Botulism

CanadianGeek

I'm not sure if this is in the right forum. I posted it here given that food safety issues are involved.

Has anyone ever heard of this, or had it happen to them? (I assure you I'm serious, despite the somewhat humerous nature of this problem). Quite some time ago, a relative of mine bought some canned pineapple. He put it into a closet with other canned foods for storage but forgot about it. The can had botulism in it, and as those of you familiar with it know, the can buldged out. Eventually, so much botulism built up in the can that it exploded.

Well, he hired somebody else to clean out the closet for him and discard everything in it. The chemicals they used were pretty strong. They stripped the paint off of the shelves. During the cleanup, four more cans were found to have botulism as well (although these ones didn't explode).

Still, has anyone ever had a can explode on them because of botulism, or heard of it happening? And if so, have you got any idea how much botulism it would take to make a tin can explode like that?

poiko123

Wow! If I remember correctly botulism is a bacteria that can cause terrible intestinal problems. And if there was such a build up and pressure that it exploded...welll thats amazing. Anyway probably the bacteria was performing a chemical process involving the glucose and building a large amount of pressure probably carbon dioxide. I'm not an expert, but that would be my idea of what caused this. But I have never heard of that happening. I have seen on mythbusters where they took biscuit rolls and blew them up in a car. Wink

ddgenconst

Sounds fairly strange to me...

loryl

It's a toxin from the bacterium Clostridium botulinum that relaxes your muscles and causes paralysis. It's very potent; a tiny amount can kill you.

Ironic that it's in the "Health and Beauty" section of this forum. A form of the toxin, under the brand name, Botox, is used to lessen the wrinkles on faces.

Jaime

THe botulism is a bacteria Clostridium botulinum. It's present in food that are many days alone and it's out of order. It's extremely rare that someone found this bacteria in canned food. This bacteria cause botulism and it is manifested with a sudden start fever, odinophagia, can't walk, dizzinesses, pain, etc... It's very rare in our days this pathology. But if you are scared cause a can may explode, just don't buy much canned food.

The canned food never may exploted, except that this have much CO2 or inflamable material is near.