The Canning Diva… Wat.

I’ve come across “The Canning Diva” a few times. Most notably, she is the author of a book called “The Complete Guide to Pressure Canning”. I’ve read very quickly through her blog once to see if she’s serious, and it seemed so at first.

But now I came across a facebook post of hers where she claims she has “tested” that dry-canning potatoes is safe. This “test” was done by doing dry canning and then send a jar to a lab which then tested for botulism toxin. For real, this was the “test”. Who knows, dry-canning potatoes might actually be safe, but this is surely not how you test that.

I had to read more after this and came across a post she did about botulism: https://canningdiva.com/understanding-botulism-when-home-canning/

Here she claims that:

> The Botulism SPORE cannot be destroyed by heat, but can be destroyed by acid.

This is wrong, and if one would assume it was just a single mistake, here’s the same mistake once again:

> Heat doesn’t kill the spore. Heat only kills the toxin created by the spore – if the spore is even present to begin with and if the environment is conducive. Many high-acid foods do not require the higher temperatures of pressure canning because the acid kills the spores therefore preventing the toxin.

This is just plain wrong. Acid does not kill the spores. Acid just prevent the spores from developing the toxin. Heat, however, does kill the spore. It takes an insane amount of time with water bath canning and a reasonable amount of time in a pressure canner. If heat only killed the toxin, then pressure canning would have been totally pointless. The toxin develops like a day or two after the canning is done. Also, the toxin is destroyed within ten minutes of normal boiling water temperatures.

So…

How is this woman considered an expert and able to release a book on this matter? Sorry if there are any fans of hers here, but I’m just a bit shocked I guess.

by lysol90