FWIW - this picture has been floating around since the mid 2000’s; the person who blogged about it cooked it super wrong. The instructions said to use a bain marie, and they didnt know what a bain marie, but saw you boiled water in it, so they just boiled the can. If you boil a can, water is 100% going to seep into it, and turn it into…what you see here.
They are in the same way any canned good is. If you boil it, the can is likely to warp slightly and allow water in, also things like plastic liners and other chemicals can leech into your food, you generally aren’t supposed to cook food inside the cans they come in.
Canned food is literally pasteurized in said can, while submerged in water at temperatures slightly lower than 100 °C. The whole reason to put food in cans is to create an airtight atmosphere that can be thermally treated with hot water. This kills certain spores (mainly botulinum) which is why canned food has a very long shelf life.
It’s still not correct to cook the food that way, but not because of the reason you made up.
It doesn’t look any worse than an AM/PM burger.
