Botulism again

[blackbroom]

I had a bad botulism obsession a couple of years ago. I'm still a bit anxious about how foods have been prepared and stored, but I've not had a serious botulism worry for ages.

But I've had an unopened pint of milk in the fridge for a few days. When I took it out today, I noticed it looked a bit misshapen, but thought nothing of it and used some of it to make peanut sauce for my pasta. But now I'm worrying about it - I'm sure if it had looked like that in the shop I wouldn't have bought it and I bought it from the corner shop, where I never do a big shop, so it can't have got squashed under other shopping.

I know (because I used to stay up until 4 in the morning worriedly researching botulism) that it's extraordinarily rare and even rarer still in perishable goods like non-UHT milk (which tend to go bad before botulism has had time to develop), but my obsessive brain has kicked in and I'm thinking if the shopkeepers had left it out in the hot sun for a couple of hours last week before putting it in the shop fridge,it could have been long enough for the toxin to develop, continuing to swell the bottle in the fridge and distort it out of shape.

Even typing this I know it sounds far-fetched, but the bottle did look odd.

[NancyW]

Just took a peek at botulism prevention and this sentence jumped out at me...

The botulism toxin is destroyed by high temperatures.

I'm not sure what kind of sauce you made bit I am willing to bet that if there was any in there you would have killed it.

:-)

[blackbroom]

Thanks, Nancy. Trouble is, (a) I took a sip of the milk before I cooked it (b) the recipe I use only cooks the milk for a couple of minutes - nowhere near long enough to destroy botulism toxin.

My logical brain is just about managing to convince me that it would be way too big a coincidence if I were to become the first person in the UK for about a decade to get botulism from a commercially produced food when it's the exact thing I most worry about, but I'm still a bit worried.

[NancyW]

Happy to read that you're in pretty good shape, Bravo to you! It's hard too reel it in once HA takes hold.

I did more reading on botulism because I really don't know much about it..

A few things...
It's rare
Cook time is 3 minutes to kill it
Incubation is 6 hours to 36, soon you'll be in the clear.

I am super picky about this kind of thing too, an ounce of prevention my friend :-)