I don’t quite understand the concept of botulism. I’ve googled it but anytime someone mentions it I’m confused all over again. My best understanding is that it’s food poisoning but I feel like it’s more complex than that

Question

Does botulism refer to the bacteria or to the food ?

In: 10

Answer 1

There’s a bacteria called clostridium botulinum.

It can grow on badly-preserved food, and it pisses poison.

This poison is ridiculously powerful, and the tiniest amount can kill a person. The condition of being poisoned with the stuff is called botulism.

Even if you cook the food at high temperature and kill the bacteria, the poison is still there.

Colloquially people might refer to the bacteria itself as ‘botulism’ (eg “there was a batch of canned chicken that had botulism in it”), but that’s not formally correct.

The poison works by paralyzing muscles – it will stop your heart, stop you breathing, etc.

In teeny-tiny microdoses, it’s used in the cosmetic-surgery industry to paralyse facial muscles responsible for frown lines, etc – that’s ‘botox’, short for ‘botulinum toxin’.