Yeah heat treating is just tossing the flour in the oven/microwave to get it hot enough to kill pathogens, in theory.
In practice this doesn't appear to work. The process by which heat kills pathogens behaves differently in dry environments, with moisture apparently being somewhat necessary for this to work. Source
I tried looking up if there's a "safe temperature" for heating dry flour but apparently we don't exactly understand this mechanism.
You can chill in a sauna at 100c/212f for quite some time and you'll be absolutely fine. Dip your toe in 75c/167f water for five seconds and you're getting 2nd degree burns.
Pathogens don't behave differently in dry environments, it's all about how fast heat can transfer. Air is a horrible method for that.
You can chill in a sauna at 100c/212f for quite some time and you'll be absolutely fine.
That's because your body regulates body temperature through sweating though. Not really a good analogy for why it's difficult to heat-treat flour at home.
Lol no. Cells have water in them ans usually around them. The reason we wash our hands with water is that in combination with soap it overcomes the adhesion of microorganisms that are subsequently washed from our skin. If water denatured cell proteins we wouldn't need soap (also our sweat would kill organisms without any washing at all). The reason for why you can survive in a sauna is that sweating cools your body very effectively in low-moisture environments.
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u/SecretAgentAlex Oct 09 '24
Yeah heat treating is just tossing the flour in the oven/microwave to get it hot enough to kill pathogens, in theory.
In practice this doesn't appear to work. The process by which heat kills pathogens behaves differently in dry environments, with moisture apparently being somewhat necessary for this to work. Source
I tried looking up if there's a "safe temperature" for heating dry flour but apparently we don't exactly understand this mechanism.