never eat from a dented can

[ctk1981]

My father used to cut mold off bread....until last year when he became ill for about a week. But he still believes in the "smell the milk" to see if it's good/bad. Bread and milk are cheap when you're talking a week long illness. At least in my book.

I work for the company that makes the can/lid. In fact it might have even came from the plant I work at (can only, our plant doesn't make the lid in that size).

 

[HeXen]

I'll cut mold off bread, cheese, and fruit, or scoop it out of yogurt if I can do it cleanly, but I really have to want the item to bother. Cheese and bread are the easiest to deal with.

I never let cheese go to waste, though it seems to last quite some time before it ever molds.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

My father used to cut mold off bread....until last year when he became ill for about a week. But he still believes in the "smell the milk" to see if it's good/bad. Bread and milk are cheap when you're talking a week long illness. At least in my book.

I work for the company that makes the can/lid. In fact it might have even came from the plant I work at (can only, our plant doesn't make the lid in that size).

Since you are a professional do you think the pull top somehow let air in when it was dented? The top appeared & felt like it was sealed but I didn't study it before opening.

 

[Carson Dyle]

My father used to cut mold off bread....until last year when he became ill for about a week. But he still believes in the "smell the milk" to see if it's good/bad.

What the hell else do you go by for milk? The 'sell by' date means just that: SELL by. The milk can be perfectly good for at at least a week beyond that.

Jesus, no wonder everyone thinks they've got food poisoning today. They're fucking scared of their food. If the terrorists don't kill you on the bus in Des Moines, then the milk in your fridge that's a day past the date printed on the carton will do it instead.

We've become the biggest nation of pussies on the planet.

 

[Brainonska511]

I'll cut mold off bread, cheese, and fruit, or scoop it out of yogurt if I can do it cleanly, but I really have to want the item to bother. Cheese and bread are the easiest to deal with.

That only works with some foods. Softer foods, like bananas, with visible mold should probably be tossed, since the mold can easily have spread much further than where it is visible.
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The top picture reminds me of the time a few months ago when I opened a bad yogurt for breakfast. My first thought was "why did the lid separate from itself and why is it colored funny" (like you sometimes see with plastic-lined lids). Upon thinking that through, I figured a foil lid is one piece and won't separate - what I saw was likely some sort of polka-dotted biofilm. A hole in the top of it revealed a very unpleasant color of the rest of the yogurt. I tossed that one in the garbage, but the next one I opened (which was fine) just wasn't as appetizing that day.

 

[kage69]

I always liked this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vEl6Ey8Gdc

The tall guy handled that like a champ actually, I'm impressed. I've seen that stuff make people hard as nails run for the hills. I'm guessing that can opener got pitched :biggrin:

I think the angry grandpa one is the worst/most hilarious, those people are so nasty...and then at the end you hear the furious, slobbery grandpa yell "I've had rotten pussy that smelled better than that!"

Somehow I don't doubt it.

 

[BUTCH1]

OP, did the can give the tell-tale "hiss" of air when you first took the lid off? if it did that mold should nut have happened.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

My father used to cut mold off bread....until last year when he became ill for about a week. But he still believes in the "smell the milk" to see if it's good/bad. Bread and milk are cheap when you're talking a week long illness. At least in my book.

I work for the company that makes the can/lid. In fact it might have even came from the plant I work at (can only, our plant doesn't make the lid in that size).

Bread I'll toss if it's on more than 1 slice.

Milk I'll try until it actually starts to taste sour. Dates are meaningless.

Cheese I will just cut off the mold and eat. No way am I throwing away good cheese.

 

[Charmonium]

Cheese I will just cut off the mold and eat. No way am I throwing away good cheese.

I think that's fine for hard cheese but not for soft like say, swiss. Apparently, for soft cheese, the mold can send microscopic tendrils pretty deep.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

OP, did the can give the tell-tale "hiss" of air when you first took the lid off? if it did that mold should nut have happened.

Not sure maybe maybe no hiss.

 

[Brainonska511]

I think that's fine for hard cheese but not for soft like say, swiss. Apparently, for soft cheese, the mold can send microscopic tendrils pretty deep.

Yep - you have to be wary of the soft foods when they get mold.

Here's a helpful table.

 

[tcsenter]

We shop at some of the discount stores here who get in a lot of like scratch and dent products, misprint on the label, stuff nearing the 'best by' or 'sell by' date. Get a lot of canned goods with inward dents or slightly crumpled. We just look extra close at the seal and then at the contents when opened. Never had a problem, so far.

One of the things I don't like about mass produced canned goods, is that they overcook/overheat everything to make sure nothing survives for safety and reduce liability, which affects not only the taste but nutrient value as well. And also, the amount of sodium they use.

Stuff you can/jar yourself tastes so much better because you can ensure sanitation and not need to cook/heat as high or for as long as the commercial canneries.

 

[ctk1981]

Since you are a professional do you think the pull top somehow let air in when it was dented? The top appeared & felt like it was sealed but I didn't study it before opening.

I dont think we have ever done any tests with regards to that, ie the durability of the score after being filled, cooked, packaged because that's all done down the street at Nestle Purina. The tests we do for the score are the 1st pull, which is when you pull the tab up to pierce the score, second pull weight is how easily the lid comes off after that. Along with a whole host of other tests that I wont go into. The cans themselves are ran through a light detector that can detect light through a hole as small as .002". They are checked for height, the flange width (which is what the lid will seal onto later), attribute defects (dents, burrs on the flange, hairing of the metal, slivers, grease, etc). If you peel the label off you might see some printing on the can....its Video Jet ink which tells when the can was made, julian date, time, what plant, which trimmer....the ink is normally black but turns pink/blue when its cooked.....that's how they can tell by glance if its actually been through an oven.

Where the lid meets the flange, compound is sprayed into the valley to help insure a seal. We've done crude tests before and determined it doesn't matter how little or how much we spray compound in there....it will seal with no compound, and it will seal with 3X the normal amount and none will squeeze out.

I'm not saying it isn't possible to dent a lid bad enough to break the score, but it would have to happen after it was filled, sealed, then cooked...otherwise if the lid isn't sealed they tend to blow up in the oven and make one helluva mess.

Time to go to work....I'll be running the press that makes that can tonight.

Edit: these are SOME of the tests we do locally. We do have a test/engineering plant that looks into specific issues, improvements etc. I'll do some checking tonight on what it would take to break a score without piercing it. I know it takes an rather large amount to get the can to buckle.

 

[TheGardener]

While I will avoid buying a dented can, many are perfectly fine. My dad worked in a retail supermarket. He told me this. What you need to look for are bubbles at the top or bottome of the can. If you see them, avoid buying it. My guess is the problem you found with "Fancy Feast" occurred during the canning process, not because of a dent.

I always smell milk before pouring. I'd rather avoid the "test taste". As far as the best use by date, forget it. Your homogenized milk will only be good for a week after opening, assuming proper refrigeration. If you buy ultra-homogenized milk, you might get 2 weeks out of it. If the milk doesn't pass the smell test, it goes down the drain, even if the best use by date is a month out.

 

[CZroe]

Sealed cans with swelling or dents can easily be infected with botulism for example.

But the cause and effect are backwards. When the seal remained intact, they aren't unsafe because they are dented/swollen, they are dented/swollen because they were already unsafe and the stuff was growing inside. A can that was clearly dropped is safe as long as the seal is intact. With a pop-top can I wouldn't trust that the seal remained intact, but for others it usually would.

 

[LogicBoard]

Looks like I have to throw some cans out of my earthquake emergency survival kit...

 

[shortylickens]

Do you people even know HOW to resize?
I know you never actually spend the extra 20 seconds to do it. But are you even aware the option exists?

 

[GRIFFIN1]

In the 13 years or so that I have been buying fancy feast (about $30,000) I've had the bad luck to have two cans from the boxes that were partially open. Let's just say that maggots were present along with a terrible smell.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I always liked this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vEl6Ey8Gdc

:biggrin: The noises they make. Hilarious. That stuff must smell foul.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

In the 13 years or so that I have been buying fancy feast (about $30,000) I've had the bad luck to have two cans from the boxes that were partially open. Let's just say that maggots were present along with a terrible smell.

How many cats do you have?

 

[William Gaatjes]

I had to look it up, it is six months old fermented fish. That's nasty.

 

[CZroe]

In the 13 years or so that I have been buying fancy feast (about $30,000) I've had the bad luck to have two cans from the boxes that were partially open. Let's just say that maggots were present along with a terrible smell.

I used to work in a pet food distribution center. Almost every pallet-full of cat food cans had a ruptured can or two. By the time the order fillers had picked orders down to that pack of cans the maggots would be spilling out of the package and all over the surrounding packs. The smell was absolutely disgusting.

 

[olds]

Paging minendo

 

[Linux23]

Buzzfeed eats surströmming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_haw_YDC_zo

OMFG, I almost passed out laughing. I see stars right now. LOL.

 

[Howard]

What the hell else do you go by for milk? The 'sell by' date means just that: SELL by. The milk can be perfectly good for at at least a week beyond that.

Jesus, no wonder everyone thinks they've got food poisoning today. They're fucking scared of their food. If the terrorists don't kill you on the bus in Des Moines, then the milk in your fridge that's a day past the date printed on the carton will do it instead.

We've become the biggest nation of pussies on the planet.

Pathogenic bacteria aren't necessarily the same as spoilage bacteria. You could have something dangerous to weaker immune systems, that would look and smell perfectly fine.