In the past week, our group has been discussing extensively on the revised research question. We are almost there and we hope that it will suit the requests of our community partner. We consider our most recent community visit our conference call last week. It is disappointing that we had to change our research question, but in the meantime we are putting the greatest effort in formulating a research question that not only satisfies our community partner’s expectations, but at the same time does not diminish our group’s academic interest. We have divided the FAQ portion of the manual among our group members and we have been hard at work reviewing articles of literature reviews. The FAQs for the manual are generally completed and now we are moving on to the science portion of the manual. Some of the hot topics our community partner was concerned with are the scientific background behind Clostridium botulinum and their strains, or the role of pectin in producing jam. We also explored additional methods of canning and assessed their safety and practical uses. Some of the interesting information we came across included:
-Lower temperature pasteurization of pickles (160°F for 36 minutes as opposed to 212°F)
– Pectin binding to water to only provide food structure in jams and jellies. They are not a factor in inhibiting microbial growth
-Sugar is not the sole factor in eliminating the risk of pathogen growth and inactivating enzymes in low acid foods; they are used for flavouring and colour.
-A very miniscule amount of botulinum toxin is enough to cause full body paralysis
-The botulinum bacteria are rod shaped organisms that are slightly bent and thrive in low acid, wet, and anaerobic environments
Our plans for the remainder of the week is to commence our in-depth research on the scientific background to ensuring the safety and viability of the canning process. We will then need to divide up each of the chapters of the manual. Once that is complete, we will then need to compile that and do an extensive edit to make sure that our new information well supplements the manual. Also, we need to ensure the language is at approximately a grade six level. As mentioned in the previous blog post, we have just had a conference call with our community partner. Our tentative research question is To what extent does educating people on how to can at home contribute to a person’s food literacy, resulting in improved food security with regards to personal health? Our focus group meeting is scheduled for the beginning of November and we need to have this done as soon as possible. Thanks for tuning in, and we will blog about our next experience.