A COOKING fan has revealed how she got Mac n’ cheese stains out of a wooden spoon.
She explained that an easy science trick came in handy for tough stains.
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Carolyn (@alltheusernamesrtaken1) shared the cleaning hack in a TikTok video.
“Kraft uses artificial dyes to make their mac and cheese look yellow,” she explained.
She explained that the function of the dyes, which were made out of proteins, could be broken down.
“It will lose its function and therefore its color,” she added.
Carolyn rattled off a list of ways to break a protein’s structure, including extreme heat, ions, a strong acid, or a strong base.
She opted out of the strong base option, considering that she only had bleach on hand and she didn’t want to risk tasting bleach.
Strong acids didn’t work either, as she didn’t have enough lemon juice to fully remove the stains.
Carolyn settled on the extreme heat and ions method, comparing the Epsom salt she had on hand to her table salt alternative.
“Epsom salt has magnesium and SO4 and those have a plus 2 charge and a minus 2 charge and the 2 charge is stronger than the 1 charge so it is a stronger salt,” she said.
“Basically what I’m going to do is I’m going to make a pot of boiling water, put some Epsom salt in there, and then just whisk this around in the water.
“Hopefully that’ll destroy or denature the structure of the protein and we will get this dye out of this spoon.”
After 30 minutes of stirring the spoon in the water, she was elated to see that her hack worked.
Carolyn warned viewers to add “a lot” of salt if they wanted to attempt her trick.
People thanked her for the straightforward explanation.
“Please become a teacher,” said one viewer.
“I love that you explained it in a way I actually understood it,” said another.
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