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The World's Deadliest Thing

the-angry-chef.com

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Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#51

Post by jandrese »

Uehreka wrote: post #44
antognini wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have wondered about this, but even if botulinum or listeria are present, won't they grow very slowly in the refrigerator? I would think that defrosting for 12 hours or so at refrigerator temperatures would still be fairly safe. Or is the quantity that can be dangerous so minute that it doesn't matter?

Perhaps its one of those things where “95% of the time you’ll be fine, but be careful if you do it 20 times, because botulism only needs to happen once.”

The fact that most people don't know to remove the plastic and yet there are virtually no reported cases of people being poisoned by wrapped fish suggests that the danger is remote. It probably helps that if you fish get to the point where the bactera become active again it tends to smell bad and discolour.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#52

Post by awild »

flipbrad wrote: post #31

Surprised the article doesn't mention honey, which if you're a new parent, is an important thing to know about, on this topic. To quote the US CDC: "Honey can contain the bacteria that causes infant botulism, so do not feed honey to children younger than 12 months. Honey is safe for people 1 year of age and older." Despite this being reasonably well-known, usually, you still get idiocy like this: https://www.fda.gov/…

On top of that, people should remember that while honey is naturally microbially stable. It is not actively anti microbial. Mixing it into your dish will not make it more shelf stable. The stability is simply because it's too dry for microbial activity.

I'm mentioning this because it's a common misconception in fermentation communities.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#53

Post by jandrese »

cgio wrote: post #27

The rapid, long-lasting and highly noticeable cosmetic effects made Botox a near instant success. In small doses, the same nerve damage that causes fatal paralysis in poisoning cases, helps to remove forehead creases and crow’s feet, with the only side effects being an inability to express emotion using your face, … ironic that many celebrities who publicly advocated a clean living, chemical-free lifestyle, were also…

Technically Botox is all natural. It's even vegan.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#54

Post by tgv »

sho wrote: post #26

> 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…

The thing that surprises me is: how does it get distributed widely enough? I would imagine that 30pg would lump together somewhere and damage a handful of neurons, not that it would spread and reach all essential parts of the nerve system.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#55

Post by chongli »

chadcmulligan wrote: post #46
asguy wrote: post #9

Only two mentions of 'nitrites'? Botulism is the reason we started curing meats with nitrite and nitrate in the first place. Canning is fine, but being able to keep meat at room temperature by just adding common (e.g. available in urine, and celery) chemicals is far more interesting.

so does ham cured with celery also contain nitrites? I've been buying free range ham cured with celery because I thought it was free of nitrites.

Celery extract contains a lot of nitrates and can be treated to produce nitrites as well [1]. The reason they use celery is to exploit a loophole in food labelling laws and avoid usage of the word nitrates due to their association with health risks.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celery_powder

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#56

Post by bambax »

awild wrote: post #48
bambax wrote: post #33

> In this way, Clostridium Botulinum shapes our modern food system. It is why (...) jarred sauces can sometimes have a harsh acidic note, particularly creamy sauces that are not naturally acidic. 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.

I've once gotten the advice of boiling it for at least fifteen minutes since the citric acid commonly used will break down at normal cooking temperatures. Wikipedia lists its breakdown temperature at 175C so it's plausible but I don't know the temperatures at which tomato sauce boils. Baking soda is fine too, but it can bring its own minerally flavor into your foods. So I'd use it sparingly.

Tomato sauce being mostly water it probably boils at around 100°C? I don't think you can have tomato sauce reach 175°C in a normal kitchen (the inside of a pressure cooker is about 120°C). In a deep fryer the oil goes to much higher temps but you can't keep anything watery inside (that's one of the points of deep frying: to remove water).

Or is it 175°F, which would be ~80°C?

In my experience just boiling a sauce doesn't reduce its acidity much; letting it simmer for hours can work wonders but it's a whole different approach.

Yes baking soda is very effective at small doses so just a pinch in a big pan of sauce is usually enough.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#57

Post by turbinerneiter »

Stratoscope wrote: post #35

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…

I defrost my fish in the package by putting it in hot tap water.

You, sire, drastically reduced my chance of dying. Thank you very much.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#58

Post by AlotOfReading »

linspace wrote: post #39
AlotOfReading wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What would be the role of the bacteria in a zombie invasion? Would it eat the zombies away or would it give them natural protection from predators? Both?

Botulinum toxins are paralytic, so they'd make very tame zombies. Fungi would take care of the rest pretty quickly.

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#59

Post by forty »

jandrese wrote: post #53
cgio wrote: post #27

The rapid, long-lasting and highly noticeable cosmetic effects made Botox a near instant success. In small doses, the same nerve damage that causes fatal paralysis in poisoning cases, helps to remove forehead creases and crow’s feet, with the only side effects being an inability to express emotion using your face, … ironic that many celebrities who publicly advocated a clean living, chemical-free lifestyle, were also…

Technically Botox is all natural. It's even vegan.

Is it? It feels like it exploit the hard work of those poor bacterias ;)

Re: The World's Deadliest Thing

#60

Post by bambax »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #57
Stratoscope wrote: post #35

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…

I defrost my fish in the package by putting it in hot tap water. You, sire, drastically reduced my chance of dying. Thank you very much.

Do not do that. Defrosting should be done slowly in the fridge. Or you can cook frozen food directly. But do not defrost at or about room temperature, this will breed bacteria like crazy.
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