I saw something exciting on Facebook yesterday: tips on how to water-bath can cream cheese.
Now, I’m no expert canner, but I make jams and jellies. A few years ago I learned how to can lemon curd, which was exciting because I have a dear friend across the country who loves lemon curd. I’m not brave enough to can meat or fish.
But I damned well know enough not to can cream cheese. Botulism poses the primary risk of canned foods. Produced by a heat-resistant family of bacteria thriving in moist, anaerobic environments, water-bath canning the wrong foods creates a hospitable environment for this deadly toxin to accumulate. Imperceptible, the only way to avoid botulism is through safe preservation practices. Because acid, salt and sugar retard toxin production, jellies and pickles are “training wheels” for canners. Meat is riskier, requiring special tools and skills.
Cream cheese is a big nope.
I haven’t gone cottage core on you. I have a bigger point, but I needed you to understand just how bad an idea it is to water-bath preserve cream cheese. [1][2]
While the comments were full of people pointing out that you can literally kill people with this ill-advised “handy tip,” equally many defenders were boisterous, ardent, and unapologetic:
i trust the USDA about as much as I trust the CDC, FDA and any other 3-4 letter government agency… they don’t care about us… i would trust a 80-90 year old lifelong canner over the government yahoos any day!
The original web site the “tip” came from was definitely not created by anyone’s granny. It’s a content farm, and not a good one.
You know that famous poll a while back that found people who watch Fox news know less about world events? [3] We all sort of snickered, wrung our hands and, let’s be honest, looked down on those right-wing bumpkins a bit, right?
Except it isn’t just right-wing bumpkins who are susceptible to disinformation. It’s you, sometimes. Me, too. It’s anyone who doesn’t know much about a topic going in.
Social media is absolutely flooded with content that is NOT trying to make you smarter or safer or better. Controversy is particularly prized — the cream cheese canning post was a high-performer on a page with 467k followers that turned out to be a front, driving tens of thousands of views to its bogus, ad-laden web site.
The USDA mistrust is real enough, though. Of three people posting anti-government comments that I spot-checked, only one appeared to be a troll.
Canning acts as a gateway for disinformation here. Older canners are more likely to be conservative, but cottage core is hugely popular with a younger, more liberal community that sees back-to-the-Earth movements as a means to fight climate change and corporate power.
The irony is that this content feeds corporate power. While legitimate canning groups try to remove dangerous advice, clickbait thrives on the controversial posts that generate far more interaction. By spending time scrolling comments, clicking through to the web site, and researching some of the people commenting, I contributed site traffic. After “seeing” me do that, Facebook will persistently feed me similar content for a while.
Reporting and blocking the page won’t unring the “interest” bell I’ve struck. Facebook doesn’t care whether I’m interested in cream cheese canning or in bad social media actors. It’s all engagement.
So what can we do?
Just as it’s impossible to entirely avoid buying plastics, shopping at big box stores, and consuming mass-produced products, it’s not possible to entirely avoid bad information. Despite studying this topic, I still consume that content inadvertently — yet frequently.
Some of it is fed to me by friends, and if you think disinformation isn’t as dangerous as botulism, right- and left-wing folks shared false information about vaccination during COVID. Early on, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was one of the “dirty dozen” responsible for 65% of all vaccine misinformation on social media. [5] A would-be Democratic challenger, polls find Kennedy has the highest net-favorability rating of any potential 2024 candidate. [6]
Regulation is what assures the safety of commercial canned food. Mass canning requires specific temperatures, pressures, acid-testing, and other protocols to virtually guarantee you’ll never die from a bulging can. Most of your home-canned cream cheese will be fine, too, because botulism is hit-or-miss, but botulism’s toxin has no odor, and no taste. You find out you’re poisoned when the paralysis sets in, and before modern medicine, you ran a 50/50 chance of dying. (Today it’s 1/20.) [7]
Unlike canned food, social media faces few regulations in the U.S. You’re largely on your own. If you knew you were consuming disingenuous, dangerous content, you might stop — or at least proceed with useful caution and tragedy-avoiding protocols, as you might when drinking alcohol. You can avoid “garbage in” by researching the credentials of those producing your content, much as you avoid botulism by relying on reputable canning protocols.
There are tell-tale tips that you’ve consumed bad information, too, but because misinformation paralyzes your critical thinking skills, they’re more visible to those around you than yourself. If you find yourself discounting longstanding agencies across multiple vectors — say the Ball canning company, the USDA, and the OSU extension service — you’ve probably swallowed something dangerous.
Similarly, when you espouse strong opinions about a topic you know little about, whether geopolitics or vaccine technology, that’s a warning sign. The small muscles of your credulity risk paralysis. If you turn to YouTube “experts” to prove 5G is a threat, or share white-nationalist sources “documenting” the Rothschilds’ international banking cabal because “a stopped clock is right twice a day,” it’s time to seek intervention. Left untreated, you might help elect Donald Trump again.
You’re not completely helpless, though. Just as you can consciously shop small and local when possible, you can intentionally curate reliable sources.
Identify real humans with authentic expertise. Cut out bots and trolls. Validate against solid sources and your existing knowledge. Avoid communities that foster controversy, scream for attention, or host a plurality of conspiracy mongers. Be especially cautious about groups that permit — or encourage — off-topic or “insider tip” posts. Tall tales broadcast to 100K of your closest followers aren’t “insider tips.”
There’s a lot of knowledge out there about how to identify and avoid toxic information. [8] I encourage you to put the same effort into safe information consumption that I’d hope you would before taking up a canning hobby.
Botulism can kill or cripple you, but disinformation may doom us all.
[1] https://www.clemson.edu/extension/food/canning/canning-tips/38canning-dairy-products.html
[2] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism
[3] https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/study-watching-fox-news-actually-makes-you-stupid-235770/
[4] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/eu-social-media-regulations/
[5] https://www.npr.org/2021/05/13/996570855/disinformation-dozen-test-facebooks-twitters-ability-to-curb-vaccine-hoaxes
[6] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4319127-rfk-jr-leads-2024-candidates-in-favorability-poll/
[7] https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/testing-treatment.html
[8] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-stop-disinformation
Sorry for posting in an unrelated thread. I would put it somewhere else, if I knew better.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/blood-libel-israel-slams-south-africa-for-filing-icj-genocide-motion-over-gaza-war/
So South Africa accuses Israel of genocide before the ICJ, and Israel says that is a "blood libel". I don't know what that means, but it sounds bad. You use that term from time to time.
So here is my question: what if it's true? What if killing 20,000 civilians in a postage stamp of land because you think they are human animals actually is genocide?
Is it still blood libel?
Well...if you need someone...I am an AFDO (American Food and Drug Officials) recognized authority on food safety. It would be neat to take some of this cottage core stuff head on.