Canned meat field test

I continue to tweak my 30 day home food and water cache, and I always keep a supply of canned meat in this cache. While some of the canned meats I tried were only a step above dog food, I figured that if Spam was good enough for our fighting men in WWII, it's certainly good enough for my cache. I was at the store last week replacing the tuna we had consumed, and I spotted a variety of Spam that I had not noticed before. It was Spam Oven Roasted Turkey. I bought a couple of cans and took them home to try. I sliced off some right out of the can, and it was pretty good. It had the taste and texture of chopped turkey coldcuts, a little salty but not bad. I chopped 2 ounces of it into 1/4" cubes and pan fried. I had to add a little canola oil because no fat was rendering out of the meat. Once the cubes were browned, I added two beaten fresh eggs and scrambled them together as I would do with dryed eggs. The result was very good; a dry texture with no significant salt taste. A decent breakfast for about 300 calories. Two ounces of this meat has 80 calories, 9 grams of protein, 6 grams of fat, and 520 mg of sodium. This is far superior to ham-based Spam and similar canned meats. It comes in a stackable aluminum rectangular can with a ring pull top, and no side or bottom seam. It has a 3 year shelf life. I am going to rotate out most of the ham-based meat from my cache and replace with the turkey.

I can't say I have done any field testing of turkey Spam, but my wife got some by accident one time and I have eaten it. Its not bad. I prefer the regular Spam to turkey Spam though, and as turkey goes, i would just as soon have regular turkey, but for canned meat it is pretty good.

Its kind of a funny story. We write our grocery list on a white board in the kitchen. I wanted some turkey and some Spam so I wrote both on the board. My wife apparently thought I wanted turkey Spam and that is what I got.

Spam was a staple back in my student days and it worked. I don't regularly consume it now because of the high fat and salt content - qualities which make it quite useful in a survival context. I have some cans lurking in my stash, but I believe they are the classic formulation.

My father ate Spam during WWII, and he never stopped commenting about the experience, which was preferable, but just barely, to starvation. He understood that the only way they could quit eating GI chow was to win the war.

There is another alternative that I have come to like a lot - Tanka Bars. These are dried buffalo meat and cranberries - essentially a low fat pemmican. They come in a 1 oz bar. I like them for situations where weight is important and you want something with protein and taste to mix with the usual energy bars.

They are produced on a reservation in South Dakota and have formerly been available only locally. I just now saw that they can be purchased through REI - $2.80 a bar, with a 20% discount if you buy twelve (a full box). That's the bad news; they ain't cheap.

I am a satisfied user - no commercial affiliation with the product or any sellers.

Turkey spam is basically just turkey loaf in a can. *shudders*

Although if you can find a little can of cranberry jelly, dressing, mashed potatoes and a small jar of turkey gravy, you have a bug in stash thanksgiving dinner that you can make pretty easily and with fairly little in the way of heat. Might not be the big meal, but if you've got something to be thankful for...

Spam as art:
http://www.cieux.com/bm/source/agedspam01.html

This may be the best use of it.

I've added spam to mixed vegetables to get a one-bowl meal, but I don't really recommend it.

I actually use the canned chicken from Costco all the time in salads and pasta as well as keeping several packages in reserve. It's really pretty darn good! They sell it in packages of six 12.5oz cans. My dogs love it too!

Being a picky eater is not a favored survival trait.

Historically many survival foods, until recently they weren't generally considered special 'survival' food, more like what was left to eat after a long voyage or trip, were bland. Often barely eatable. Sometimes by design.

Hard tack, lifeboat crackers, military survival rations, are pretty far below normal fare for flavor and texture. This discouraged binging and helped conserve them for when you were really hungry.

I maintain a good supply of tuna, corned beef, Spam as both turkey and ham, salmon, kippered fish, and I know I'm forgetting one or more others but you get the idea. IMHO they are all good.

It is interesting that we refer to them as dog food. Many of the canned dog and cat foods are essentially what goes into products intended for humans. Many brands come off the same lines in the packing plants and go into identical cans. The difference being the label.

It also has to be noted that out ancestors simply loved canned meats, and canned foods in general. Sometimes depending on it before standards and technology justified their faith. The Franklin expedition of 1845, attempting to find the NW passage, heaped lead poisoning from improperly soldered can onto suffering brought by scurvy, extreme cold, and ultimately starvation. The canned foods were quite the innovation and even though the lead hurt them the crews survived for longer than they might without them.

A grand but tragic story of endurance. Read more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin%27s_lost_expedition

Of course it wasn't just poor technology that caused problems. Before the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 food handling and industrial canning operation had few standards and industry did pretty much as it pleased. During the Spanish-American (1898) war far more soldiers died of food poisoning than enemy action.

Anyone interested in food standards without government regulations might read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclare. Free at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/140

Also available at any decent bookstore or library.

Some of out changing attitudes toward canned food has been the availability of refrigeration. If you wanted meat before canning was developed you dried and/or salted it. Even then moisture and heat would cause it to mold. Settlers and armies often resorting to transporting meat on-the-hoof. Ships often left port with live cows and pigs, complete with feed and provisions for manure removal.

Canning meant you could store food for years. Last I looked most of the meat packing companies say that as long as the cans are intact and not bloated their meat products don't have a expiration date. The date stamped on the can is usually a 'best if served by' date. The meat remains safe to eat long after that. Flavor and nutrition might suffer, particularly if the can is stored in the heat, but I have eaten ten year old corned beef and found it to be only slightly lacking in flavor. Other canned foods might not last as long and typically take on a tinny taste.

IMHO references to canned meats as dog food is primarily a commentary on the changing role and treatment of domestic animals. Working dogs would be fed, Inuits and shepherds typically set aside dedicated meals for their animals, but it is only fairly recently that most domestic animals got much more than scraps from the table. Dogs and cats were expected to glean food from the trash or hunt to make up up the difference.

The disdain for canned food is primarily a result of both man moving up and becoming jaded in our tastes. This is entirely understandable as we have prospered, fresh food is made easily available, and we increasingly treat domestic animals as pets and children instead of working animals.

Canned meat remains a mainstay for long term storage. Things get rough and that can of Spam you turned you nose up at might start looking good. In the mean time I kind of like a little corned beef or Spam sliced and browned in a skillet.

I have eaten fire rations (at the time C rations; now fire rats are MREs) with relish and gusto several times while on a fire line. Circumstances really do affect the decision about what tastes good.

What is interesting about the development of emergency rations (MREs) today is how good the present stuff is, even consumed in non-emergency situations.

I like spam. I just don't like turkey. Too much l-trip for someone who is habitually sleep deprived. *laughs*

Adaptability is great but everyone has limits.

Canned tripe is either slightly ahead of, or slightly behind, cannibalism. Depends on who we are comparing it to. Some people are more appetizing than others.

I would say it is expensive dog food but by the time we are down to canned tripe ... we will have eaten the dogs.

Canned tripe... where the can has more value than the contents.

I remember when canned cat food had eyes in it. Today, it's kind of hard to tell if I've opened the El Cheapo human-grade tuna or cat tuna. The only way that I can tell at home is that I tend to claim the albacore as mine and all others belong to the cats.

However, I do have a slight edge on meat procurement... I have a ChowXPomeranian rescue dog that I found, and she won't touch the chickens or cats, but so far, she's racked up two rats, three moles, five young opossums and a vole. She will also dig them up, which adds rototilling to her value.

Sue

About how much does this cost?
Anybody!

And how does Spam, turkey Spam, canned salmon, sardines,
or other grocery store canned food compare to MRE's ?

Hike..Spam and a MRE meat pouch are about the same price.$3 for the MRE and i think Spam is just a bit under that.the chicken paddy in the picture i posted on the Coleman pot thread was not bad and a solid hunk of meat,no BBQ sauce so it needs to go with something.i think you could get several servings from a can of Spam but the paddy was right for one person.the thing about the MRE's is that you can get some good "phony" dinners like a pork riblet,meatloaf,meat paddy,that sort of thing and mix up the tastes so eating does not get too dull,i'm thinking camping here.
if you want really good canned meat try Leaman's,the place that sells Amish hardware.they have added big cans of beef,pork and turkey to their catalog and i'm sure it's about the best you could get.if your putting away food for an emergency i would get a big mix of everything you can find at the local store.

I bought some canned chicken, canned ham, potted meat, tuna, albacore, canned salmon, and a few different canned meats. I bought it from Big Lots (no affiliation) here and there and still didnt pay more then $1.00 a can for the most expensive of them all. I think the 2.5 lbs can of ham was $1.50 but not more. I taste tested all of them and honestly I am NOT a fan of spam, but I am a less of a fan of starving. I rotate it out and if it ever gets too old, I just donate it to a cause. No sence just throwing it out. There are too many starving Americans to throw canned meat in the trash!

I also find some GREAT deals in my local supermarket. They will have deals and closeouts on different brands of canned meats. Anyway - I rarely pay more then $1 for any of my canned foods.

Slightly OT.
Has anybody considered canning their own meat and fish.
I had friends on the BC coast that used to can their own meats. They used tin cans to do it instead of glass.
The pressure canner and lid sealer were the expensive items.

I have had home-canned roast beef in a jar made by some friends in Wisconsin. It was excellent.

I just picked up a can of Spam with cheese yesterday to try out. I actually didn't know they had so many flavors until I went to their site. Now I know what to keep an eye out for. SPAM Flavors I have 2 cans of the Tabasco to try out as well. I'm thinking that they will prolly be my favorite flavor.

Buy some Mason jars and lids. Put a foil pie plate in the bottom of the pot and fill the pot with water, bring to a boil.

Cut your meat into cubes, add to each jar until 3/4 full. add salt and chopped onion for flavor. Fill with water till just covering the meat. Seal with the mason jar lids and place them in the large pot of boiling water for about 3 hours.

Remove and let them sit on a counter top to cool. You will hear the lids pop as they seal. Once cooled the lids should all be "sucked in" to indicate they are properly set.

Meat "bottled down" as we say in these parts, will keep for years unspoiled. I ate some that was from 2004 not long ago and it was fine.


Way cheaper than canning and you can re-use the jars. You need new lids each time however.

Canning any type of meat or fish by water bath methods is NOT recommended nor safe. The only safe method is using a pressure canner as botulism cannot be killed by the water bath method no matter how long you let the water boil.

Yes, many people still use the water batch method because their parents/grandparents used this method "with no problems"...but it is not safe and not worth risking your life,...or another persons' life over.

Teslinhiker is totally correct. The waterbath method is only safe for fruits, sugared foods (jams) and high-acid foods like regular tomatoes (not the yellow low-acid kinds).

The only alternative I know is to raise the acidity of the low-acid foods by adding an acid like vinegar, which may alter the taste.

Here is the updated, online USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning.

Just FYI, the crop that has had the most incidents with botulism in home canning is green beans. Properly done, they're safe.

A home pressure COOKER is just as good as a home pressure CANNER, it just can't hold as much.

Sue

Are you kidding? Risk your life or someone else's life? Trust me, If you open a bottle that has turned you will know right away not to eat whats inside. You will notice the lid is puffy before you even pop the cover. If you opened a can of meat from the store that didn't smell right would you eat it?

My Grandparents used this method, so did my parents and so do I. Everything from meat, Jam, vegetables, relish, you name it. Every so often you do happen across one that dosent seal properly and goes bad but I have never known anyone to get sick yet. It is a very viable and cost effective method of preserving meats or other food for long term storage. It may not be the best, but it will work if you do not have the proper materials for canning.

I would take my chances with bottled Moose meat over cold, MSG filled, Ground up Ahole/beaks/feet/feathers,greasy turkey spam anyday of the week.

To each his own. I will survive diaster my way, you do it your way.

The first week in my food science college education we learned that botulism is oderless and tastless and that a bulging can or lid is not required for botulism (or other bacteria) to be present. I spent over a decade in the food industry educating people on the safe handling, preparation and storage of food. And although I am not a PHD in this field, my extensive education and hands on experience makes me more then qualified to say that water bath methods is NOT recommended nor safe. Have you ever seen a person slowly die from water bath canning botulism poisoning? It will very quickly change your outlook on the use of a pressure canner.

I don't wish to hijack the rest of this thread on this debate, but feel free to PM me if you wish to civily discuss further.

Theres no debate.

I have seen this method used my whole life. Every one of my neibours uses it, everyone I know who hunts uses it. It is almost traditional. I am not educated in this manner, I believe my own experiences though and I have never heard of anyone getting sick by using this method. I really can't say I plan to change anytime soon due to what I have read here but I respect you opinion on the matter all the same. Let's just agree to disagree.

Back on topic

You can't really say you field tested the new spam till you test it under field conditions.

Freeze it, thaw it, freeze it, thaw it. Let it sit for a while then do it again. Open the can outside in the rain when its dark and cold. Eat it with your fingers. Now you have field tested it.

Wonder how it will taste now?

You forgot the most important part of the test conditions Mac.
You need to be really hungry.
As long as that condition is met it will taste great.

> The disdain for canned food

Well, my disdain for Spam has nothing to do with the can that surrounds it, and I don't disdain canned food generally. Louise and I have a month of canned food in our van while we await the coming earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I can't find it, but I'm sure someone here knows the URL - there is a Web site somewhere that discusses menu planning for children and the elderly. One of the significant points is that if the menu doesn't vary significantly, children and the elderly stop eating out of boredom.

> Being a picky eater is not a favored survival trait.

And the children and the elderly die.

Mac, like many situations discussed here, luck is always a common factor. Sometimes it's good luck, sometimes it's bad luck.

You and yours have been lucky.

Fact: Botulism is only killed by temperatures over 240ºF (116ºC). Foods preserved by the water bath method only reach 212ºF (100ºC).

"Because we've always done it that way" is not a rational explanation of why something shouldn't be changed for a good reason. Exposing yourself and your family and friends to a paralytic poisoning that has a 70% death rate if untreated (think: during a disaster) doesn't make sense when you know better.

Anything that involves the term "mechanical ventilation" should be avoided, IMO.

Sue

FWIW, I tried Spam Lite the other day. Pretty bad. I say stick with regular Spam.


Oh, and an often overlooked canned meat is Sardines. Usually packed in olive oil, thats a lot of calories in a tiny package, and probably healthier than most canned meats too.

Yeah. Being hungry don't make it taste good it just means you will complain less.

We have spam here, and we have a knock off called "click" I don't know if its common anywhere else. We also have something simply called "potted meat" which I believe is made by Mapleleaf brand. The ingredients are funny to read, mechanically separated beef and or pork and or chicken.....

You think spam is bad.....

This is about 5 steps down from cat food. I actually tried the cats food to be sure. I was right.

The fact that generations of people I know have done this as a way of life for hundreds of years without any incidents is exactly why I will do it. I have gotten food poisoning from an IMP before. Those are supposed to be perfectly safe. Silly me but I trust food I prepare far more that stuff squeezed into a can from some factory most times. Hell, My neibors cat died a few years back from tainted cat food. Guess I am putting my life at risk every time I eat something out of a can as well.

I can look up stuff on wiki all day long and provide you with a bunch of percentages about this and that but it means nothing. Some people learn from books and some people learn thru generations of experience.

Very good explanation Sue. Too bad that it is falling on deaf ears with a certain person here and his latest post will not warrant any further replies from me. It is hopeful though, other people here learn from the scientifically proven facts presented here in regards to safely canning food.

Glenryck Pilchards are tasty and very good source of inexpensive high protein survival food.

http://www.glenryck.co.uk/pages/pilchards.htm

You can get 3 tins of Pilchards (425grams net weight 485kcal 4.3 percent fat) to a cost of a single tin of Spam (340g net weight 983kcal 24.5 percent fat). If you want to increase the fat content you can drizzle some virgin olive oil over the pilchards. You really wouldn't want to drizzle olive oil over Spam.

Promise?

Good. I thought we have moved on from this. I respect your opinions, really I do. but..
I like what I am doing just fine. If you don't agree then that's o.k. I wasen't trying to change anyones mind on the matter. To each his/her own. It wasen't falling on deaf ears either, I just am inclined to continue doing what has always worked for me. You think I was about to stop doing somthing I have been doing succesfully for over 30 years because you said I should on a forum?

Now, lets continue on about field testing SPAM Eh?

It hardly seems worth the effort unless a person has a really cheap source of fresh meat. By the time you purchased the necessary equipment and buy and cook the meat, and then process it for canning, you could have laid in an adequate supply of emergency pre-canned meat for less time cost and effort.

Everyone has to make their own decisions. Mac has a point because it has always worked for him and his. Tradition and a history of success is a pretty good argument on its own.

I modify this only to the extent that you might want to know why things work ... and when and how they can stop working.

I suspect that what is saving him is that there isn't any botulism present. If the animals aren't infected and the equipment, and people, are free of botulism there are none to kill and a simple boiling water bath is relatively safe. What works works.

But it also helps to know the limits of any system. If conditions change and somehow botulism gets into or onto the animals, equipment, or humans doing the processing what has worked in the past might not work out so well.

Mac also has a point that even mass produced foods are not completely safe. Much of the inspection process was transfer to the industry being inspected back when deregulation was all the rage. Inspectors, certified by the government but paid by the owners of the plant they inspect, know who signs their check. Much of the meat produced in Europe can be tracked from the individual animal and farm to the specific package.

In the US we have difficulty telling which meat packing plant was used and narrowing it down to farm is impossible. The system is so slack that cases that kill people are coming up as 'unknown origin'. Testing is done after people start getting sick.

That said, the food supply is relatively, if not perfectly, safe. We are a long way from sliding back to the days before the pure food act. When food poisoning was a regular occurrence and every town had a drumbeat of people keeling over from 'something they ate'.

IMHO Mac would do well to substitute a pressure cooker for the regular canning pot when canning meat but it isn't my call. If the meat he cans is never infected with botulism a pressure cooker won't make much difference.

Life is risky. Nobody get out of here alive. Absolute safety isn't possible. Everyone has to draw the line where they think it should be. If Mac is cool with what has always worked; even if it means he is potentially taking a risk. I'm cool with that.

i would like to point out that many of our friends in Canada have been living what most Americans would think of as a "survival" lifestyle.killing game,preserving it in lots of ways along with all the rest of the semi frontier ways of doing things that most folks only get a touch of on camping trips.my only interest in all this is short term wilderness survival but if i was looking for tips on that other kind of survival that is brought up here i would look to someone up North or "way down South" on how to live without modern conveniences.practical knowledge beats "book learning" any day when it comes to outdoor living..

How Do I?
...Can Meats
Preparing and Canning Poultry, Red Meats and Seafoods

Note: There are no safe options for canning these foods in a boiling water canner.


These are the opening lines in the USDA section on canning meats. Seems pretty clear. Interesting thread.

The cache I was describing is for home use and is kept in a cool corner of my basement. I tested it under the conditions that I expect to use it in. It's only cold outside in the winter, and as I have also made provisions for emergency heat, my supplies are unlikely to to freeze in my basement. In my experience, food eaten with a fork tastes pretty much the same as food eaten with my fingers. It just has four extra holes in it. I use other provisions for outdoor survival use.

I am also trained in food safety, and it is part of my daily job responsibilities. I also grew up eating home canned food, and I know there is a knack to it. Eat enough improperly processed or non-acidic home canned food, and you will eventually contract botulism or salmonella poisoning.

What do you mean by this?

The answer seems to be that while boiling water canning is pretty safe, pressure canning is modestly safer. The problem is that botulism is often fatal.

OTOH, meat infected with botulism is pretty rare other than certain kinds of fish and pork, IIRC.

It also seems to me that there are more cases of infant botulism from honey ingestion than there is from improperly canned meats.

It seems the risk is relatively low, but can be reduced even more by pressure canning.

I have often heard the statement that you cannot kill botulism spores in food by the application of temperatures at the boiling point of water, yet it is claimed this is adequate for disinfection of drinking water and 160-180 degrees is considered safe for cooking of meat.

I realize that botulism poisoning is the result of a toxin released as a side effect of the spore growing in your food, and not an infection. But it also possible to get botulism poisoning from ingesting contaminated meat or getting the spores in an open wound, so how is it safe to eat pork at 160 degrees?

Couldn't have said it better Art.

I wasen't saying my method was better, But EVERYONE does it where I grew up. I am not some teenager who just started bottling meat on a whim and a first attempt. I have been hunting, preserving, drying and salting game for a long time. If I wasen't 100 % confident about what I was doing I wouldn't do it.

Maybe germs don't fester in the process due to the amount of salt and not the boiling time... I do use a lot of salt.

Salt would kill parasites would it not ?

I was joking about the eating with the fingers part. I guess its because in my job the "field" is different than other peoples vision.

To be fair, you did name the thread "canned meat FIELD test" , not "Canned meat eaten in the comfort of my own home and not remotely anywhere near a field test"

But I digress.

The issue is not so much a living creature that can be killed by boiling, it is about the waste product these microbes excrete into the food. It is not destroyed by heat or salt, and in sufficient quantities it can be fatal, especially to the young and old. There is a huge difference between 'spoiled' food that stinks and pops the lids, and food contaminated by harmful microbes and their waste products.

Salt does kill and prevent microorganisms from growing by drawing water and other moisture out of the food, however you need a lot salt for this.

Back when salting meat was a common practice, meat was salted in tens of lbs of salt all packed into barrels or boxes. When it came time to use the meat, it was rinsed many times to remove the very salty taste. Still a slice or two of salted meat had about 4x times the recommended daily sodium content....which has it's own health risks. Even though in theory, the salt preserved the meat, many people died of food poisoning.

To answer your question about salt used in canning (by any method), the amount of salt required and the fact that canning enhances the salt flavor, you could not use enough salt to help anyway to kill any bacteria due to the chemical reaction with water and also due to the simple fact, the food would be so inedible due to the extremely high salty taste that would make you physically sick.

Actually, salted meat as you describe it, is still a very traditional food in my home province.(Its in a brine opposed to dry salt) The meat is soaked overnight, rinsed and then placed in a pot to boil with all the vegetables where the residual salt flavours the veg. Its called a "Newfie" or "Jiggs" dinner.

I am afraid to say how I preserve fish and meat by using sea salt as I am sure you will all pounce on me like wild cats to start lecturing me on heart attacks

Maybe someone hit the nail on the head when they said I may be lucky due to the fact that botulism(spelling?) is not found often in my neck of the woods. I have heard of it, but I have never heard of anyone actually getting it. Bottling meat is as common as apple pie where I am from and I have never, ever heard of any ill effects.

I have mostly only ever used it on wild meat if that matters. Moose, Caribou, deer, Rabbit(sometimes shellfish) like clams and muscles.

I had some preserved Moose meat for supper today. Tasty as the day I murdered it some 3 years ago. If I die after eating what must be my thousanth bottle over the years then you guys were right and I will switch to cans in the next life.

I've put spam through the field test, repeated freeze/thaw, sit in car in summer for extended periods. After two years of this, it still looks, smells, feels and tastes like Spam, even in when eaten cold right out of the can using my (clean) fingers. As long as the seal doesn't pop, it doesn't really change much.

Mac, you may do anything you want, and eat anything you can get down. I simply wanted to make the point to others here that you weren't offering good advice.

Byrd_Huntr - the first time you did it, the costs would exceed buying it in the grocery store. But for the basic components (pressure canner, jars, rings, lids), the cost would dwindle the more you used it because all of those are almost infinitely reusable except the lids. $300 would get you started and last for years.

And if there happened to be a longer-term power outage and you had a freezer full of meat, you could can a lot of it before it spoiled over a makeshift wood stove. In a longer-term situation, you could can 'wild' meat (a stray cow or flock of pitbulls).

Canning equipment really has to be considered an investment. You know, like power tools! *grinning*

Re: 'Mechanical ventilation': Botulism is a paralytic poison, and if you are being treated for it in a hospital, it is likely that your breathing mechanisms would be paralyzed, and you would be put on a machine that would breathe for you. Do you remember polio?

IL Bob: '... also possible to get botulism poisoning from ingesting contaminated meat or getting the spores in an open wound, so how is it safe to eat pork at 160 degrees?'

The Botulisum toxin is produced from the Clostridium bacteria only under airless (anaerobic) conditions. It won't be created in meats that are exposed to air and cooked thoroughly enough to kill parasites (like 160ºF). So, the Clostridium bacteria can be sitting on your pork roast, waving at you, and when you cook that pork by any method where air is involved, it will be killed. But if the Clostridium is on/in the meat, and the meat is canned using only the waterbath method, the temp won't be high enough to kill the bacteria. Then with the airless conditions within the jar or can, the bacteria will start creating the botulism toxin, which will contaminate the meat. It is colorless, tasteless and otherwise invisible. And it doesn't take very much of the toxin to kill. It has been said that a single pint jar of pure Botulism toxin is enough to poison every person on the face of the earth.

Clostridium in wounds requires the same conditions: no air. That usually means a fairly deep cut or puncture wound that doesn't have exposure to air. (Think twice before using super glue on wounds!) I am assuming that Botulism has sort of the same growth conditions that tetanus has: initial contamination, deep wound, no air. But at least you can be vaccinated against tetanus, but there's no such thing for Clostridium/Botulism.

Sue

As a microbiologist for over 30 years, I can say what Sue has stated as an accurate account of botulism. Here is a nice CDC/MMWR review on food borne illnesses. Pay close attention to the tables on food borne illnesses.

Pete


CDC/MMWR Food Borne Illnesses

I'm also going on record to say non-pressurized canning of meat is a bad accident waiting to happen. One can beat the odds over and over (for instance I still have all my fingers and eyes) but deck is always stacked against us in the long run. I really don't want someone in some botulism-filled envirnoment to try non-pressurized canning meat and kill himself or others because they saw someone here say it was okay. Becoming a moderator here makes me wear my "Safety First" button.

-Blast, digitally intact, but with interesting scars

SPAM, the twinkie of the meat family.

I've even dried SPAM to make it into jerky. Not bad. My picky wife likes dried SPAM a lot. The SPAM lite is far superior dried to the regular stuff. Maybe that is the best use for the Lite version.

I know that there are things a guy should not eat too much of, and Spam is probably on that list. But at a summer festival one hot August day, I drifted towards an enticing new scent....the VFW was selling grilled Spam and cheese sandwiches, cooked outdoors over charcoal. Ignoring my DW's questioning look, I knew I had to have one. Washed down with a single ice-cold beer, I felt at that moment I could die content. That moment has passed and I'm glad I didn't die, but it sure was good.

After a camping trip where seemingly everything that could go wrong did -- we were never in any real danger but food, water and comfort were in short supply -- I quite enjoyed a warm beer and corned beef hash straight out of the can. The meal was quite enjoyable and satisfying. That, and eight hours of sleep, all was right with the world.

I like Spam. It's better than grubs.

Sue

But not better than roasted grasshoppers.
-Blast

"But not better than roasted grasshoppers."

Don't they stick in your teeth?

And you don't need to cook Spam. Spam on Ritz crackers... yum! Tasty and hypertensive.

Sue

Spam, spam, spam, spam...Monty Python strikes again!

Grandad loved Spam. Often he would eat that in lieu of bacon or sausage with his eggs and biscuits for breakfast.

Spam is great with pineapple and cheese on a burger. Gotta love those Hawaiians.

My favorite use for Spam was in a pasta salad with peas, diced cheese, diced spam, mayo, mustard, canned pimentos and diced scallions. Quite tasty.

If you mash Spam up and mix it with a dash of red wine vinegar, it makes a suitable deviled meat spread.

I haven't met a cat or dog yet that doesn't love Spam.

I don't know where to find them but I see they sell Spam Hot Dogs. Curious what their shelf life is?

Wow! Spam in a tube.

And it's a 3 pack of 6-8 dogs so 18-24 dogs. Considering what is already in spam, that couldn't be an all bad dog. (At leat nothing some jalepeno relish or a line of sriracha couldn't cure.

The next closest thing to spam that I can think of is braunschwieger. How would like to have to check your emails 'braunschwieger' folder?

OK... but I'm still going to go for food as nice as I can manage. There's a strong psychological component to survival. Morale matters. If all I have to eat is spam, I'm not sure I'll want to bother.

It may be a cultural thing. I think we in the UK have an antipathy towards spam that Americans may lack. It doesn't apply to other tinned foods, such as corned beef. (I have found tinned corned beef is better than the "fresh" corned beef sold in my local supermarkets.)

It's worth remembering the mantra, "Buy what you eat, eat what you buy". I stockpile tinned corned beef because I like it enough to eat it all before it expires. I have tried tinned salmon and similar, but because I don't really like fish it just sits on a shelf and never gets eaten.

Socratem audio dicentem, cibi condimentum essa famem, potionis sitim. ~ Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (II, 28)

[I hear Socrates saying that the best seasoning for food is hunger; for drink, thirst.]

illegitimus non carborundum

AND never let them see you sweat.

[quote=Brangdon)

It may be a cultural thing. I think we in the UK have an antipathy towards spam that Americans may lack. It doesn't apply to other tinned foods, such as corned beef. (I have found tinned corned beef is better than the "fresh" corned beef sold in my local supermarkets.)[/quote]

It's not just cultural; many Americans don't like it either and it's actually made here in Minnesota. That's why I tried the turkey spam. It's actually better tasting and better for you than the pork spam. We like canned corned beef too, especially mixed with diced potatoes. We buy canned meat for the long shelf life, but in an urban survival situation the high salt content means neither would be ideal unless you had a lot of fresh water.

Surely that is not an issue in Minnesota. I understand your streams actually contain water year round. Incredible if true.

They don't call Minnesotans 'Mud Ducks" for nothing. The name Minnesota is an Indian phrase meaning 'Land of Sky Blue Waters". There are some prairie areas where water is available but a little more sparse. We live 1/4th mile from two 5 acre ponds.

Hikermor..not only that but all the water here in Minnesota flows out of the state so we are not getting someones re-used several times water to drink..at the end of my street there is a large spring--Cold Water Spring--that was running even under the glacier that covered this part of the state.
but on the subject of canned meat..i always thought that people ate it not because it was something they had to buy, because you can buy burger just as cheap,but because they like the taste.

As in Bemidji's sewer outflow that is eventually recycled at last in New Orleans?

In our case, we buy it for it's long shelf life and the fact that it needs no refrigeration. Strictly a backup meat for the campground (when we drive in), and for a backup food for our emergency home cache. Spam is OK cubed up and fried in scrambled eggs, and corned beef mixed with diced potatoes makes a hearty breakfast when we are in grouse hunting camp. In the home cache, we have a lot of dried beans and dried rice sealed in one gallon plastic jugs. The plan is to cube up some spam to cook into the beans.

And Socrates other quote, "Semper ubi, sub ubi", meaning "Always wear, underwear" (Funny to be quoting a greek who was dead long before Latin was a language, har).

This is why I prefer to can my own meat products. If you know what you are doing, you don't have to rely on expensive, subgrade canned meats from the grocer. You can put up your own hamburger, chicken, fish, corned beef sausage, even steaks, and you can do it for a lot less money and a lot better taste.

I plan on putting up at least 200 quarts of canned meat this year. This will include Shad, Salmon, beef, chicken, turkey, elk or deer (or both, if I get lucky), and even some pork. Between the wife and I, we can go through about 1 1/2 quarts of meat a week. We can also take advantage of special purchases as the time allows. I like that I can control the sodium content, the preservatives, the fillers, the fat content, and the flavor. If I want to can a potted meat product, that is just a matter of getting some quality cuts and running them through the grinder a couple times, then processing them through a recipe.

Yeah, it's work, but it is good clean work, and it allows me to cultivate some valuable life skills. It requires some initial cash outlay, but if you amortize the cost of the equipment and materials, it pays for itself pretty fast. More importantly, the implicit values of eating my own product are immediately apparent.

Still, I have other committments and interests, so I stock store bought canned meats in my pantry for now, with the intent of using them while I build my jar collection and get ready for the Shad run here in May/August. For the cost of a license, I can catch and keep as many 4-6 lb fish as I care to. There's no daily catch limit, no possession limit, and there's 4 million fish in the run, and only maybe 50 or so who fish it. It's not uncommon to catch 30 fish a day during the peak! Talk about a great, inexpensive, abundant food source!

I think he was dead before they invented underwear too. Anyway, you have described exactly what I would like to do when I retire (still a few years off). When my son was a baby we made his baby food ourselves, sorry Gerber. He is now a 6'3" Airman in the Security Forces, so I think it worked. I like to cook, hunt, fish, eat, and prepare for the future, so what better hobby than preserving food when I have the time? I should probably start buying the equipment while I still have an 'income'.

Ben, you might keep an eye on Craigslist for jars. Here, someone was giving away about 600 most-quart jars last summer.

Sue

giving away 600 jars?..there might be a lesson to learn there,like it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Yes, it can be a daunting prospect for the initiate. Having grown up around it and done it myself enough to know what I am getting into, I don't recommend taking on too much at the beginning.

I keep an eye out for jars from time to time. 600 would be plenty.

Sometime I am going to catch a mess of fish and try drying them on a wooden rack over a fire like the Native Americans did. It is a time-consuming activity, but I have a serious advantage over them; I have a lawn chair and beer!

The good news is by the time you finish the beer, you won't really care what the fish tastes like. LOL

"600 is plenty" rather than "600 is more than I need" is a bit scary . . . .

Fried Spam, onions and eggs is not a bad breakfast!