Helping MAMA

Do you love your mom?

If the answer is yes, then you must read the whole article to help out your exhausted mother.

         Every mother will somehow cook for their children. The taste of the food is a total different story compared to what I want to tell you all readers today. We as a loving child need to know what our mother needs. They need a helping hand whenever to clean their cooking utensils whenever after they cook.

            Cleaning cooking utensils is a tough job for each mom. WHY? Simply because they do not know the right chemical to use.

Cleaning cooking utensils is a part of a household art. We can use several different ingredient to clean various types of metals (not only cooking utensils). For example the traditional way of removing rust from knives and metal pots is by using lemon. Cut a whole fresh lemon into half and squeeze the juice onto the surface of the metal and spread it evenly. Wait for several minutes, then wipe it off with a cloth (be careful of your hand when wiping the knives). This process can be repeated several times for a better result. 

But the problem is why can lemon help to remove rust from metals?

As what we know, lemon is a type of citric fruit. This type of fruit will produce certain acids (mainly vitamin C) that are very useful to our health (when we eat it) and our surroundings (when we use it). I remember when I was in my chemistry class during secondary school, my teacher taught us that “when acid mixed with metal, it will produce salt and water”. So eventually I went and do some research on it and found out that it is practically useful to clean cooking utensils. Certainly u may use other acids to clean it but the safest and most convenient type of acid is still lemon juice because it is edible compared to other acids.

There are also other types of dirt we need to clean from cooking utensils other than rust. E.g. fats, grease, carbon (soot), oils, dust, fungus, mosses and other bacteria. Such cleaning will need lot more energy than just cooking. However with the correct use of acids, alkalis, solvent, detergent, water and heat, the process will be as simple as wiping dust off the surface.

First thing first, whenever a mother cooks, there will be certain amount of ‘smog’ emitted from the food. This ‘smog’ may contain things such as water vapor, oils and grease. When these ‘smog’ reaches the surface of your ceiling or any other surface, it may condense and accumulate at those surfaces. If the situation is left untreated, the ‘smog’ will harden and thicken becoming the food source of bacteria and fungus. Till then the ‘smog will be very hard to deal with even if you have a very good detergent. So cleaning the household regularly is recommended to curb this problem. To fix the problem, try using alkalis such as normal detergent or toothpaste. Place suitable amount of toothpaste over the smog and leave it for a while (5mins-30mins) then use solvent like ammonia solution or alcohol solution will help out a bit depends on the type of grease. Scrub it off after that. Detergents and toothpaste both have a common characteristic which is alkaline. These alkalis will soften the grease by using their hydroxide ions to neutralize the grease and oils which contains hydrogen ions and some unsaturated carbon bonds. After such bonds are broken, ammonias or alcohols are used to ‘stick’ up all the dirt off the surface. Such that the dirt leaves the surface and can be easily clean off. Such dirt will present in paste form or solid form when cleaned off. Some scrubbing may be practiced when cleaning it and to speed things up.

Next will be cleaning soot or burnt food at the bottom of the pots and pans. First prepare some acids preferably lemon or vinegar and a stove. Next pour 2 fresh lemon juice or 5 tablespoon of vinegar into the pot. Then put it on the stove to be mildly heated for half an hour. Leave it cool and then scrub it with a soft sponge. This will help and ease things up a little compared to the traditional way of keep scrubbing it. But the best way may just be buying a new pot because scrubbing the pot may end up damaging the bottom of the pot which may expose certain chemicals inside such as heavy metals which is highly hazardous; you won’t want your family to eat heavy metal food right? And do not use this technique if it is an aluminum pot.

Next up, the mission impossible for most Moms; cleaning molds from kitchen tiles. Not only they are unsightly but they also risk your family’s health as it may release toxics into the air we breathe. However cleaning it is a very tough job because most of these molds will tend to hide in the linings of the tiles and at certain angles where we can’t reach. To make things worse, these molds are plants which will grow roots; where these roots will anchor them into the linings of the tiles. Even if we manage to clean the surface there will be high possibilities for the mold to grow back at the same place as we could not uproot it totally. So to clean this up, we will need to kill it. First prepare some ammonia solution. Pour it over the stained linings and leave it for a few minutes. Pour in bleach to break the cells of the mold. Then rinse it with plenty of water as both of these is corrosive if contact to our skin. Use toothbrush and toothpaste to scrub the linings of the tiles to neutralize the toxic and decolorize the stained part. Leave it there for a few minutes to enable it to penetrate through the lining to clean the roots too. Rinse it of with water. Frequent cleaning with bleach is recommended as new mold will grow. Cleaning should be done as soon as any stain is visible and before the root fully anchored the mold. Or else the whole process need to be repeated again.