Botulism?! Health anxiety :(

[worry weasel]

Hi everyone,
So I do have pretty severe health anxiety and I usually go through what I call “waves”. I’ll be okay for a while, then I’ll have a period of time where I feel more anxious. Right now I am feeling more anxious.

I had just made myself some taco bowls with a spicy black bean burger from the store. I topped it with some veggies and then sour cream and salsa. I took a few bites and noticed a weird sour, “fizzy” taste. I had already swallowed the bites that I took. I spit it out after tasting that. I noticed it was the salsa. It was a store bought jar, and it is supposed to expire in 2019... I went to go smell it after and it honestly smells like beer! This salsa has been in my fridge for maybe a month or two. Is it possible I could get botulism from this??? This wasn’t home made salsa, it was store bought (not fresh). When I previously used it, it did not taste like this. Sometimes when I used it I used the same spoon that had sour cream on it so there were some remnants of sour cream in the salsa jar. It was stored in my fridge. I don’t know much about botulism. I just found out about it today after looking on the web like always.

[nomorepanic]

Most of those things are not supposed to be eaten after being open more than a few days/weeks

It won't kill you though.

You googled and decided it was botulism - nothing more.

[ErinKC]

I went down a botulism hole once. No, you can't get botulism from that. Botulism only exists in air tight environments. It wouldn't develop after the jar was open. I was just old and probably gone sour. It won't hurt you to only have a bite.

[worry weasel]

Hi,
Thanks for your reply. I also had another question if you don’t mind... if the salsa was put in the fridge, used, then closed and left out in room temperature in the kitchen, then put back in the fridge, could it grow the bacteria this way?
I am worried because I had two jars of salsa and one sat out for a couple of hours one day and I just put it back in the fridge when I saw it because again I was never aware of botulism or anything like that. :(
Thank you again for the reply... I’m still really worried and I hope I’ll be okay. It’s been maybe 6 hours since then.

[ErinKC]

Botulism is a spore that grows a toxin when in the right environment, which must be certain temperature but also without oxygen. It's why botulism is associated with canned goods, because they are vacuum sealed. Botulism has effectively been eradicated from commercial goods, though, because of food safety standards. Food is heated enough to kill any spores before being canned or jarred. You definitely kept your salsa too long after opening and it started to spoil. But spoilage bacteria is not botulism and won't hurt you beyond maybe an upset stomach, but you only had a bite so there's no risk here. But, open food like that is usually only good for a week or so once you open, so just toss older stuff.

---------- Post added at 11:01 ---------- Previous post was at 10:58 ----------

So, basically, for your salsa to have botulism it would have had to grow before you opened it the first time. And you'd know it was bad because the grown botulism would have made the safety top pop out. So when you opened the jar it wouldn't pop and you'd know it was bad. And you'd have gotten sick after the first time you ate it. If it didn't have botulism then, it wouldn't have grown it once you exposed it to the air and kept it in the fridge.

[Mandrytastic]

I've also had a botulism freak out after a can of beans exploded on me. I was fine obviously, you will be ok, it is very very very rare and doesn't live in acidic environments

[worry weasel]

Thank you so much for clearing that up for me. I didn’t know much about it so this helped a lot. I know I should throw out old things, and I’m usually really good with doing that. I’ve been so busy this month I didn’t even know if that was new or old. Clearly I should’ve smelled it before I used it because it smelled terrible hahaha! It was so gross. :s