Safety reference

Every claim on these pages is quoted from a named authority and cited with the date we read it. We do not write food safety content from memory, and where a figure cannot be sourced we leave the gap and say so rather than estimating it.

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• After starvation: why the first meals must be small

  After five days or more with little or no food, eating normally again can be dangerous. What refeeding syndrome is, who is at risk, the warning signs, and why this one needs a doctor.

• Carbon monoxide: never cook inside a tent, awning or closed van

  Around 20 people a year die of unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning in England and Wales. An awning counts as inside.

• Cooling and keeping cooked food without a fridge

  UK guidance for leftovers is built on a fridge at 0–5°C. Without one, the honest answer is that most of it does not translate, and what replaces it.

• Damaged tins: dents, bulges, rust, and never store food in an open one

  A shallow dent is fine. A deep one may hide a break in the seal, and a bulging tin should never be opened. What to check, and why you cannot check by taste.

• Fermenting vegetables safely: sauerkraut, kimchi and brined vegetables

  Fermentation makes vegetables safe by turning them acidic, and it only works when the salt, temperature and brine are right. What food authorities in the UK, Europe, Korea and the US say, what means throw it away, and why a finished ferment needs a fridge.

• Garlic and herbs in oil

  Oil is anaerobic and garlic is low-acid. Together at room temperature they are close to ideal conditions for Clostridium botulinum.

• Home canning acidity: why "tomatoes are acidic" is no longer enough

  The pH 4.6 line decides whether botulinum can grow. Tomatoes sit on both sides of it, which is why USDA guidance says to acidify every jar.

• Kidney beans and the slow cooker trap

  Red kidney beans contain a lectin that ordinary cooking destroys and slow cooking does not. The UK Food Standards Agency says not to slow cook them raw.

• Raw flour: the one thing in the store cupboard that is not cooked yet

  Flour is a raw agricultural product. It is not treated to kill bacteria, and the only thing that does is cooking it. This risk has nothing to do with age.

• Rehydrating dried pulses: the soak, and what it costs in water

  Standard guidance says soak overnight in a cool place. A van has no cool place, so the hot soak is the method that actually transfers.

• Rice, reheating, and cooking without a fridge

  The toxin that makes leftover rice dangerous survives reheating. UK guidance depends on chilling within an hour, which is the one thing a van cannot do.

• Sprouting seeds: fresh greens from a jar, and the catch

  Sprouting is the best way to get fresh vegetables with no fridge and no shop. The conditions that sprout a seed are also ideal for Salmonella and E. coli.

• Vacuum-packed food: the vacuum is not the preservation

  Removing oxygen does not make food keep. For one organism it actively helps. A chilled vacuum pack gets ten days at fridge temperature, not months in a van.

• Water: treating it, and what each method misses

  Boiling handles everything. Chemicals miss parasites, filters miss viruses. Knowing which gap you are carrying is the whole decision.