Putting Food By - Janet Greene [11]
But if reliable procedures have not been used, the scenario can be scary. Botulism due to mold actually occurred in the early 1970s when tomatoes were canned by the old open-kettle method, long in disrepute. Canned juice and even canned pears also caused an outbreak of botulism. In the last case it was considered that specks of food lodged on the sealing-rim of the jar, preventing a true seal—and thereby giving mold a chance to eat its way into the contents. Or maybe a bad sealing-ring was used by a cook who wasn’t much bothered by mold.
USING SPACE-AGE PLASTICS
In Chapter 21, “Drying,” PFB warns against using any plastic for storing food of any kind unless the wrap/bag/box is rated as food-grade. So how to find out if one of these plastic things is OK to use with food, when the labels don’t tell you NOT to do it?
First, examine the label. Just as certain wraps and bags are quick to tell you that they’re “ideal for freezing” or that they’re intended for use in freezers in the first place, so will wrappings that are food-grade tell you to use them to protect food.
If the blurb or the label does not mention food, consider that the plastics are not OK’d for use with food. Such plastics are those used in making waste bins or trash cans, in liners for waste-collectors, and lawn/leaf/trash bags. Some makers of plastics for such use take the trouble to warn against using their trash plastics for food. But many do not.
Trash plastics contain a chemical toughener and usually a substance called a “plasticizer,” which allows the goop to extrude readily in the form desired (as a sheet, or as toothbrush handles, or as cat boxes, or whatever). These plasticizer chemicals often contain cadmium—definitely not a thing for human beings to mess with, much less ingest, since all its soluble compounds are poisonous. As are the garbage bags with built-in germicides.
BACTERIAL LOAD
Everyone careful in handling food knows that the best way to have safe food is to start with clean food; and that the utensils and boards and holding vessels must be immaculate or they will supply contamination.
Over the years, PFB has been trying to come up with a truly simple, easy-to-make-from-household-stuff germicide—something that will do a competent job of dealing with gross bacterial load, and deadly micro-organisms. Now we have it. And it’s from one of our favorite authorities, the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta.
The CDC recommends a disinfection solution made by adding 1 part of 5.25 percent sodium hypochlorite (good old household bleach) to 9 parts of water. This 1:9 solution will certainly disinfect cutting boards, sinks, counters, you name it, after we have been dealing with poultry, ground meat, or other foods possibly contaminated with disease-causing agents. If you do not want to deal with a bleach solution, at the least be sure to clean surfaces thoroughly with soap and water, a procedure that the CDC considers effective against Salmonella, the most common cause of food poisoning.
After food—and food utensil—cleanliness, the food-handler knows that it’s not merely OK it’s absolutely necessary to refrigerate food that’s not going to be held at 140 F/60 C or above until it is eaten. PFB is leery of any steam-table unless it is supervised by a professional, and generally we deplore casual “keeping something warm” at home. For several generations now, the refrigerator has been capable of kicking its motor on automatically to cool any