Boiling for ten minutes will not kill spores, but will inactivate the toxin.
Re:How Not to Die of Botulism (2013)
by odonnellryan on Saturday June 17, 2017 @10:47PM
(#14578719)
Is this true? So if the toxin is already there, and you boil it, you'd be fine? I feel like that's not true.
Re:How Not to Die of Botulism (2013)
by Footkerchief on Saturday June 17, 2017 @11:11PM
(#14578775)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism#Prevention
> the botulinum toxin is destroyed by thorough cooking over the course of a few minutes
> bad bacteria proliferates without oxygen, without salt and without acid
Why is that so? Why can't some of the bad types of bacteria proliferate in other environments?
They can, however they are much more likely to be crowded out. The botulism spores are also more heat resistant than pretty much anything else. So the fastest way to die of botulism is canning food wrong.You kill all the bacteria. The botulism spores survive and prosper without any competition. Compare that to failed fermentation for example where you will have a large quantity of a mix of bacteria that is likely to look and smell and taste obviously wrong while not being packed with neuro toxins.
Understand the bacterias ecosystem is also a good way to understand home food preservation, in a salty and no oxygen environment (like salted water) you incentive lactobacillus that will consume sugars to produce lactic acid (and thus lower the ph), hence not a good environment for Clostridium Botulinum and fungi...so yes you can use heat to kill Clostridium Botulinum but you can also use other bacterias and the environment, the problem with heat is that you often kill "all" the bacterias leaving a highway for "pathogen" ones if the heating was not done properly.
Lacto-fermentation is a fascinating world: https://www.thespruce.com/g00/how-lacto-fermentation-works-1...
And as a french guy, here we know a lot about cheese and lacto-fermentation :-) as all cheese, after coagulation, start from the transformation of lactose (a sugar) to lactic acid thanks to the bacterias (and lot of french cheese use...salted water).
UPDATE: the official recommandations to remove the toxin produced by Clostridium Botulinum: boil during 10 minutes, to kill the spore: heat above 120°C during at least 30 minutes, to prevent its proliferation in the first place: water with NaCl at a 15% concentration, OR 2% of acetic acid (vinegar) OR oxygen (but in that case the fungi will gently occupy the place).