canning seafood - why so long?

[PBear42]

Was double-checking a separate pressure canning issue when I tripped over this guideline, which has always puzzled me. Talking about pressure canning low acids foods such as vegetables, meats, poultry and seafood. Of these, the one requiring by far the longest processing time is seafood, generally 100 minutes for pint jars. Does anybody know why seafood requires more aggressive processing than the others?

 

[Michael in FtW]

From what I have read in the past ... shellfish, crustaceans and fish can harbor different bacteria and parasites not found in mammals and fowl. Since you can't increase the temperature - the only way to insure you kill all the little buggers is to prolong the cooking time.