Any food safety experts? Question about garlic oil and botulism.

[Oliveoily]

I use Tesco garlic-infused olive oil, and it's an oldish bottle of it - opened and stored at room temp. I drizzled a teaspoon of it over my daughter's pizza before serving. I only thought about any risk afterwards, as it's been so hot at room temperature recently. Then I googled it and found that garlic infused oil cam cause botulism!

Google says store- bought infused oils should be OK if they state they were acidified in the process. Tesco's one doesn't state that, and there's no citric acid it anything in the ingredients, only "olive oil, garlic". Have I put my daughter at risk?

I dont think its common. Remember reading about some Lloyd Grossman sauces years ago.

Thanks. I do wonder why the Tesco oil does not contain acids though. I might not use it again.

Is the danger the garlic?

I don't really get it but I think it's something to do with when you infuse oils with things like garlic or chilli, they can grow the bacteria that causes botulism unless they're acidified.

My understanding has always been that the risk is only with home-made.

I can't imagine there is any risk from this. You will drive yourself crazy if you google and worry about this sort of thing.

This had never occurred to me and I use it quite a bit.

I think the risk for this is really only with homemade. I did quite a lot of reading and tbh it's quite rare even then, though obviously very much best avoided. I think worrying about this is a route to madness.

Is there a bulb of garlic actually in the oil or just the flavour? Tesco won’t have sold an item that carries any significant risk, the garlic they used is probably a commercial extract or something not just a fresh bulb sitting in the oil.

It's just garlic infused oil, so no lumps of garlic sitting in it. I just thought the heat might have affected it if there was no acid stabilising it. Thanks for the replies; I do tend to worry too much about these things.

Mine has bits of garlic at the bottom, but still not that bothered.

Bet Tesco's uses dried garlic pieces for exactly that reason.

It'll be fine.