Swollen Can: Did I Save Our Lives?

Lol.

@TooBlue Lol?? You mean, it was harmless to use?!?

Yeah, shoulda used it, could’ve made a really nice pasta, you waster!! Think of the hungry children in Africa…think of the children!!!

Maybe nothing. Possibly food poisoning of one type or another. Better safe than sorry, in my opinion you took the correct action.

The extra pressure is caused by bacteria and other germs feeding on the tomato paste. The buttons on lids (ex: the lid of a pickle jar) help detect this. The buttons pop out when the pressure on both sides of the lid are equal. This happens when the jar is opened (or tampered with) or the food has gone bad. You most likely would not have died, but you would risk food poisoning.

Like this one?
These cans usually have an expire date of many years (here anyway) and i also sometimes see it happen when i open one that it squirts out.
My guess is there is nothing wrong with it.

Eww! Botulism! You dodged that bacterial bullet!

In an awesome zombie movie, you would have fucked over mankind by discarding of this strange and deadly substance.

I never eat from dented or swollen cans. Especially swollen. I do open them and listen to them fizz, though.

@mrentropy Does anything come out to attack you?

@Symbeline Not as yet, but tomorrow is another day.

Instant death; well done, savvy consumer.

You did right. Interesting that it was tomatoes that happened to. They are usually too acid to support most nasties. Maybe the paste form has a higher pH.

As @Symbeline said, you should have saved it to feed to the zombies.~