The owners of the house I'm moving into left me like 30 jars of pickles and salsa. It looks weird to me but I'm not a canner and I'm also touchy about food. One of the lids was popped and had botchulism so I'm a bit scared of em all now.
I need to get rid of em asap, is it safe to give them to friends or do I just dump them?
by Me-Mow_
17 Comments
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When in doubt, throw it out.
I wouldn’t give it away if you wouldn’t eat it yourself.
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Toss it out or compost it if your area does that, even if it is canned safely you don’t know that and you don’t know how old it is. It’s weird they left all of that when they moved
If the owners didn’t take them, they weren’t even that good I suppose. Toss the food and keep the jars if you want. You never know what safety measures the person took to clean everything.
I would:
Dump all jars into a large colander, let liquid go down the drain. Bag up contents and toss in the dumpster. Acidic things like pickles can kill vegetation, so dont just dump in a corner of the yard. If you have a legit compost heap, that might be ok, but I would still worry about the volume of acid you would be adding.
Throw away all lids/rings. Wash jars in dishwasher. Wash hands well after handling the contents!
If you have any jars clearly moldy on the inside, just toss the whole sealed jar in the dumpster.
Take up canning! Or just box up the cleaned jars and put them on the curb with a sign “free canning jars”. They will disappear.
What makes you think one jar had “botchulism”? Unless you sent a sample to a testing lab there is no way to know by looking whether or not a jar contains Clostridium botulinum bacteria. A popped lid indicates a bad seal and that it is unsafe to consume, for sure, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s contaminated with C. botulinum especially considering the high acid content in pickles. If you saw mold in the jar it’s something besides C. botulinum.
Regardless I wouldn’t eat any canned goods without knowing if they were made using a safe and tested recipe. Throw them out.
Dump them. You can boil and wash the jars, but who knows how they canned things. Don’t be afraid to toss everything.
I wouldn’t eat them. Throw away and save the jars
Open toss the contents. Toss the flat lids. You can keep the rings if they were with the jars. I highly doubt they were. And send the jars through your dishwasher and they can be reused with new lids and rings
Please watch your headspace when you can! Different foods have different head space requirements. Here’s a helpful guide: [https://www.clemson.edu/extension/food/canning/canning-tips/09headspace.html](https://www.clemson.edu/extension/food/canning/canning-tips/09headspace.html)
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I don’t know where you live, but I live in the countryside so if anyone gives me, or if my own jars are questionable, I put on rubber gloves and just dump the contents into a compost pile. Then I let the jar sit out in the sunlight after rinsing it out with the hose and maybe some dish soap. After maybe an hour in direct sunlight, rinse it out again and bring it inside to wash it thoroughly. Depending on how bad it was, I might even boil the jar before putting it back into storage.
Chunk the lids and contents, but save the jars, even if you just donate them.
Keep the jars! Jars are expensive.
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Problem solved, thank you everyone!