Elizabeth L. Andress
National Center for Home Food Preservation
April 2002
Introduction
It only took a little! This is the message behind the story of Loretta Boberg, a 62-year old woman from Wisconsin who always tastes food before serving it to company. In this case, the company can be very thankful she did.
When Mrs. Boberg opened a jar of home-canned carrots in January, she dipped in a finger to taste the juice. Not liking the taste, she served home-canned beans to her guests instead. Within two days, Mrs. Boberg became dizzy and had difficulty walking. At first, hospital staff thought she had suffered a stroke because of her slurred speech and muscle weakness. The doctor did ask her if she had eaten any spoiled food lately, however. Too weak to speak, Mrs. Boberg wrote "carrots" on a piece of paper.
If this physician had not suspected botulism, even though he had seen only a few cases, Mrs. Boberg would probably have died. The toxin moved through the respiratory system, paralyzing her muscles. A sample from the jar was fed to a laboratory mouse and it died within 8 hours. A sample of Mrs. Boberg's blood was given to another mouse and it too died within 8 hours.
The road to recovery for this lady was very slow. Six months later, she remained in the hospital on a respirator, still being fed intravenously. She had stood for only three minutes since the incident, and talked through a tube in her trachea when not out of breath. Muscle movement was returning slowly with the help of physical therapy. Hospital officials estimated that her bill was
running about $200,000. These results are a terrible tragedy, but they could be even worse—botulism is fatal in many cases.
Mrs. Boberg used a boiling water canner for the carrots that gave her botulism. Yes, this was the same method she had used—and only by luck had gotten away with—for the past 44 years. This year she was not so lucky. If, like Mrs Boberg, you are canning low-acid foods such asvegetables (except tomatoes), red meats, seafood, and poultry in a boiling water canner or by the open kettle method, you may wish to think twice before taking another chance.
Because native spores of Clostridium botulinum, the bacteria that cause the potentially fatal botulism, are extremely difficult to destroy at boiling water temperatures, all low-acid foods should be processed at the much higher temperatures achieved only with pressure canners. Processing times are scientifically determined to ensure destruction of the most heat-resistant disease-causing bacteria capable of growing in each type of food packed in a jar of a specific size. Therefore, there are different processing times for different foods.
It takes many, many hours at boiling water temperatures to begin to kill C. botulinum spores in low-acid foods that there would be very little, if any, food value or quality remaining at the end of the sterilization process. There is therefore no purpose, and a lot of risk, to determining canning processes for low-acid foods in a boiling water canner. The only time a water bath canner can be used is when canning acid foods such as tomatoes, fruits, pickled and fermented products, jams, jellies, marmalades and fruit butters. Once you start
to add meat and/or vegetables to soups and tomato sauces, the acidity of that food changes and you must use a pressure canner for most formulations.
What if you don't own a pressure canner, can't borrow one, or find access to one? Then your only option is to freeze the food.
There are no shortcuts to home canning! Home canning takes time, proper processing methods, proper equipment and current, scientifically-based process recommendations. Anytime you have a question about home canning, or freezing methods, please contact your County Cooperative Extension Office, consult the safest recommendations available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or consult the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Learn from the tragedy of Mrs. Boberg and don't takechances with your health or life.
Note: I have not posted this article to frighten anybody but rather to make people aware that Botulism does occur and can be fatal. By being aware and informed you lesson the risk of being affected by this tasteless and odourless toxin.
Botulism DOES NOT ONLY OCCUR IN HOME PRESERVED FOODS BUT ALSO OCCURS IN COMMERCIALLY PRESERVED FOODS.
The highest incidences of botulism is actually from wound infections. We have very few reported cases of botulism through home preserved food here in Australia at this time.
This may of course be due to the fact that home preserving food is not so common over here although this may change as more people become interested in learning how to preserve foods for themselves. So being informed of what can occur is definately the best advice a new preserver can receive.
In the end, what an idividual preserver chooses to do is just that, an indiviual choice, hopefully it will also be an informed choice.
