Currently, there’s a scare about tomatoes contaminated with salmonella. Restaurants all over are dropping them like hot potatoes.
But what about tomato-based sauces such as pizza sauce? Pizza places are still making pizza with it. Is it safe?
I know that few, if any, pizzarias make their own sauce. Certainly none of the chains do. They get it premade. Is pizza sauce cooked long and hot enough to kill off the salmonella? How about other sauces and condiments like ketchup and barbeque sauce?
Pizza sauce - at least the way I would make it, if starting from fresh tomatoes - is simmered long enough to destroy salmonella. Tomatoes generally are fairly acidic, so I wouldn’t expect food poisoning pathogens to grow well or at all in something made from them - especially ketchup, which is cooked with extra acid added.
It sounds like the contamination here is on the outside of the fruits. It won’t be reliably removed by any normal washing process, but the biggest risk is when the contaminated material is mixed into something else it can feed on - such as a salad with a cream-based dressing, or containing chunks of meat.
Except for Clostidium botulinum, which causes botulism. It is also a spore-former, so it can survive cooking. This is why tomatoes must be preserverd in a pressure canner. Pressure canning kills almost anything.
An article in the Washington Post this morning says:
It sounds to me like the plant can take in the bacteria with its nutrient stream so would not be limited to the surface. The article just says what *can * happen; not sure what they are finding in the actual contamination of concern right now.
The report I heard on the radio this morning said that tomato-based sauces (e.g. pizza, spaghetti), stewed tomatos, soups, etc. were not a concern because they were cooked.
When I wanted to can some tomatoes prior to going on a long vacation (I’m cheap, plus had the jars), the USDA website (or FDA or some other .gov) gave me instructions for not using a pressure canner. Over the course of several months, were we just lucky? I think for botulism, it only matters if it reproduces. Even cooking botulism after the fact is bad, but not because of spores, but because of the toxins. Any definitive answer on this? I don’t think masterofnone is correct, but fully admit that maybe I’m not correct!
As for the fresh stuff, man, I had to eat a burger at a restaurant today without tomato due to all this paranoia. Just, you know, disinfect 'em. Bleach works wonders, as does iodine. In some countries, this is standard restaurant and household practice. With this global economy and imported vegetables and/or farm labor, why isn’t this normal practice? What cost? Throw 'em in a sink or service bin before you use them.
Except, as already stated earlier in this thread, the bacteria are not on the exterior of the fruit, but inside. Bleach won’t do you much good.
Unless you substitute it for the vodka in a Bloody Mary. But you’re going to need a lot of Worcestershire sauce to make that drinkable.
I was not 100% correct, as boiling water bath canning is the traditional method for tomatoes, but more and more people are reccomending either adding acid or pressure canning them (or both).
“Although tomatoes are considered a high-acid food (pH below 4.6), certain conditions and varieties can produce tomatoes and tomato products with pH values above 4.6. When this happens, the product must be canned in a pressure canner as a low-acid product or acidified to a pH of 4.6 or lower with lemon juice or citric acid.” from here: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/foodnut/09341.html
My point was that *Clostridium botulinum * spores may survive the boiling water bath process. Since it is an obligate anaerobe, it can grow and produce toxins in the jar after canning. Clostridium toxin is not heat stable, but I would not risk it:
“Temperature:
For spores: D100 group I 25 min, group II <0.1. D121 group I 0.1-0.2 min, group II <0.001 min. A 12 D process, controlling group I spores, has been adopted for the canning of low-acid (pH> 4.6) foods. This is the equivalent of heating to 121oC for 3 min.
Toxin: Inactivated by treatment at 85oC for 1 min, 80oC for 6 min or 65oC for 1.5 hours. Toxins may be slightly more heat stable at lower pH values. Resistant to freezing.
Vegetative cell: Killed by a few minutes exposure to 60ºC.” From here: http://www.nzfsa.govt.nz/science/data-sheets/clostridium-botulinum.pdf