sealed fish? The kind where each piece is sealed in its own plastic pouch? It is convenient and delicious. To me it can taste fresher than some "fresh" fish. One reason is that the sealed pouch keeps oxygen out.
Have you wondered why it says "remove all packaging before defrosting"? And ignored that advice like I did for many years?
After all, the fish seems to defrost just fine in its original vacuum-sealed packaging, whether you defrost it in the refrigerator or in a cold water bath. And it is so convenient to leave it in the pouch while defrosting.
Well, there is a reason to take those instructions seriously. The vacuum-sealed package is an anerobic environment, just right for botulinum and listeria.
So unwrap the fish, let it have that little kiss of oxygen, and then rewrap it for defrosting.
https://www.google.com/search?q=remove+frozen+fish+from+pack...
> The lethal dose when consumed orally is around 30 billionths of a gram, which if you want a relatable comparison, is about the same as if you cut a single poppy seed into ten thousand equal pieces and ate one of them. It is an amount so tiny, it really doesn’t make sense. That's right - it makes no sense. How could such a small amount of anything do enough damage to shut down your entire body? According to wikipedi…
Is there a theory for what purpose the Botulinum Toxin evolved for? I don't see that paralyzing your host is particularly useful for a bacterium.
C. Botulinum has a complicated life cycle that involves infecting vertebrates, killing them, and then infecting the invertebrates that feed on the body during decomposition. The bacteria don't particularly care about the host and just want it dead as quickly as possible so they can get on with their real hosts. [1] https://doi.org/10.1093/femspd/fty040
Pop quiz! Do you ever buy frozen vacuum-sealed fish? The kind where each piece is sealed in its own plastic pouch? It is convenient and delicious. To me it can taste fresher than some "fresh" fish. One reason is that the sealed pouch keeps oxygen out. Have you wondered why it says "remove all packaging before defrosting"? And ignored that advice like I did for many years? After all, the fish seems to defrost just fin…
Is there a theory for what purpose the Botulinum Toxin evolved for? I don't see that paralyzing your host is particularly useful for a bacterium.
C. Botulinum has a complicated life cycle that involves infecting vertebrates, killing them, and then infecting the invertebrates that feed on the body during decomposition. The bacteria don't particularly care about the host and just want it dead as quickly as possible so they can get on with their real hosts. [1] https://doi.org/10.1093/femspd/fty040
Unheralded indeed. His Wikipedia entry isn't very well-sourced, but assuming it's mostly accurate this guy could be a great subject for a motivated long-form journalist willing to do a bit of research. At the very least I'd want to read it.