Dangerous boxes. Why you can’t wrap meat, peas and corn at home Technician Posokina talked about how food poisoning with canned food is investigated

“Your institute is investigating cases of food poisoning from canned food. How do these stories usually begin?

– Usually this is still not a story of poisoning, but a marriage whose cause must be found. The manufacturer has a problem. He cannot determine the cause himself, his knowledge and tools are not enough for this. The manufacturer turns to our institute and says, for example: “They changed the raw materials – the marriage is gone. Why?” We are developing a test program that answers the question: what could hypothetically cause such damage? Let’s say a package or a technological process in which the sterilization or pasteurization temperature, perhaps the storage conditions or conditions are not sufficient. As a result, it turned out that the new raw materials had nothing to do with it, and the culprit was the leak of the canister. So the problem is in the marriage of the packaging.

Is it often possible to visually determine the reason for marriage?

– In some cases, yes. Most spoilage from insufficient heat treatment occurs, the formation of mold and yeast, swelling of jars (bomb), clouding of the filling. Suppose they brought a jar of cucumbers to our institute, we know that the filling must be absolutely transparent. If confused, it’s clear that either lactic or yeast fermentation is going there.

If a microbiological marriage is gone, we analyze the product and see which microflora has grown. And according to the overgrown microflora, we can determine the reasons for marriage in the opposite way.

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Natalya Posokina

From personal archive

– So bacteria and fungi tell you exactly where the fault occurred?

– Yes. Let’s say after microbiological analysis of the contents of a box we see molds growing in it. As molds only grow in the presence of air, it is immediately clear that the packaging is not airtight. Molds are known to die at temperatures around 80°C. That is, heating the product to 80°C is sufficient to kill any mold cells that may have entered the product. We check the jar for leaks. If everything is in order, then most likely the technological process was violated and the temperature of 80 ° C was not reached or kept at this temperature for a certain period of time.

– And if the sealing of the jar is suitable and the temperature is maintained?

– There are subtleties. Let’s say the temperature is 80°C, but in the middle of the jar (or where the least heated zone is), the product may not get hot.

– And then poisoning can occur?

— Such risks are minimized, According to the rules, canned products must be quarantined by the manufacturer for 11 days. This instruction has been in force since Soviet times. While this is not a strict requirement at the moment, manufacturers are sticking to it because within 11 days anyway irreversible processes will begin and damage may occur. During the shipping phase, the manufacturer will withdraw the defective products and will not enter the distribution network.

— Have you encountered situations where you were given a product that caused poisoning, even though it did not visually change anything?

– It’s just botulism, so it’s dangerous. Everything else can be determined by appearance, taste and smell. If it’s mold, we see it, if it’s yeast, we see intense gas formation: The jar and lid swell, the product becomes cloudy. This straight acid souring, on the other hand, is the sharp smell of acid that makes it spoil. But Clostridium botulinum is dangerous as it does not bring any visual changes, the person calmly consumes the product and as a result is poisoned.

– Can botulism be obtained by eating any canned food?

– No, botulism only thrives in low-acid foods. These are canned foods produced without acid: first and second course meals, green peas, corn, natural beans, vegetable caviar. But cases of botulism are extremely rare because a responsible manufacturer will reassure himself by applying harsh heat treatment, knowing that he is producing products that can be dangerous.

– Could it be botulism in the casserole?

Maybe if made at home. Sterilization in factory casserole takes place for a long time at 120 ° C, in such conditions Clostridium botulinum cannot survive. You cannot keep temperatures above 100°C at home. Moreover Collecting green peas, sweet corn, beans at home is dangerous because the risk of developing botulism is high. Therefore, if you have grown a large amount of green peas or corn, it is better to freeze it.

– Is it really worth buying a tin can in the store if it has rotted?

– If there is a slight mechanical damage, there is nothing to worry about. It’s scary when the bank is heavily crumpled. What is the danger here? Inside the jar there is a protective lacquer coating – a layer between the product and the body made of tin and tin. If the lacquer coating is broken during crushing, the penetrating tin source will be exposed, and then the product may cause poisoning.

— How many canning factories are there in Russia?

— I think one to two thousand. We are talking about enterprises that produce products in significant quantities.

– Do they work on domestic equipment or on foreign equipment? Will there be a problem with these plants after February 24?

– There are problems. They were there until February 24th but after that they got worse. The high-performance equipment in our factories is usually European. But now they are switching to Chinese – it is taking up an increasing place in our equipment. But there are old European lines that work well, why change them? However, if the Italian line is up and running for 20 years, it needs spare parts for repair. And this is where the problem arises. But people somehow get out of the situation. Someone grinds spare parts himself, orders metal products in workshops.

— Have there been innovations in canning technology in recent years that allow you to better preserve the value of products?

— Canned food is a conservative industry. However, there are innovations even though the products produced using new technologies cover one percent.

— What are these innovations?

– There are ways to treat products with ultraviolet light. The advantage of ultraviolet treatment is disinfection of products and ensuring microbiological stability. But this process is superficial, the rays acting on the product do not penetrate deep, we only get superficial purity. However, since there is no heating, there is no denaturation of proteins, there is no significant loss of macro and micro elements, vitamin components, as at high temperatures. They are better protected in the product.

– Is this the same as unattended procedures in hospitals at night?

– Yes. But not all fruits can be processed in this way. If we are talking about a whole fetus, it is considered to be planted only superficially – the inside of the fruit is sterile. Such fruits are suitable for ultraviolet light. But we don’t just process whole fruits. For example, vegetable caviar is a mixture of crushed components, ultraviolet is useless here anyway.

UV treatment is very economical. Lamps are produced in Russia, they are used by some manufacturers, whose technological chain allows this. However, another new method of processing products with accelerated electrons has advantages over ultraviolet light.

— Food irradiation?

– Actually radiation, but absolutely safe for humans. At the same time, the production itself requires special measures to protect personnel for all its harmlessness, as in the case of ultraviolet radiation.

However, the apparatus from which these electrons are sourced is expensive. There are two or three such devices in Russia, and they are mainly used for processing medical instruments: syringes, needles, etc. The closest installation is located in Obninsk. They have a stream of medical instruments and process mainly spices from food.

– Why spices?

“Spices come in jute bags that let everything that might be overlooked from a microbiological point of view pass through. This is the most seeded crop. present in food. Many manufacturers use spices in ketchup, mayonnaise, but this product is not sufficiently heat-treated. But they become heavily infected with microorganisms and require additional processing. This type of processing for spices is in demand, many manufacturers turn to plant owners and use accelerated electron processing. They package them in normal sterile packaging, process them with accelerated electrons and obtain a microbiologically pure product.

— What other new technologies are used for processing?

— High pressure technology. It allows you to get juice as close to freshly squeezed as possible. The disadvantage is that it is expensive equipment, and also that storage on a cold shelf cannot exceed 21 days.

With this technology, all natural valuable components inherent in the raw material from which the fruit juice or beverage containing fruit juice is made, are preserved to the maximum with minimum thermal load. This allows you to preserve the taste, aromatics and biological value of the product.

How does pressure remove microorganisms?

– Primarily, it flattens these microorganisms and renders them uninhabitable.

– Is all this done so that the processed products retain more of their beneficial properties?

– Yes. Also the task is to achieve a good shelf life.