This story is not about covid. About 12 years ago, I was helping out an elderly neighbor who had been recovering from cancer and the effects of chemo treatments. During one of my visits, I saw that she had thrown away dozens of food cans, many of which had been given to her by other neighbors. I asked her why she was throwing them away, and she told me that they were past their expiration dates. (The cans were only a few weeks past their dates, not years past them.) I tried to tell her that canned foods do not suddenly turn into poison overnight. She told me that in her fragile state of health, she didn't want to take any chances.
Then, this same woman who didn't want to risk getting sick from a can of string beans, accompanied me to a delicatessen where she bought a sandwich with cheese and bacon! Hey; the melted cheese and butter-fried bacon were not past their "best by" dates, so of course that sandwich was safe to eat!
Whatever your state of health may be, I think it's safe to say that a can of vegetables that's 2 weeks past its "best by" date is much healthier than anything with bacon!
With bacon, it's not just the fat content, it's the nitrite used to cure it. (And other cured meats.)
There was big media discussion about nitrite/cancer, some time ago. Here in the UK, some bacon started being marketed as "nitrite-free".
No doubt that's all been conveniently forgotten, but I don't eat meat, so I don't know.
It is an interesting subject if you consider that military ration packs of tinned food do not have sell by dates. The old days of lead solder for tins has long gone. Lead will not be absorbed by contents when there is none. A leg of pork will go off and become too smelly to eat, A joint of beef is better when matured. That leg of pork can be cured, pickled if you like. I have an 18th Century receipt (recipe) for this. Transcription is according to convention.
To Pickle Pork
To a hog about 10 score A pound &
half a pound of salt petre & half a bag of salt
beat very fine & mix’d well together-
the hog must be scalded, cut down the
chine cut off the legs and hands, bone it
& cut the sides into square pieces that it
may lay as close as possible in the tub
The day after is cut up is best to lay it
in, rub the pieces well on ┌all ┐[both] sides
with salt petre & bag salt, & afterwards
with common salt then a layer of Pork
a layer of salt & so on, it must be
well pack’d & press’d down very close-
To salt a Ham
To every pound of meat 1 pint
of salt 1 ounce oz of salt petre beat very fine
3 ounces oz coarse sugar mixing them together ma-
-king them scalding hot keeping it stirring
all the time it is on the fire- then
rub it into the hams hot then
take the salt that drops off heat it a second time
and cover the ham over with it with it scalding
hot- they are to lay 3 Weeks rubbing
in the salt & turning them every day
That pig weighs 200 pounds or 90.7 kg or more.
Chine is the backbone.
The current cost to buy a hanging or carcass weight of pork is about £730, that is after the pig is killed and eviscerated, head removed as well as the blood, and it is dried by hanging for a couple of weeks. By then it has lost about 30% of the live weight. The salt might be a half of a hundredweight sack or 56 pounds but this by no means appears to be a standard and may depend on how much the wholesaler thinks he can steal off his customers. https://www.huntroyd.co.uk/items/show/65
(It is my website and I own the copyright)
There are tales of people restoring old houses and finding ham joints in chimneys. They would be hung there to smoke them. The story is that when the centuries of crust is removed, the ham remains in perfect condition inside. Modern factory process does not achieve the perfection and so a ham may deteriorate from inside. You can tell this if there is a grey core inside.
She lived a long life and experienced the hell of cancer and chemo. Let the poor woman eat bacon,
Chemo brain is hellacious. Her logic was that botulism exists and she wasn’t risking it. Her doctors would have told her to eat when she was hungry and not worry about anything except getting enough protein. So she made what seemed to her to be smart choices. I have watched cancer wreck people and the recovery is years in the making for some folks. Also, in general, we are fucking fucked at nutritional education and cancer. See: cancer and sugar. Then ask why they give out Ensure sugar bombs to cancer patients in treatment. And cookies. Cancer feasts on sugar. It loves it. So much. We as a society aren’t following the science where it’s leading. The elderly lady is no different than the vast majority of Americans, though: trying to follow guidelines but having bad guidelines to follow. You can see the fear-based decision shining through, though.