I feel like nowadays botulinum is the least of ones' worries, especially for US food.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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IANAMBBIHWITFAPI: I am not a microbiologist but I've worked in the food and pharma industries.
Botulin has a F0 time of 3 minutes, meaning that after 3 minutes at 121,1°C (250°F, ew) there is one in a bazillion chances that a spore may have survived. The toxins are easier to destroy, but if you don't destroy the spores, those will turn back into bacteria and produce more toxins, aside from potentially colonising YOU later.
Most industrial sterilisers have an in-pipe dwell time between 20 and 90 seconds, depending on how hot they get the product, given that F0 = 90 seconds @ 121°C is the same as F0 = 9 seconds @ 131,1°C, IIRC.
At least that's what I remember, I don't design these things, I just make them work.
You can't reach 121°C by boiling the cans on your stove top, because at 100°C water magically transforms into steam, the only way to prevent that is by adding pressure. Either you dive in the depths of the ocean, or you use a pressure system, like a pressure cooker... but with a standard cooker, how tf do you discern what's the temperature inside? You'd need at the very least a pressure gauge if you don't have a temperature probe (because since increasing pressure increases the boiling point, the current pressure gives you the current temperature).
You only need about 1 extra atmosphere of pressure for the boiling point of water to rise to 120°C, which is available at only 10 meters below the surface of the ocean. Even with a strong safety factor, 15 meters of water is well within the depths found in many large freshwater lakes, saltwater lakes, etc.
Alternatively, you can can things in a sugar syrup bath, which can easily reach the required temperatures. /s
(To be fully clear, this is an entirely terrible idea. The pressure within the cans will still rise to 2 atmospheres, and the result is very likely to be a can bomb spraying dangerously hot, and frightfully sticky sugar syrup all over anyone foolish enough to be close.)
You only need about 1 extra atmosphere of pressure for the boiling point of water to rise to 120°C, which is available at only 10 meters below the surface of the ocean.
Yeah but then you'd be boiling water in water, that's kinda difficult.
like a pressure cooker
Or a pressure canner 😜
Yeah I'm not privy to the art of home canning
I am a home canner. There are two processes.
Water bath canning, in which jars packed with food are boiled at ambient pressure and thus 100C or slightly less. This is only suitable for high-acid foods like fruit jams, jellies, acidic pickles and some tomato recipes, because the botulism spores are left alive, they have to be kept inert by the acid in the food. Any pot large enough to completely submerge the jars with an inch of water above will do; I use an old stock pot.
Pressure canning, in which jars are boiled in a pressurized vessel that raises the temperature high enough to kill the spores outright. This is the only method that can be used for low acid foods like vegetables packed in water, low acid tomato recipes, meats, soups etc. A pressure canner is conceptually similar to a pressure cooker, but larger to fit several jars, and they operate at higher pressures and temperatures. A pressure cooker is not suitable for pressure canning, a purpose built pressure canner is required.
Why not use oven?
A BUNCH of very good reasons.
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Energy efficiency. Home canning is all about thrift. Heating glass jars with the hot air of an oven is less energy efficient than using a bath of water. Sure, it takes a wackton of energy to get the pot boiling in the first place, but once you've got it boiling you can do batch after batch after batch. When I'm done, I start a load of bath towels and pour in the (slightly cooled, no longer boiling) hot water. Because I paid for the water and the energy to heat it. With an oven, you open the door to take one batch out, all that heat comes spilling out.
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It doesn't achieve higher temps inside the jar. Sure, you could put a canning jar in a 400 degree oven. Don't. But if you did, the water inside the jar would boil at 100C and get no hotter. So this wouldn't achieve anything more than water bath canning would. You don't want a rolling, bubbling boil inside the jar, that might push the liquid or solid contents of the jar out through the rim causing the seal to fail. Even if you did get the food sterilized, it would get recontaminated during storage.
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High temperatures could damage the jars or lids. The lids, like all metal food packaging, has a plastic liner. Melting that onto my nice preserved food sounds like fun. For the sake of energy efficiency and thermal stress on the jars, the jars are typically preheated and packed with food still hot from cooking, but by the time you're ready to process them they may have cooled to, say, 60-70C? 140-160F or so? Putting them in a 400 degree oven might thermal shock and crack the glass.
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Precise, foolproof, repeatable heating. I'm a 21st century suburbanite with a modern electric oven with digital thermostat, I STILL have to rotate a pizza halfway through baking because the back-left corner is the hottest. If you underheat a jar, you're gonna die of botulism this winter. Imagine trying it in some landlord special, or a 1950's Wife-O-Mat. Meanwhile, I can heat a batch of jars all to precisely 100C with nothing more sophisticated than a big pot full of water over a wood fire. Since I know the PRECISE temperature the jars are exposed to, I know EXACTLY how fast heat is soaking through them, and thus I know when the ENTIRE contents of the jar are heated to a safe temperature, and it works no matter what the weather is like.
For the same reasons mentioned above. Temperature isn't the problem. Without pressure the water turns into steams instead of boiling before it reaches a high enough temperature to kill the spores.
If you can't measure the internal temp, pretty sure you use brute force and let it sit for an extended period of time, so even if it doesn't hit 121/3min it at minimum got close for much longer.
Jesus, how stupid can people possibly be?
if the last decade has taught me anything...people can be really....really...really fucking stupid.
Fwiw, the CDC and USDA sites still have the correct info in full rather than the half assed bullshit spouted on Facebook
https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/prevention/home-canned-foods.html
The USDA link is on that page
Last I checked, the USDA also still says that any pork not cooked to 165 is unsafe, which hasn't been true for decades.
I'm not arguing in favor of disregarding canning safety, but the USDA can be slow to come up to speed.
On canning, they're backed by over a century of practical information. Canning is essentially the practice of controlling decay. There's not much wiggle room involved when it comes to the pathogenic side of that. The temps at which they die off, or where various toxins are neutralized, have been reproduced so often and so reliably that it's not really in question.
Pork safety comes down to pretty much one pathogen in terms of finished safe temp and time. There's a curve to it. But the USDA (so far) tends to be very sith and deal in absolutes. At 165, with nothing else involved, you know you aren't going to get sick. There's other temps that can get the job done at different times, but we gotta be real about how dumb people are. You start displaying that chart, and the average person will start thinking they can piddle with it.
Plus, going to a lower temp with a rest, or at longer times, you run into more variables in the first place; more room for error to creep in. There's no way I'd recommend that process to someone new to cooking pork, so I can't be upset that the organization that's supposed to be the default source for food safety stays with the most certain path.
Hell, I wouldn't be upset if the USDA only listed canning guidelines that were similarly limited to no brainer numbers. Nuance is for experienced cooks.
For now. Don't tell RFK.
Exactly
I mean still pressure can your food but this does say kind if the same thing:
High temperatures can destroy the toxin that causes botulism. Boil the following foods in a saucepan before eating them.
- Home-canned tomatoes
- Foods containing home-canned tomatoes
- All low-acid home-canned foods
- All home-fermented Alaska Native foods
At altitudes below 1,000 feet, boil foods for 10 minutes. Add 1 minute for each additional 1,000 feet of elevation.
Yup :)
At the time I dropped the comment, nobody had laid out an external source that can be considered authoritative. While the "currently" caveat in the comment is meant to say that you can only trust things so far, you gotta take extra care when there's any risks involved.
The info in the image from the post wasn't wrong, just untrustworthy :)
These idiots don't know the difference between the bacteria and the toxin. You have to keep it hot until resealed, every single time
For those who come after, boiling previously canned for 5-10 minutes is recommended because any toxins will be destroyed. Spores of the problematic bacteria could remain, so it is necessary to consume the food immediately and to not feed it to individuals with compromised immune systems, particularly infants under 12 months.
I believe the above is correct based on my own personal reading of available information. I do not have formal training in food safety or science. Please do your own research, and none of what I've said applies to food that will be canned. Also, please correct me if I am wrong.
For those who come after
Time necessary would depend on your altitude and I suspect the amount of toxin present may exert an effect but I haven't run such an experiment or seen the data on that aspect. Hopefully no one is trying to boil and eat a jar full of purified botulinum toxin.
Didn't RFK recommend that for 'toughening up your immune system?'
I mean, we'll just have to see if purified botulinum toxin is on the menu for the new Jackass movie...
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Not familiar with rebel canning, but I definitely assume they're nut jobs. That being said, the content in the post is correct, heat does destroy the botulism toxin, but not the spores. The spores won't hurt you, but they will produce more toxin if cooled back down and restored
So I knew of the rebel canners but man. Worse than I thought if they're saying you can water bath can low acid food and just boil it later.
So if I just ignore guidelines and do whatever I want I’ll be a happier person?
Seems like that applies to everything in life. Just with a way higher mortality rate.
Of course, you'll be happy right up until your death bed in your early thirties
Regarding preserving food for room temperature storage, I believe it depends on the acidity of the food. If I remember correctly, tomatoes are borderline pH for boiling water canning, so some people add lemon juice if they don’t have a pressure cooker. I think I remember beans being used as an example of a food that MUST be canned at higher temperatures (achieved by pressure canning) Due to low acidity/high pH. I think there was a helpful USA federal government website about it but I don’t know if i would still trust it
The US Department of Agriculture, along with the University of Georgia, have tested canning methods and recipes for decades. These recipes are reproduced in Ball's canning books.
Baked beans are easy because the high sugar and salt discourages growth.
Food that is 100 degrees is not safe to consume. It would cause severe burns
Nonsense, it's barely warmer than body temperature. /s
As I recall, you can destroy the toxin if youre pressure canning, around 250 F
Pretty sure you wont find a pressure cooker that goes up to 250c. 250F?? 121-134 C is recommended with the higher being top standard for medical autoclaves and such.
Yeah mixed me C's with F's!
250C for 20 minutes in most homegamer sized quantities will kill most things outside of extremophiles
Homegamer you say?
How is this going to kill someone? Heat does kill botulism as long as it's consumed immediately after cooking, cuz it doesn't kill the spores.
To give more context - this person is a “rebel canner” which means that they do things which are unsafe. The suggestion here is to go ahead and not use pressure canning techniques for things that need that, or water glassing eggs, because you can just cook out the botulism. The attitude is like if I was telling you to go ahead and eat that puffy can of ravioli.
Basically, it’s the type of conservative chud that acts like a toddler that feels the need to do what they’re told not to do.
Boil for 10 minutes and your food is safe to consume
No thank you to culinary advice from Britain!
Imagine colonizing half the world, and not using spices or seasoning. Even America has the good grace to at least fry their shit in oil!
USDA
Favorite
isn't that chili being cooked, which not only isn't british but also traditionally contains a lot of different spices and seasonings?
Pretty sure the comment is a joke.
well yeah I understand the joke about british food but it just doesn't make sense in context.