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cedit_crazy t1_jd7rll7 wrote

Then you also have guys who when they find a dead rat in the bucket they wring the sap out of it

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taez555 t1_jd9d0u9 wrote

A couple years ago the kids wanted to try Sugaring, so we got a 50 gallon blue bucket and all the gear and proceeded to tap our maple trees and fill the barrel with sap over the course of a few days, but... the kids got bored so we left it sitting on our porch.

So of course a squirrel ended up drowning in the barrel, but no one wanted to get it out. Not to mention the barrel was full so at several hundred pounds was nearly impossible to move by hand.

We ended up just leaving it there for like 3 years till the squirrel finally disintegrated and then awkwardly pushed the barrel over to the woods to dump it out.

It was pretty gross.

Worse was when the dogs found the bones of the squirel and paraded it around the yard.

True VT story. :-)

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BOOTS31 t1_jd870ib wrote

My great grandfather was like this...

I remember as a kid seeing a dead field mouse in one of the sap collection barrels. He just scooped it out and tossed it like the whole batch didn't get tainted.

We still enjoyed our Maple Syrup every year regardless!

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woolsocksandsandals t1_jd957st wrote

That’s gross but the sap is going to get the bejesus a boiled out of it so shouldn’t be anything pathogenic left.

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Riaayo t1_jd9gb0u wrote

You can cook away pathogens, but not toxins.

Edit: The fact this is getting downvoted is mind-blowing lol.

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woolsocksandsandals t1_jd9rd75 wrote

What toxins are in a mouse?

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Riaayo t1_jda6jx3 wrote

A dead, decomposing mouse? All the literal shit the bacteria growing in/on it produce as they consume it.

Not to mention you have literally no clue if a rodent has consumed poison or not.

There's a reason you can't cook rotting food. Asking what toxins are in a mouse is the same as asking what toxins are in the ham you threw in your fridge. The toxins are a byproduct of bacteria living on it. You can't cook that away. A dead rat is going to decompose the same way the ham in your fridge will.

Also, y'know, when you put the ham in your fridge it doesn't have literal feces in it like a living (and now dead) creature will.

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woolsocksandsandals t1_jda797w wrote

Meh, again it’s gross but not a danger to human health. There’s not enough bacteria to produce enough toxins a this scenario to have an effect. You probably eat worse all the time.

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Riaayo t1_jda7j2y wrote

Huge disagree. It absolutely is a danger to human health.

Ya'll can do whatever you want, but it's mind-blowing to me to see people just hand-wave this. Your health is worth a lot more than a bucket of sap.

This is admittedly a huge red flag to me ever wanting to try anyone's home-tapped syrup though lol, yikes.

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woolsocksandsandals t1_jda7mvt wrote

I disagree with your disagree. It’s not.

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Riaayo t1_jda8733 wrote

How toxic a dead thing is doesn't care if you disagree lol.

Best of luck, I hope your disregard for this never bites you in the ass (or anyone you care about that you ever share this stuff with).

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woolsocksandsandals t1_jda8e2g wrote

I’m going to boil up a dead rat for my kids right now. I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Riaayo t1_jda8xkv wrote

I mean just go take a shit in your next meal while you're making it and keep cooking for a while. It'll be fine, right?

Do it to own me.

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woolsocksandsandals t1_jdabggc wrote

I love how smart you think you are. It’s inspiring.

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Riaayo t1_jdao6ex wrote

I, on the other hand, don't love how you feel this odd need to state something spiteful to a complete stranger online just because they dared to tell you you're incorrect about the dangers of dead animals in your foodstuffs.

I can't imagine what it's like to even jokingly tell someone you're going to go boil up a dead rat for your own children, just to spite a stranger, who happens to be trying to tell you about the fact that it would be dangerous to serve up to those very children a substance that has had a dead animal in it.

It's bizarre and sad, let alone totally uncalled for. But hey, I clapped back with something immature in response so fuck me too right?

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woolsocksandsandals t1_jdar5jn wrote

I’m not incorrect. It’s really not a big deal for someone to boil sap that a mouse drown in. It’s gross but it’s not going to harm any one.

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Riaayo t1_jdas7p8 wrote

> I’m not incorrect.

You are, but do what you want with your life. I ain't wishing you no ill.

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woolsocksandsandals t1_jdatnbu wrote

Bruh, you almost certainly eat more contaminated food than that all the time.

Fast food, hot dogs, veggie burgers, cereal and just about anything else made with grains far more risky than this situation. Unless you’re eating a grain free vegan whole food diet you’re eating rodent shit more often than you would like to.

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Riaayo t1_jdauzu2 wrote

I am not so naive as to not understand there are certain levels of contaminants in commercial food, but that's why there are regulations for "acceptable" / safe levels of such things - and why those who go outside of those regulations should at least in theory be held liable/accountable for it, especially if someone were to get sick.

None of this changes that botulism is a thing, and that a dead animal in your foodstuffs is a serious contamination. We're not talking about a few ants or something, we're talking about a full on dead/decomposing mammal.

What corporations do also has zero baring on how you prepare and store your own food that you have harvested and processed yourself.

I don't have a problem with ignorance or rural living. People don't know what they don't know until they know it. But I definitely take some issue with people who refuse to admit they didn't know something or refuse to admit reality, entirely on the basis that admitting so would inconvenience them. Considering you've stated it's okay to admit you don't know something to someone else, I would think you'd be more open to that yourself.

You want to take these risks? Go for it. You're totally allowed if you're the only one consuming it and you aren't selling it. But when you come out in public and start advocating that there is no danger, and others could come across and read this and be misinformed by your personal desire to disregard safety? That's a problem.

You do you, but don't go advocating for willful ignorance of the severity of having dead animals in contact with your food to where other people will pick up that misinformation and potentially harm themselves in the process.

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woolsocksandsandals t1_jdc6jl7 wrote

You don’t seem to understand how sap is collected or made or what constitutes a food that presents a botulism danger.

Maple syrup is usually collected daily and is only collected at times of the year where temperatures are generally pretty low. Therefore decomposition isn’t really going to happen in this scenario. The main contaminant is going to be a very small quantity of feces. After the sap is collected it’s filtered and then boiled for a loooong time. Botulism toxin is rendered inert at 185° and the bacteria is self dies at 212° after ten minutes. The spores are going to survive the process but it’s my understanding that the high sugar content of the syrup does something to the spore that stops it from reproducing or producing the toxin.

Therefore not a danger. Gross, but not a danger.

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OldJames47 t1_jd86jv6 wrote

Hopefully the process of reducing the sap to a syrup happens at a high enough temperature to kill the nasty.

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KITTYONFYRE t1_jd8alqe wrote

looks like sap boils at 215-220F depending on sugar content

but boiling may kill pathogens while leaving toxins intact. if you shit in a bucket and pour some water on it, you can boil it all you want, I'm not touching it lol

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rockstang t1_jd9dns7 wrote

If you shit in a bucket I'm not hanging out with you.

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Nickmorgan19457 t1_jda42kx wrote

This kind of mentality is what killed tiny houses.

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rockstang t1_jda8smb wrote

Listen, if you live in a 75 square foot house it's gonna stink when you take a dookie.

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Riaayo t1_jda8pzp wrote

They're literally in these comments, lol.

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StankyBo OP t1_jd9xr1y wrote

Well it was a squirrel, so, much cleaner than a rat, right?

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MontEcola t1_jd8auon wrote

To be honest, my dad pulled more than one dead squirrel out of a bucket and added the sap to the tank. He said, you are going to boil it anyway, so it is all OK.

Good thing we have pipes now.

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Riaayo t1_jd9ggho wrote

The amount of people who don't understand pathogens vs toxins is too high lol.

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RMTWHODAT t1_jd9l7df wrote

Just dump the sap on the ground yo.

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ashleyfoy t1_jda2fxp wrote

Our young cat fell into our neighbor’s sap tank last season and couldn’t get out and drowned. We were looking for her for two days before we figured out what happened & where she was. It was very sad and I’ll always think of her this time of year. She was only 1.5 years old.

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jonnyredshorts t1_jda8fd7 wrote

So sorry. We lost one of our cats last summer and never found out what happened. I think knowing helps with closure, but there is no getting around that it just sucks to lose a kitty

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The_Barbelo t1_jd9sxw2 wrote

The way the app was made it look like “THERE! SUGARING!” and I laughed at how that sums up every conversation about sugaring ever.

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patonbike t1_jdakoxv wrote

What exactly am I looking at here?

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StankyBo OP t1_jdapm89 wrote

Squirrel got ambitious when he smelled some sugar in a bucket on the tree. He fell in and then the temp dropped and he froze overnight. Not sure why he was head down... Maybe it flash froze because of his pathogens?

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mountainofclay t1_jda7phi wrote

Finding mice or red squirrels in a sap bucket is very common.

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oldbeardedtech t1_jdaczou wrote

Friggin red squirrels are unhinged. I think they actually try to fight the buckets and end up drowning. So dumb

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codeQueen t1_jdc2j8w wrote

These comments make me never want to consume maple syrup ever again

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Intelligent-Hunt7557 t1_jddcn51 wrote

The comments here definitely represent the vagaries of the human condition! We Got All Kinds Here! It’s actually pretty typical for people to consider things idyllic before they are disabused of their fanciful notions. Sure sounds like every concept of Vermont living I know about. (Remoteness, off-grid, wood heat, et al) I have not sugared but it doesn’t surprise me customers don’t want to know How The Sausage(/Syrup) Is Made. Similarly no one wants to think about huge sewage lagoons and the most dangerous jobs people do cleaning out the pits in order to get their tasty tasty mega-ag / corporate bacon. We all hold these hypocrisies/contradictions (sometimes mitigated by eating locally/small-batch but still)

False dichotomies won’t help you! Even tho it has been a while since I scienced formally, does the dosage still makes the poison? “Danger” is relative (“potential danger” is still infuriatingly redundant) and we may never know the temperature or levels at which a rodent may decompose enough to be fatal right? Who wants to propose to UVM’s budding crop of food scientists that they study the issue? Will Big Maple get in the way? #ProctorGate!

The nature of what constitutes “gross” or “creepy” is a land-mine-riddled field. Is a cold freshly-dead rat in a sap bucket grosser than hair jewelry? How about “death masks” or “extreme embalming,” where bodies are posed? How about the ‘delicacy’ of casu martzu? Lutefisk, mummy dust tinctures? Lotsa gross out there. Some folks even allow their pets to lick and kiss them when the pets eats shit! All relative.

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OddTry2427 t1_jdeb8cd wrote

I once saw a magical contraption, it was called a lid.

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