Rust from can in my canned pineapple

A. Hi. This general issue is a perennial problem with canned pineapple products, and Trevor has probably explained the general situation as well as it can be explained. I doubt that anybody is going to, sight unseen, urge unknown people posting with fictitious names to eat unattractive, discolored, possibly metallic tasting, perhaps expired, food from a bargain food outlet :-)

I'd suggest dumping the open can, trying to get your money back on the unopened cans, and only buying this product which is recognized as troublesome from a place with rapid turnover :-)

But hubby & you can search scholar.google.com for "discoloration canned pineapple" if you have time.

Luck & Regards,

A. Hi, Gerri. I have noticed that issue with canned pineapple my whole life, but don't know exactly what goes on there. I'd probably guess that what happens is the can is tin plated, which protects the steel as long as the can is sealed (no oxygen), whereas once the can is open the potentials reverse and the tin accelerates the corrosion of the underlying steel. Sometimes you even see small tiny shiny flakes, which are presumably tin. Tin is non-toxic and rust is too. It will probably taste metallic and should be discarded, but I am confident that there is little to worry about, both from a lifetime of having done the same thing, and from reading some studies showing that rust is not an ingestion hazard.

Regards,

A. Assuming your can is not stainless steel, but good old tinplate, there is nothing to worry about. The vast majority of cans are now made of either tinplate or aluminium, although there was a trial in the 1970's in Japan with nickel plated steel cans. Stainless steel cans may be available for certain high value products, but I would very much doubt they are used for canned fruits.

What has happened is that the tin has acted as it is supposed to -- a sacrificial anode, just like galvanised steel. When tinplate is produced electrolytically it is flow melted by passing an electric current through it to melt the tin and give it a bright sheen. In doing so, an intermetallic compound (FeSn2) is produced between the tin and the base steel. This compound is dark grey. What you are seeing is the result of the acidic pineapple juice etching the tin until the FeSn2 is exposed; you also may have noticed that your tin layer is showing a nice surface pattern - this is the tin being etched to show its crystal structure. The reason attack happens mostly at the top of the liquid is because it is a redox reaction and one reaction is the reduction of oxygen and the other one is the oxidation of tin. The amounts of tin dissolved are minute and it will not harm anyone. However, it is possible that if the can has been open for some considerable time, that enough metal (tin and iron) will have dissolved in the juice to give it a metallic taste, but it will not be at all harmful.

As the amount of tin on tinplate has been reduced over the years, the thickness of the intermetallic layer has also decreased, so it is not as thick as it used to be; this results in the easier attack of the base steel to produce rust spots on the inside of the can. This corrosion problem is usually overcome by putting a lacquer on the surface, but some solutions are very difficult to protect with lacquers and I suspect that pineapple juice is one of them! As a side issue - if you want to tenderise meat, soak it in pineapple juice for about an hour - there is an enzyme in the juice that breaks down the meat fibres and makes it tender.

Tinplate is an excellent packaging medium and food properly canned can last for many decades. When Captain Scott tried to get to the South Pole in March 1912, he left some tins of food as provisions along his route. These were later recovered after his unfortunate death and were opened in the 1960's to find the meats were still perfectly edible.

A. Years ago, the can label used to say not to store it in an opened can. It might have even gone so far as to say a glass or plastic container.

A. Lui, that does not sound safe. I would suggest NOT eating it.