The Joy of Baking Soda, Miracle Degreaser

Just had a lovely experience. I was washing some greasy fluorescent light covers. They are big, long and hard to clean.

More frustrating was the grease that was sticking to the nylon brush I was using. Rather than removing grease, I was spreading it around. Plus I was temporarily ruining my nylon brush. What to do?

On the vague hope that baking soda can be used as a degreaser, I googled baking soda degreaser. The following web page showed up:

How to Make a Natural Degreaser

Now I had a little more hope. The above web page claims that baking soda is one of 6 natural degreasers. Furthermore, it suggested that baking soda has at least some value as a degreaser even with no other ingredients mixed in. I had to give it a try!

I was already using Palmolive Ultra Dish Liquid, Concentrated, Original Formula dish soap. My sink was full of warm water and Palmolive dish soap. To this I added approximately 1 cup of baking soda.

Voila! The dark stains on my nylon brush cleared almost instantly! And the grease started coming off the long fluorescent light cover rather than just being pushed around. Wow! This mixture really works!

I really didn't expect baking soda to be so effective! I thought it might work a little bit, but I didn't think it would work almost instantly!

It makes me wonder what other secrets I've been missing out on. Why have I not been doing this for years?

You're probably wondering how the light covers became greasy. Well, we have an extended family member who is from the fast school of cooking. Faster is always better.

I simply cannot believe the distance that grease travels when this person cranks up the heat on the stove top and sends airborne grease all over the kitchen. Unbelievable! This person cooks meat on the stove top.

Oddly enough, this person also seems to feel that meat, such as hamburger, does not have enough grease on its own. The first step to frying any meat on the stove top is to grease the pan and crank the heat all the way up, or almost all the way up.

I think you can see the problem. A cast iron pan at high temperature sends hugh amounts of grease airborne. This grease forms microdroplets which can easily travel upwards and away from the stove 10 or more feet. It's amazing, really.

The person who always cooks using a faster-is-better methodology started out in life very poor. People who have had a hard time growing up sometimes see life as something to be endured. This person definitely sees cooking this way. Cooking brings her little joy. She gets it over with just as quickly as she possibly can.

Tolerating relatives, especially elderly relatives, is something I regularly do. Sometimes it's easier to tolerate something than it is to try to change it.

Since I'm also tolerating all the grease spatter, baking soda makes it much easier to deal with. Thank you baking soda!

Ed Abbott