I surprised myself today with my ho-hum, lack-lustre response to possibly turning my kitchen into a haz-mat area.
Was going to make a mixed berry topping for Sunday morning pancakes, a family favorite. One can of mixed fruit, a couple spoons of honey and some cinammon always makes a great sauce. So I grab the only can left, check the date just to make sure and it says May 2006…So it has been in the cupboard for over a year, I suspect.
I grab the trusty can opener, align, squeeze and FFFFfffttt! Berry juice squirts 15 feet and hits the wall on the other side of the room. Hmmm…Can was under a bit of pressure…doesn’t that generally mean some form of nastiness was growing, like botulism? OK, well, I guess I won’t use that, just to be safe. But dammit, now what? We don’t have any maple syrup.
I wipe the juice off the floor and wall. Then go back to cooking. Then think…hmmm…might be nasty stuff. Should I clean it more? But the pancakes are burning! OK, quick wash of the hands. Make a sweet tart sauce from some cranberry topping that didn’t get used at Thanksgiving. Then see some more juice-o-botulism on the counter that I missed…better wipe that too. Oh jeez, should probably wash my hands again…Grrr…I’m hungry!!!
Finish breakfast without dying. Which is a good thing. But, really, what if it was botulism? Isn’t that stuff, like, really bad? As in Anthrax bad? Shouldn’t I have called the local haz-mat company and told them to disinfect my whole house? Orange bubble-suits and all? Where in my life did I learn that passive food poisoning isn’t much to be worried about?
Well, the only consolation I can offer you is that botulism usually occurs in low-acid foods. As berries are generally acidic, you’re probably safe from that particular toxin. However, it might have been some other hellish poison causing the pressure in the can. Keep us posted.
The “local Haz-Mat Company” is called the fire department, and I’m pretty sure you couldn’t pay them to clean your kitchen.
Botulism is much worse than Anthrax. But it’s nothing like Anthrax.
Botulism is an endotoxin released as the bacteria, Clostridium botulinum die.
Here’s the CDC’s advice.
Clean it up, throw away the sponge you wiped it up with, and wash your hands, well.
Don’t eat any food from the floor where the juice spilled.
And last, listen to Finagle who is correct about the low acid. It’s always best to avoid eating any exploding food.
Oh, and the Haz-Mat team would probably be in white, not orange. Orange is Hollywood, but since they won’t clean your kitchen anyway, it’s moot.
Oy.
When I bought my old house and was cleaning a Dumpster load of miscellaneous crap out of the basement, I discovered a hidden storage area under the stairs.
Filled with exploded jars of long-ago canned fruits and vegetables. Decades-old slime had solidified, shards of glass were nestled in forests of Triffid-like moldy growths, and little fossilised lumps of nuclear food-like substances had stuck to the walls and ceiling from the force of the explosions.
The newest date I found on any of the jars was in the 1960s, and there were probably 200 various jars of ancient food-like substance under there. :eek:
It was just horrific. I was tempted to close the door and pretend it didn’t exist. I bought some of those corrosive-chemical proof elbow legnth rubber gloves, a dust mask and industrial weight garbage sacks and spent just a lovely day cleaning it all up.
I lived, and I hope you do too.
Oh, I got one of those cans a few years ago. Cherries. It exploded messily although not spectacularly and I thought, hmm, something may be wrong with these cherries. So I stuck my finger in the juice and tasted it.
Obviously, I lived through it. I did realize only seconds later that probably that was a dumb thing to do. “Gee, let’s see if this has a bad effect.” Then I cleaned up the whole mess while monitoring myself for symptoms.
