The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-11-05
ISSUE WARMING AGAINST EATING
 DECAYED FOODS
Cold-Pack Methods Not Blamed For Deaths Tn
 Detroit.

Decayed products, not the cold pack method of canning, are respon- slble for the recent deaths of five people in Detroit who ate ripe oliver say scientists in the United States De- partment of Agriculture. They alse say that if people would throw away or refuse to eat food that smells spoiled they would be insured against poisoning by the Bacillus botulinus, the bug that has come into the lime light recently through it's nefarious behavior. This organism when pres ent in canned food is the cause of ac- tive decay.
 It is poor economy to eat food which has begun to spoil or rot. The Person who does runs the risk ot death. In every case observed of botuIinus poisoning, the people who served the food knew that it had an unpleasant stench-a smell of decay or putrefaction, and it should never have been put on the table.
 Ripe olives, which the Detroit health commissioner claims caused the death of the five in Detroit, are not canned by the coId-pack method. The process usually employed to pre- serve olives is to dip them several times in i've, rinse them in fresh water and then put them in a weak brine. No heat is used and the brine is not strong enough to prevent toxin formation.
 Successful canning. so far as the danger from poisoning by the Ba- cillus botulinus is involved, depends not so much on the methods selected as on the rejection of infected ma terial at the start Dirty, wilted, and Jas more of organisms into the canning process than fresh, sound, clean fruit and vegetables. Dirty tables, dirty jars and lids, sewage polluted water and flies are sources of contamination which should be eliminated.
 The material may be processed according to the best experience available, but it must be frankly reco ognized that an occasional jar or series of jars may yet spoil because some factor has escaped in spite of all precautions. Such food as has spoiled should be destroyed. Do not salvage it. If you do, you do it at 8 risk. It is not fit for human food and should not be fixed up into salads, nnince-meat, catsup or pie stock.
 Typical spoiled cans are readily identified. Doubtful cases, however, occur occasionally. A consumer un- familiar with a particular product is frequently puzzled by it's odor, as it comes from the can in an apparently sound condition. Cooking appears to be the practical method of elininat- ing the danger. Heat destroys the toxin and if the jar, top, and con- tents are heated until the contents to the very center of the jar are at a boiling point there will be no trouble.
 Suspected foodstuffs should not even be tasted, for death has oc- cured after tasting two teaspoons of spoiled product wh-ch contained the Bacillus botulinus. Feeding suspect ed food to domestic animals without safeguards is undesirable, for some of them are very susceptible to the toxin.
 No person should take the respon- sibitty of serving other people any food product which has commenced to decompose. Let your nose be your guide and discard food with a putrid odor, warn the expert food chemists of the Department of Agriculture.