An allergy is actually one's body attacking itself. If weakened immune systems make some people suscepible to pathogens, such as those some yack about in cat poop, I take it you have never had a serious allergy attack and what that does to ones system. I spent two days sitting in a chair due to a doctor giving me a medicine I was allergic to after the doctor who gave me the medicine said if my headache, no one ever found out what caused it, did not go away within three days he was going to send me for a brain scan. The headache went away, I recovered from looking like the poppin fresh dough boy. Some allergins make you simply puff up and it is very hard to go up and down stairs and breathe. Later, same year, I spent forty days in the hospital as the specialist said "we will send you home when we find the bug that is killing you." Are they related not likely. Had they happened at the same time, as the doctor who cut me open was amazed I was able to walk into the hospital, had the allergies happened later only God knows how that would have turned out. So if one is not allergic to much of anything, any poop related pathogens will probaly just give the one the runs and a few headaches but if the one has allergies, the one becomes far, far more susceptible to a pathogen attacking the one's immunes system as it may be compromised from the body already attacking itself. I never had the test and learned and recovered the hard ways. Get the test and one will know a lot more about how well his immune system is working.

I have no qualms about using rhubarb spray on edibles, if I need to. I always wash them before eating them. And anyway, we eat oxalic acid whenever we eat any green, leafy vegetable (though not in the same quantities as that contained in rhubarb leaves). Ksrogers, you are aware, aren't you, that neem seeds (from which the insecticide is made) are spermicidal? Which can be a good or a bad thing, depending on your plans for the future! Also, pregnant or breast-feeding mothers should avoid neem.

Putting botulism spores in perspective. Botulism spores are present in soil. They're everywhere. So yes, the spores will still be present after food is boiled.......but we eat them all the time. The human digestive tract isn't anaerobic. Botulism spores need the proper environment to grow. Therefore botulism spores should pass through you and come out the other side as botulism spores. But the heat can/will kill the organisms and also break down the toxins. Not something I'd do with chancy canned goods but it does give you some sense of safety to know cooking well should make food safe in case a suspected jar slips through the system. The reason we need to kill the spores in low acid canned food is the environment there IS PERFECT for the spores to grow into the organism and then produce toxins. Now the caveat as I understand it is that spores can present a problem in infants and that's why infants should not be fed honey, because it can contain spores. It doesn't harbour the organism or the toxin because of it's properties, but can contain spores. Many of the cases of botulism in our country are wound botulism (like said it's a common soil entity) and infant botulism.

The other day on the cheesecake thread ColeenOZ prefaced a recipe containing raw eggs with, "We don't seem to have the issues with raw eggs here that you do in the US..." so I set out to find if there really was a difference between eggs in our countries. At first it seemed there was just a negligible difference, something like an estimated a .004% incidence vs our .005%, but then I read something interesting on the FSANZ (Food Standards Australia New Zealand) website: Unlike many other countries, the types of Salmonella that can contaminate the inside of eggs as they are formed in the bird are not present in Australian laying flocks. While Salmonella can be sometimes present on the outside eggs, it won�t grow, even at room temperatures, because the condition of the egg surface limits its growth. I don't have any supporting evidence, but it's my understanding that even here, most of the already extremely rare incidences of contamination are on the outside of the egg, not the inside. I always wash my hands after handling eggs, and if I'm using them raw I wash the egg first. I think that puts the odds of getting sick pretty darn close to zero. I also say go for it, along with LindaC's disclaimer. Here is a link that might be useful: FSANZ