[QUOTE=Patty O’Furniture]
Now I’ve always heard that botulin formation was possible because the honey provided an oxygen poor environment (which is what C. botulinum needs to produce toxin). For the same reaons, those decorative bottles of olive oil with veggies (like chopped-up garlic) inside are also potential botulin sources.
Right or wrong?
[/QUOTE]
Kind of wrong; the reason garlic in oil can permit the reproduction of botulism pathogens is that the garlic provides a moist, nutritious environment for them. Honey doesn’t - it’s too sugary for the bacteria to feed on directly. If we were to try to preserve something (say, whole fruits) by simple immersion in honey, then that could provide a suitable anaerobic, moist environment.
[QUOTE=Shoshana]
Now that’s the most useful thing I’ve learned this week. I’m off to add sugar to the house and car emergency kits (the house kit has honey already). Thanks, tygerbryght!
[/QUOTE]
I could see using these things if modern medicine was not available, but if you’re stocking an emergency kit, why use substandard antiquated remedies? Why not just put real medicine in there?
[QUOTE=Patty O’Furniture]
Now I’ve always heard that botulin formation was possible because the honey provided an oxygen poor environment (which is what C. botulinum needs to produce toxin). For the same reaons, those decorative bottles of olive oil with veggies (like chopped-up garlic) inside are also potential botulin sources.
Right or wrong?
[/QUOTE]
Oxygen poor environments promote botulism only because there aren’t really any other important dangerous foodborne bacteria that can reproduce anaerobically.
[QUOTE=tygerbryght]
So does powdered sugar. A doctor in Brazil did research about 20 years ago on wound care. His purpose was to find ways for people without access to regular medical care (whether financial or just no doctors, etc., in the vicinity) to handle injuries, and found that plain old sugar (exceedingly cheap in Brazil) would cause the bacteria to lyse (break open; the same quantity of salt :eek: would also cause lysis in bacterial cells, but would really hurt!).
So if you’re ever out in the boonies and get a nasty wound, if you can pack it with sugar and bandage it so it stays dry and nothing else can get in, you would be fine until you can get to real medical care.
[/quote]
While this may be OK if sugar is all you got, I would recommend against it. The key in long-term wilderness wound management is aggressively re-clean the wound. Do not make the wound inaccessible (such as by packing it with large amounts of material, including sugar). Much better for an emergency kit would be sterile gauze and cooking gear to boil water so you can clean the wound (filters or Iodine are OK, but cooking would be the gold standard.)
You should remove gauze, bandages, etc. at least every 24 hours for cleaning - you’ll go through a lot of sugar that way.
Think of it this way - yes, sugar will keep bacteria from growing on the wound - but what’s going on under the sugar? You need to know the answer to that question.
Botulism spores thrive in cool, low oxygen, non-acidic enviroments, stay dormant in high oxygen or high acid enviroments and are killed in high temperature enviroments. When botulism spores thrive, they produce botulism toxin which persists even after cooking or high acid. Botulism spores are not a problem for adults since their stomach is acidic enough to kill them but botulism toxins are so care needs to be taken to keep the spores either dormant or dead. Honey is not a problem (dormant spores), roasted garlic in oil is not a problem (dead spores due to heat), raw garlic in vinegar is not a problem (dormant spores due to acid) but raw garlic in oil is (active spores producing toxins).