Easier is better in my view. Of course a compost pile won't be completely out of oxygen, and there are certainly worms and other critters that help aerate, but there will certainly be pockets of anaerobic (no oxygen) zones.
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I have a kick ass immune system because I feed my gut flora with plenty of fermented foods, 70% of the immune system is created in the gut. So my "good warriors" would likely overcome any small amount of botulinum. Kids without a well developed gut flora are more susceptible.
http://www.urban-ag-solutio...
First let’s have a few facts. Botulism refers to a potentially lethal toxicity caused by a neurotoxin released by the bacteria Clostridium botulinum. That little fella is an obligate anaerobe, meaning it needs oxygen-less environments to live and multiply, but in the presence of oxygen or the absence of nutrients, it can generate a kind of a bomb-shelter endospore state into which it can retreat and maintain dormancy for a long time. As a spore, it can wait out the tough weather until things get pleasant and anaerobic again. C. botulinum produces one of the most potent toxins known to humans (and some animals like horses and cows).
The toxin acts on motor nerve endings, preventing the neurotransmitter acetylcholine from being released, thus preventing muscle function. If you get enough of the toxin in you, you eventually succumb to what’s called flaccid paralysis and stop breathing. If you get poisoned and receive treatment in time, you may not die but may still require months or years of respiratory therapy. The toxin is so powerful that estimates state one teaspoon of the stuff could kill 1.2 billion people. Obviously this is not something to be trifled with.
Botulism poisoning can occur in three major ways. It can happen from consuming improperly preserved food containing the toxin (my most common association with it prior to research), from contacting the toxin with an open wound (reportedly associated with using black tar heroin which requires subcutaneous injections), or from ingesting bacteria and not having proper intestinal flora to combat the bacteria’s growth (which is why one doesn’t feed honey to babies under one – honey harbors the spores and the young child’s internal menagerie isn’t well enough developed to outcompete the bacteria when it reawakens in the anaerobic human gut.)
Clostridium botulinum is ubiquitous in soil and marine sediments, and indeed not properly washing produce may be how it is introduced into canned products, though it then requires the proper no-oxygen, low-acid, low-salt, more-or-less ambient temperatures to go to work forming the toxin. Interestingly enough, the bacteria alone does not produce the toxin. It requires a virus or phage to infect it, and apparently the virus’s genetics carries the code for toxin formation. Thus it is possible to have bacteria without toxins.
The Wikipedia entry on Botulism states that ” little is known about the natural factors that control phage infection and replication within the bacteria,” so it’s apparently an open question as to when and why this bacteria forms its poisonous by-product. If this bacterium is truly everywhere, as in all-over-the-earth-in-every-bit-of-soil everywhere, it’s a wonder we gardener types aren’t falling one after another. Perhaps the presence of the bacteria without the toxins is why farmers, gardeners and players in the dirt aren’t getting paralyzed all the time when they eat a carrot with a bit or dirt on it or such. That and our internal flora can easily “take” any C.b. that gets introduced into our guts. Thank God. Sometimes too much info can be a scary thing. But all that being the case, there still remains the issue of whether by anaerobically composting one is introducing a hazard.
