Can I eat it: Chicken broth in a jar whose lid didn't pop?

October 31, 2024 5:51 PM

Making a soup and using two jars of store-bought chicken broth (Epic brand). One jar had a lid that made a popping sound, opened right up, all is normal. The other jar had a lid that didn't pop and went round and round, not opening, until it was finally accessed by stabbing the lid with scissors and shaking it out into the pot. Now, even though the soup is going at a good boil for 10+ minutes, I'm second guessing whether it will be safe to eat.

I'm very cautious about food safety, so even if this isn't a "will we die" situation I'd like to avoid a GI distress situation all the same. Again, the soup is boiling and it smells good and fine. The expiration date on the broth is Jan 2025. It's been stored in a pantry since I bought it from Whole Foods a few months ago. The lid just didn't pop (but my partner is saying that the button was depressed/concave, not in the up/convex position, before being stabbed with scissors) and I'm questioning whether it's safe if the vacuum seal wasn't intact. Any advice or reassurance is welcome!

posted by mediterranean spurge to Health & Fitness (16 answers total)

I would absolutely not eat any long storage jarred/canned food that had lost its safety seal.
posted by phunniemee at 6:32 PM on October 31

I am a home canner with a pretty cavalier attitude towards some of the modern recommendations, but this is a low acid food and I wouldn't eat it if there was any question in my mind at all.
posted by Ardnamurchan at 6:32 PM on October 31

Yikes, okay, I had the soup boiling for more than 10 minutes and served a small bowl and it was incredibly delicious.

If it had gotten air inside and started to spoil, though, wouldn't it show spoilage via smell/taste/color? I would think that multiplying bacteria for 2 months in a jar at room temp would cause a noticeable change in the quality of the broth.

Sorry, not trying to be combative, just at this point trying to not panic and/or feel okay about freezing the leftovers if it turns out to be safe.
posted by mediterranean spurge at 6:37 PM on October 31

You cannot see, smell, or taste the botulism toxin which is what I'm worried about with any preserved food that has a dodgy seal.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:54 PM on October 31

Botulism is anaerobic which is the opposite of the perils of an unsealed jar.
posted by phunniemee at 6:56 PM on October 31

It sounds like it was sealed but you couldn't open it, so you cut a hole in it. If the jar was sealed and the button depressed, that doesn't matter
posted by so fucking future at 7:05 PM on October 31

So the lid was sealed too well? I believe, the button should pop up after the seal is broken wether through opening by twisting the lid or stabbing with scissors. If that happened, then I don't see any reason for concern.
posted by wigner3j at 7:13 PM on October 31

It sounds like it was sealed but you couldn't open it, so you cut a hole in it.

Yes, couldn't open it, cut a hole in the lid, had to shake it like a bottle of hot sauce to get the broth to pour out. At some point during the shaking I noticed it was coming out more around the sides of the lid, so I just twisted the lid off at that point. And that was the moment I started to worry.

But I guess the entry of air into the jar via the hole could have caused the lid to loosen?

I also searched the brand and product reviews to see if this was a known issue or if anyone had gotten sick from this broth. No results for any of that.
posted by mediterranean spurge at 7:22 PM on October 31

The toxin that causes Botulism is, by weight, the deadliest compound on Earth for humans. If my loved one had told me what you had said so far, I would have immediately called poison control.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 8:17 PM on October 31

> If my loved one had told me what you had said so far, I would have immediately called poison control.

The jar was sealed, chill.
posted by so fucking future at 8:24 PM on October 31

Even if I boiled the soup containing the broth for 10+ minutes? Google is saying this should take care of it (if there was botulism present).
posted by mediterranean spurge at 8:28 PM on October 31

I think you'll likely be all right.

I grew up in canning county, and it was drilled into us how the lid popping is the safety feature providing evidence that the seal was functional. If it doesn't pop it's not food. The good news is that you are at a much much lower risk of contamination from commercial products, and boiling it for 10 minutes is going to further reduce your exposure.

The bad is that this risk isn't approaching zero - so be mindful of any signs of illness and make certain to thoroughly clean anything that came into contact with the contents of the bad can.
posted by zenon at 9:07 PM on October 31

So, I think the some of the people that are expressing alarm are misreading the question.

Understandably — because "doesn't pop" is usually used to mean that the safety button was already raised before the jar is open, and therefore the button doesn't make a satisfying popping sound as the lid is turned. This is a sign that the seal has been compromised and the food should not be eaten.

But you're describing something different. You wrote that your partner says the safety button was still in the down position at the time the jar was opened. This means the jar was still safely sealed. In fact, it was sealed so well that you were unable to remove the lid by twisting, and had to poke a hole in the lid.

As soon as you poked a hole in the lid, the hole allowed air to enter and equalize the pressure inside and outside and would have made the lid easier to remove.

Based on what you've described, I think you are almost certainly fine.
posted by mekily at 9:37 PM on October 31

I read and re-read your account three times, and agree with mekily. I can't see how you could possibly hear a "pop" of the lid with all that stabby stabby going on. The "went round and round" in your initial description confused me because that is not how stuck lids behave in my experience. It seems like a typical tight jar scenario. In the future, you can almost always solve this by running the lid under hot water and using a rubber glove to get a better grip on the lid for opening. If that doesn't work, then a dull butter knife wedged under the edge of the lid, angled just right will break the seal. Your method scares me and I feel bad for the scissors!
posted by oxisos at 9:47 PM on October 31

Here’s what the CDC says about botulism toxin:

Botulism: Control Measures Overview for Clinicians
...
Despite its extreme potency, botulinum toxin is easily destroyed. Heating to an internal temperature of 85°C for at least 5 minutes will decontaminate affected food or drink. [this is from a previous comment of mine and the link has died]

posted by jamjam at 9:53 PM on October 31

I don’t think the jar was sealed before you started twisting the lid.

The kind of broth jar I’ve seen has a folded under metal lid which doesn’t really have threads, and threads on the jar itself are not continuous, but are more like a series of slashes, none of which go all the way around the jar.

You can overtighten such a jar, bending the folded under part of the lid and driving it past the threads, and after that the lid spins uselessly and does not seal.

But that doesn’t mean the broth was contaminated. Look at pictures of Pasteur's apparatuses demonstrating that spontaneous generation does not occur. His alembics full of boiled broth were actually open to the air, but had a spout with a complicated sqiggle that airborne particles could evidently not successfully negotiate, and in your case they apparently couldn’t get through the junction between the jar and the lid either.

I’d give it a couple of days before I ate anymore of that broth though, because botulism spores can survive boiling.

And I’d run the broth through a pressure cooker before eating any more of it.
posted by jamjam at 10:18 PM on October 31