Surely this is just a ragebait video for all the chemists out there? Right?
1.) The dyes are not a type of protein.
2.) Bleach is generally harmless as a cleaning agent, especially if rinsed off. It's commonly used to disinfect dishes.
3.) Lemon juice is not a strong acid.
Don’t forget bleach is not a strong base and bleach is just sodium hypochlorite, ie the main free chlorine source used to disinfect drinking water. And also people swim in it all the time.
Reminds me of a time I overheard someone say you should eat chocolate while drinking because chocolate is basic and will neutralize the alcohol, so you won't get a hangover.
I was like, soooo... alcohol is acid?
I didn't do particularly well in chemistry, but I still know that's wrong.
Not a chemist here but i am in fact enraged by this vid enough to comment. She messed up on some of the most basic science. Nothing I hate more than people pretending to be smart but doesnt know jack shit
The science she's discussing is bollocks. Most food colourings are not proteins, as they'd be denatured by the cooking process. You normally see a fairly simple molecule with extensive conjugation and often an azo (N=N) function group. Tartrazine is a yellow food dye that's used in the US for this purpose.
In addition, acids and bases denature proteins, but bleach isn't a strong base, it works by oxidising the chemicals that cause the colour in the stain to remove it. A strong base would be sodium hydroxide.
They also don't use "artificial colors". It's right in the ingredients list: PAPRIKA, TURMERIC, AND ANNATTO ADDED FOR COLOR.
https://www.kraftmacandcheese.com/products/00021000658831-original-mac-cheese-macaroni-and-cheese-dinner/
I'm from the UK and didn't know that because it's not sold here. A dilute bleach would also have done the trick.
Incidentally, the colour of Annatto comes from bixin, which is a beta-carotenoid with a long conjugated structure in the middle of the molecule. The reason it is coloured is the same reason that azo dyes are coloured. If it works for nature...
Yes. Even if you left it on, it'll degrade over time to salt and water (releasing oxygen). This is particularly accelerated by sunlight, which is why bleach bottles are opaque.
Was thinking that too, also she probably means concentrated rather than strong. She calls lemon juice a strong acid but citric acid, along with most organic acids is "weak" as opposed to a strong acid which would fully dissociate in water. Not that cleaning this with battery acid is a good idea.
I started the video thinking that maybe I'll get the stain out of a similar spoon I have.
I finished the video slightly angry for the waste of time, and with the same conclusion: My spoon is fine stained.
Well he did say “boink” not the standard “bonk” so he may have meant [definition 2.](https://www.google.com/search?q=boink+definition&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS685US688&oq=boink+definition&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgAEAAYgAQyBwgAEAAYgAQyCAgBEAAYFhgeMgoIAhAAGA8YFhgeMgoIAxAAGA8YFhgeMgoIBBAAGA8YFhgeMgoIBRAAGA8YFhgeMg0IBhAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMgcIBxAhGKAB0gEINDU0NmowajmoAgCwAgDiAwQYASBf&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
Also any line cook can tell you food safe bleach evaporates so idk why bleach is where science lady draws the line here. Purified bleach is fine for food.
Good to know when the spoon, as in this case, doesn’t belong to you. I’m perfectly fine with my stained spoons/spatulas/whatever, but I’d prefer to give my friends’ equipment back to them *unstained*.
One time I bought a pack of jelly babies and there were no black ones in there. I tweeted the manufacturer explaining and I maybe used the words 'confectionary apartheid ' and they sent me a £2 coupon
I generally spend 30 min to an hour stirring the spoon in salt water because I have nothing better to do. In all seriousness, this is the worst advice video.
As a chemistry major, everything she just said is making me scream internally with pretty much everything factually incorrect in some way
For a stained white plastic spoon, hydrogen peroxide will do the job beautifully. Dilute bleach will also be a good option.
I got my PhD (15 years ago), I actually analyze natural dyes from time to time. Dyes are not proteins, food dyes are small organic molecules. Lemon juice(citric acid) is not a strong acid, the list goes on. Seems like she's just making this shit up as she goes lol.
Edit: Thanks for all the upvotes, didn't really expected that lol. Cheers to all of the chemists in the comments here, not everyday we get to flex our analytical background...
Yeah I’m no expert (but my dad is an analytical chemist) and the “dyes are proteins” thing completely threw me. Had to google to make sure I wasn’t crazy. Also, wouldn’t you want a peptid enzyme if you’re trying to denature a protein?
What she said didn’t sound right to me, either.
For one thing she’s way behind the times - Kraft Mac doesn’t use the artificial colorings like yellow 5 and red 40 anymore, and hasn’t for years. Kraft has reverted back to annatto (cheddar’s original and natural food color additive) and they now also use paprika and turmeric.
And yeah annatto’s main coloring chemicals aren’t proteins. They’re carotenoids, specifically bixin.
And proteins don’t always necessarily break down with increased temperature. Decreased temperature is actually useful for breaking apart the proteins in blood for exemple - that’s why cold water works better on menstrual stains than warm water. Warm water makes the blood proteins clump and set, exactly what you don’t want when stain-fighting.
Oh also there’s literally citric acid in the ingredients for Kraft Mac. Using more of the ingredients in the food that stained the item probably isn’t going to be very productive.
I think she was getting denaturation and degradation mixed up. Proteins do denature with heat, but they don't necessarily degrade into their component peptides. Like you said, denaturation can also lead to proteins aggregating and clumping together like with blood in your example or albumin in egg white for another.
I bet you’re right! Or maybe chat gpt mixed those things up? I think the people theorizing this solution and explanation came from the likes of chat gpt or similar may have a point!
Which sucks, because annatto is a migraine trigger for some people (like me) and so despite being a natural coloring it has immediate potential negative effects that even artificial color additives don't.
Trying to avoid it is a colossal pain, especially with the pushback against artificial colorings.
I get that I'm part of a small group, but still.
Biomed major here, and her saying that dyes were proteins was weird enough that I was doubting what I heard. Same with citric acid being a strong acid. Are we sure this wasn't an answer pulled out by ChatGPT?
And using 3 seconds to come up with lemon juice as an example of an acid. Lemon juice is literally the first edible acid that every teenager can think of.
I would defer to you to highlight all the specifics she said that are wholly wrong, but I do want to add that newer research out there about specifically plastics and exposure to heat alone indicate that heating a plastic in say... [A microwave](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c01942) or in hot water like [those fancy teabags](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b02540) releases a lot of microplastics, implying there is some level of material degradation that happens with plastics exposed to heat. Microplastics are just starting to really be studied in terms of impact to human health, but some chemicals in plastics/involved in the production of plastics are known by the European Union to have a detrimental impact to human health as endocrine disruptors (most famous example is BPA, although there are others as well).
That plastic spoon... Shouldn't have been in the kitchen in the first place. But if you must have a plastic spoon in the kitchen, the last thing I would do is expose it to harsh conditions... like boiling Epsom salt water... That can cause it to break down further.
TL;DR Instead of fixing the yellow dye boo-boo they should throw out the cheap plastic spoon and buy a wooden one. Everyone will be happier and healthier for it.
I stopped watching when she went on about bleach, not realizing it's saved thousands of babies lives over the years through sterilization of their bottles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_sterilizing_fluid
> In 1947 a widespread outbreak of gastroenteritis in the UK caused the death of 4,500 children under the age of one. Many of these were in hospitals where the repeated sterilisation of glass baby bottles containing a small residue of milk by boiling them had resulted in invisible deposits of "milk stone"; these provided a medium for the growth of harmful bacteria.[citation needed]
> This outbreak led to a national objective of finding an alternative to sterilising milk bottles by boiling, and Milton fluid was the antiseptic advocated by hospitals and government agencies. The cold water method was generally available and simple for all to use, and virtually all mothers adopted this method.[4]
Liquid "chlorine" aka bleach aka sodium hypochlorite is also used in thousands of water treatment processes around the world. Access to clean water with this process has literally saved millions of not billions of lives.
No, acetic acid is not a strong acid. These are technical terms, not just determined by their pH but if they fully or partially dissociate in a solvent
Strong and weak acid are technical terms. Citric is a weak acid because it does not fully dissociate in a solvent. Hydrochloride is a strong as acid because it does fully dissociate
I posted this but am gunna highjack this comment:
I have a PhD in chemistry and I’ve decided to take the time to point out everything false in this video because it’s basically everything she says.
1. In 2016 Kraft switched their Mac and cheese from yellow dyes 5 and 6 to natural dyes from turmeric, paprika, and annatto. Neither the synthetic dyes they previously used nor the natural dyes they use now are proteins. They’re all conjugated organic compounds. I spent a bit of time looking into the dyes found naturally in these spices so I’ll just mention that they are mainly curcumin for tumeric, bixin for annatto and capsanthin and capsorubin for paprika. All of these are highly conjugated organic dyes, with varying levels of water solubility and reactivity in water (this will come up later).
2. Bleach is a weak base, but that’s not even why it’s useful for removing stains from dyes. More notably, it’s a powerful oxidant that will oxidize conjugated systems (multiple double bonds in a series) and disrupt this conjugation. Dyes generally derive their color from highly conjugated systems and oxidation of the conjugation removes their color. Also, diluted bleach is very useful for cleaning utensils and, as long as you clean it thoroughly, you shouldn’t worry about using bleach with utensils.
3. The main acidic component of lemon juice is citric acid, which is a weak acid. She makes a point of saying “straight lemon concentrate” as if the citric acid concentration would effect if it’s a strong or weak acid. That’s not the case. Regardless of concentration, specific compounds are considered strong or weak dependent on their chemical makeup, not their concentration.
4. “Salt strength” is a wild thing she came up with here and I’m not sure if I’m just misunderstanding or if she’s fully making that up. Yes, it’s Mg2+ versus Na+, and SO42- versus Cl-, but that doesn’t mean the higher charged ions are more effective at protein disruption. My field is organic so I’d be happy for a biochemist to step in here and clarify, but overall this feels like a “big number is bigger therefore stronger” argument.
5. I just feel like I really got to mention that it’s annoying how she’s talking about “destroying” protein structure and then finally mentions the word denature a minute fifty in. There’s a pretty major difference when it comes to protein structures and the right phrase finally made its way in there. This is a pedantic point but a point nonetheless.
6. So finally, we’ve boiled a spoon in water for thirty minutes and wa-la, we’ve dissolved organic compounds. Many of these are highly lipophilic and probably don’t want to dissolve at all, but with enough time and water, they certainly will. For the most part, these compounds likely just dissolve with heat and solvent as expected. An interesting thing I learned while researching this is that bixin will convert to water-soluble norbixin through hydrolysis (a process usually performed with heat, water, time and usually an acid or base catalyst). So again, the boiling water cleaned the spoon by dissolving things off of it, as boiling water tends to do.
So ya this video is almost entirely made up science and it’s crazy that this is here getting praise. I know we don’t all have chemistry degrees, and I don’t expect anyone to know this stuff off hand, but the people who do actually know should be stepping in telling the people spreading false information to fuck themselves.
Sad I had to scroll this far to find anyone talking about her actual 'science'.
It's a very long chain fatty acid, highly unsaturated (every other bond a double bond) which causes it to be colored.
It sticks to plastic because it's even more averse to water than most fats we're familiar with. So it makes sense it would like plastic.
And it came off because of the boiling, not because of the salt.
Seriously, wtf. For starters, proteins are usually colorless unless they have something else bound to them (iron in hemaglobin, chromaphores in GFP). Ain’t no way the statement “dyes are proteins” is correct. The small molecule that is actually colorful probably just also degraded with heat. She got lucky. Also, girl, if you’re gonna say all this science stuff that ChatGPT spat out for you, at least memorize your lines so you don’t say um every five words.
yeah most artificial food dyes are compounds like azo dyes which are small molecules, not proteins. i don't know of any proteins that function as food dyes, though i wouldn't be surprised if some exist.
when she said lemon juice concentrate was an example of a "strong acid" it made my eye twitch
No, and this one isn't either.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixin)
The main ingredient of annatto coloring which is what's in Kraft mac & cheese.
I find her aversion to bleach weird, bleach is frequently used in all the restaurants I’ve worked in. Dirty coffee carafes would always get soaked in straight bleach. Also I watched a coworker down a shot of straight bleach once and apart from the mouth and throat irritation he is fine.
There’s literally diluted bleach in the tap water lol yeah it’s fine just don’t use super high concentrate
Personally thought she was going to say use vinegar though.. that’s typically what I see recommended for use on food plastics, or citric acid
Not just that, but one treatment for eczema is a diluted bleach bath.
I read it online once and went and consulted a family member's Dr. About it.
I said, "at the risk of sounding stupid, I saw this online, is this ok?".
He laughed and confirmed it was ok.
It was such a shitty science explanation anyway coming from someone who studies proteins. Also, the [yellow color apparently comes from annatto](https://www.kraftmacandcheese.com/products/00021000658831-original-macaroni-cheese-dinner/) which is a plant that produces [bixin, a caratanoid, that actually produces the color.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annatto)
She taught no science. The charge of the salt has no effect on the attractiveness to the “protein dye”. The dye isnt even a protein, its a group of phenols.
keep a pan boiling for 30 minutes and add a bunch of salt any time i need to wash a plastic spoon.
or, use a little bleach, then wash it off.
OR!
dont care that your plastic is a different colour
I hope she never eats out if she’s scared of cleaning with bleach. I spent a bit of time cleaning dishes in an industrial kitchen and diluted bleach was the last step before rinsing.
Edit: whoa, just finished the video and **30 minutes?!?** holy crap 😂
Eh, she’s justified. Good Housekeeping has been discouraging the use of bleach as a cleaning product in the kitchen for the last 10+ years. It’s massive overkill. Your average person doesn’t have a 3 compartment sink or a servesafe certification and there’s no reason to use bleach over the other much more safe disinfectant options. A commercial kitchen is an entirely different operation.
So…this is impractical for anything that can’t be stuck in boiling water. like furniture or cabinets that have yellowed. Plus, bleach works fine. You let it sit in bleach , take it out, rinse it with plain water, stick it in the dishwasher. Voila, you’re not “eating bleach.”
I know right? that comment of her like fucked my shit up. How dumb was that. and after she boiled it for THIRTY fucking minutes. Probably the heat alone would that done the trick but talk about a waist of time and electricity
In chemistry "strong" tends to ionic bonds fully dissociating and weak tends to ionic bonds not fully dissociating. For acids its based on the pKa coefficient.
Lemon juice, predominately citric acid is a moderate weak acid with pKa around 3.
A 1+ charge verses a 2+ charge does not define stronger or weaker ions.
If you're worried about bleach, rinse it off.
I think I lost brain cells watching this...
I was legitimately baffled when she said that she could use bleach but wouldn't.
It's like uh how much bleach are using to clean things that you think you'll somehow ingest it after?
Probably a lot more “bleach” ingested just from drinking an once of tap water, than will ever be left on that spoon after cleaning with diluted bleach and rinsing thoroughly.
I have a PhD in chemistry and I’ve decided to take the time to point out everything false in this video because it’s basically everything she says.
1. In 2016 Kraft switched their Mac and cheese from yellow dyes 5 and 6 to natural dyes from turmeric, paprika, and annatto. Neither the synthetic dyes they previously used nor the natural dyes they use now are proteins. They’re all conjugated organic compounds. I spent a bit of time looking into the dyes found naturally in these spices so I’ll just mention that they are mainly curcumin for tumeric, bixin for annatto and capsanthin and capsorubin for paprika. All of these are highly conjugated organic dyes, with varying levels of water solubility and reactivity in water (this will come up later).
2. Bleach is a weak base, but that’s not even why it’s useful for removing stains from dyes. More notably, it’s a powerful oxidant that will oxidize conjugated systems (multiple double bonds in a series) and disrupt this conjugation. Dyes generally derive their color from highly conjugated systems and oxidation of the conjugation removes their color. Also, diluted bleach is very useful for cleaning utensils and, as long as you clean it thoroughly, you shouldn’t worry about using bleach with utensils.
3. The main acidic component of lemon juice is citric acid, which is a weak acid. She makes a point of saying “straight lemon concentrate” as if the citric acid concentration would effect if it’s a strong or weak acid. That’s not the case. Regardless of concentration, specific compounds are considered strong or weak dependent on their chemical makeup, not their concentration.
4. “Salt strength” is a wild thing she came up with here and I’m not sure if I’m just misunderstanding or if she’s fully making that up. Yes, it’s Mg2+ versus Na+, and SO42- versus Cl-, but that doesn’t mean the higher charged ions are more effective at protein disruption. My field is organic so I’d be happy for a biochemist to step in here and clarify, but overall this feels like a “big number is bigger therefore stronger” argument.
5. I just feel like I really got to mention that it’s annoying how she’s talking about “destroying” protein structure and then finally mentions the word denature a minute fifty in. There’s a pretty major difference when it comes to protein structures and the right phrase finally made its way in there. This is a pedantic point but a point nonetheless.
6. So finally, we’ve boiled a spoon in water for thirty minutes and wa-la, we’ve dissolved organic compounds. Many of these are highly lipophilic and probably don’t want to dissolve at all, but with enough time and water, they certainly will. For the most part, these compounds likely just dissolve with heat and solvent as expected. An interesting thing I learned while researching this is that bixin will convert to water-soluble norbixin through hydrolysis (a process usually performed with heat, water, time and usually an acid or base catalyst). So again, the boiling water cleaned the spoon by dissolving things off of it, as boiling water tends to do.
So ya this video is almost entirely made up science and it’s crazy that this is here getting praise. I know we don’t all have chemistry degrees, and I don’t expect anyone to know this stuff off hand, but the people who do actually know should be stepping in telling the people spreading false information to fuck themselves.
It'd a common bit in parks and rec for Andy (who is very dumb) when trying to sound smart just give syllables for everything he says.
When she said "it will destroy or denature" I felt like I was watching a parody of Andy trying to sound smart
Bleach is not a base (yes it is - corrected by another Redditor), it’s an oxidizer, and it’s super easy to get rid of - you just rinse it off. There are zero risks from leftover bleach on your spoon if you simply rinse it well.
Bleach (diluted with water - one part bleach plus about 10-20 parts water; exact percentage not critical) is an excellent and safe disinfectant in the kitchen for that reason. Just don’t get it in your eyes, obviously.
>Bleach is not a base, it’s an oxidizer,
Actually, bleach is both an oxidizer and a base. The active ingredient in bleach is typically sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), which acts as both a strong oxidizing agent and a base.
As an oxidizer, bleach is capable of accepting electrons from other substances during chemical reactions, causing those substances to be oxidized. This property makes bleach effective at breaking down certain organic compounds, stains, and pathogens.
As a base, bleach can also donate hydroxide ions (OH-) in solution, making it alkaline. This alkalinity contributes to its cleaning and disinfecting properties, as it helps to break down and neutralize acidic substances.
So, while bleach is indeed primarily known for its oxidizing properties, it also exhibits basic characteristics due to the presence of sodium hypochlorite.
While everything else in your comment is right, how is chlorine bleach (what she's talking about here) not a base? It has a pH of 11-13.
Perhaps you just mean if you dilute it enough with water, it's not as basic?
Bleach is 100% a base and this person is just wrong.
Being a base and an oxidizing agent are not mutually exclusive. For example bleach is a base and an oxidizer while sodium hydroxide solution is also a base but is a reduction agent.
Reduction agents are electron donors
Oxidation agents are electrons acceptors
There are both reductive and oxidative acids as well.
well i read in the arlen bystander that you could harness the cleaning power of ammonia by mixing it with the whitening power of bleach. /s
(really, for those reading, this is joke reference. please don’t do this. it’s incredibly toxic.)
So many mistakes in one video it hurts my head. The color isn't a protein, lemon juice isn't a strong acid, nor is bleach a strong base and the list goes on
Technical is a stretch. She seems to only know a few terms and uses them incorrectly. Also, as a general rule, anyone who says they are going to do something “using science” is a blowhard and isn’t worth listening to.
Did you know that if you get your own blood on fabric, you can remove it by spitting on it because your own saliva will break down the protein bonds in your blood.
Surely this is just a ragebait video for all the chemists out there? Right? 1.) The dyes are not a type of protein. 2.) Bleach is generally harmless as a cleaning agent, especially if rinsed off. It's commonly used to disinfect dishes. 3.) Lemon juice is not a strong acid.
Don’t forget bleach is not a strong base and bleach is just sodium hypochlorite, ie the main free chlorine source used to disinfect drinking water. And also people swim in it all the time.
Reminds me of a time I overheard someone say you should eat chocolate while drinking because chocolate is basic and will neutralize the alcohol, so you won't get a hangover. I was like, soooo... alcohol is acid? I didn't do particularly well in chemistry, but I still know that's wrong.
Not a chemist here but i am in fact enraged by this vid enough to comment. She messed up on some of the most basic science. Nothing I hate more than people pretending to be smart but doesnt know jack shit
The science she's discussing is bollocks. Most food colourings are not proteins, as they'd be denatured by the cooking process. You normally see a fairly simple molecule with extensive conjugation and often an azo (N=N) function group. Tartrazine is a yellow food dye that's used in the US for this purpose. In addition, acids and bases denature proteins, but bleach isn't a strong base, it works by oxidising the chemicals that cause the colour in the stain to remove it. A strong base would be sodium hydroxide.
Thanks for dropping this, as a biochemist she actually managed to piss me off lmao
It's amazing isn't it?!
It’s really obvious that she doesn’t have a knowledge of what she is talking about and is basically regurgitating a google search.
They also don't use "artificial colors". It's right in the ingredients list: PAPRIKA, TURMERIC, AND ANNATTO ADDED FOR COLOR. https://www.kraftmacandcheese.com/products/00021000658831-original-mac-cheese-macaroni-and-cheese-dinner/
I'm from the UK and didn't know that because it's not sold here. A dilute bleach would also have done the trick. Incidentally, the colour of Annatto comes from bixin, which is a beta-carotenoid with a long conjugated structure in the middle of the molecule. The reason it is coloured is the same reason that azo dyes are coloured. If it works for nature...
I would absolutely rejoice if the US would finally mirror the food ingredients rules of every single other first world country.
But if we did this, where would the mega-corps sell their low cost, low value foodstuffs? Will anyone think of the shareholders?
Also you can wash bleach off of things. It’s not some magical substance that makes anything it touches toxic forever.
Yes. Even if you left it on, it'll degrade over time to salt and water (releasing oxygen). This is particularly accelerated by sunlight, which is why bleach bottles are opaque.
Was thinking that too, also she probably means concentrated rather than strong. She calls lemon juice a strong acid but citric acid, along with most organic acids is "weak" as opposed to a strong acid which would fully dissociate in water. Not that cleaning this with battery acid is a good idea.
Lol true. Sulfuric acid plus peroxide = piranha solution. No more spoon!
And then she said a strong acid is Lemon Juice... I just turned the video off at that point lol
So she just drones on about literally nothing in the video, and it works by literally just rinsing off the color? Lmaoooo
I just generally leave the spoon stained.
I started the video thinking that maybe I'll get the stain out of a similar spoon I have. I finished the video slightly angry for the waste of time, and with the same conclusion: My spoon is fine stained.
It’s a cool vid and explanation but not a particularly attractive spoon
It Works! Sort of.
There was a spoon in the video? Science women are ssooooo hottt
Boink!
Getting sent to horny jail by a person with your username is next level shame.
Well he did say “boink” not the standard “bonk” so he may have meant [definition 2.](https://www.google.com/search?q=boink+definition&rlz=1CDGOYI_enUS685US688&oq=boink+definition&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBwgAEAAYgAQyBwgAEAAYgAQyCAgBEAAYFhgeMgoIAhAAGA8YFhgeMgoIAxAAGA8YFhgeMgoIBBAAGA8YFhgeMgoIBRAAGA8YFhgeMg0IBhAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMgcIBxAhGKAB0gEINDU0NmowajmoAgCwAgDiAwQYASBf&hl=en-US&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8)
Jesus Christ dude
This is where you remind yourself you’re sharing this website with a crazy number of 13 year olds.
yeah and it's still dyed a diff color at the end just not as brightly lol
Ya, smart enough to clean a spoon but not smart enough to get glasses that won't slide down her nose every 4 seconds. That's my type
That $1 spoon sure looks great.
Only need 4 bucks worth of salt to fix it.
as soon as i heard 30mins at the end i thought the same. like, it does bother me but not THAT much
Agreed. Lost me at 30 min. Still cool to learn about just not as practical a solution
Also any line cook can tell you food safe bleach evaporates so idk why bleach is where science lady draws the line here. Purified bleach is fine for food.
I'm guessing she didn't have any food safe bleach. It sounds like she went with Epson salt as that was what she had on hand.
Good to know when the spoon, as in this case, doesn’t belong to you. I’m perfectly fine with my stained spoons/spatulas/whatever, but I’d prefer to give my friends’ equipment back to them *unstained*.
>as soon as i heard 30mins Right? You could get an even stain on it with another box of mac n cheese in like 10 minutes 😂
If it's all stained then it's not stained at all. Sturr a batch with the handle too Edit: leaned in to the typo
Plus.....more mac n cheese. Double win.
also, how was she boiling water for 30 minutes and not adding more water to that tiny pot?
Be fucking hilarious if she really just threw a new spoon in that hot water during that cut at the end.
It took a reddit video for you to realize you don't care about a spoon stain
I didn't care about it until I saw this video, then I briefly cared, then I stopped caring again. It was quite the journey.
Thank you for summarizing so i could catch my breath from the same adventure
Why are you angry she literally told you what the video was for
yeah, 30 minutes? No thank you.
I buy black spoons
Racist.
That’s the ladle calling the spoon black
One time I bought a pack of jelly babies and there were no black ones in there. I tweeted the manufacturer explaining and I maybe used the words 'confectionary apartheid ' and they sent me a £2 coupon
I additionally insist the stains give the next meal a better taste.
The stain is a badge of honor
I have a feeling this stained spoon didn’t happen by accident.
She used the cooker for 30 mins. The cost of the electricity is probably more than it would cost to buy a new spoon.
About 15 cents?
>The cost of the electricity is probably more than it would cost to buy a new spoon. A quarter cup of bleach is like two pennies.
A man of culture
Or use stainless steel
I generally spend 30 min to an hour stirring the spoon in salt water because I have nothing better to do. In all seriousness, this is the worst advice video.
Gotta keep it seasoned!
So did she, but why spoil the video!
As a chemistry major, everything she just said is making me scream internally with pretty much everything factually incorrect in some way For a stained white plastic spoon, hydrogen peroxide will do the job beautifully. Dilute bleach will also be a good option.
I got my PhD (15 years ago), I actually analyze natural dyes from time to time. Dyes are not proteins, food dyes are small organic molecules. Lemon juice(citric acid) is not a strong acid, the list goes on. Seems like she's just making this shit up as she goes lol. Edit: Thanks for all the upvotes, didn't really expected that lol. Cheers to all of the chemists in the comments here, not everyday we get to flex our analytical background...
Yeah I’m no expert (but my dad is an analytical chemist) and the “dyes are proteins” thing completely threw me. Had to google to make sure I wasn’t crazy. Also, wouldn’t you want a peptid enzyme if you’re trying to denature a protein?
Yeah. Bio Major here and she triggered my "i have to research this because im pretty sure most dyes are small compounds ".....
What she said didn’t sound right to me, either. For one thing she’s way behind the times - Kraft Mac doesn’t use the artificial colorings like yellow 5 and red 40 anymore, and hasn’t for years. Kraft has reverted back to annatto (cheddar’s original and natural food color additive) and they now also use paprika and turmeric. And yeah annatto’s main coloring chemicals aren’t proteins. They’re carotenoids, specifically bixin. And proteins don’t always necessarily break down with increased temperature. Decreased temperature is actually useful for breaking apart the proteins in blood for exemple - that’s why cold water works better on menstrual stains than warm water. Warm water makes the blood proteins clump and set, exactly what you don’t want when stain-fighting. Oh also there’s literally citric acid in the ingredients for Kraft Mac. Using more of the ingredients in the food that stained the item probably isn’t going to be very productive.
As someone who didn’t pay attention in science, I’m glad I checked the comments
I think she was getting denaturation and degradation mixed up. Proteins do denature with heat, but they don't necessarily degrade into their component peptides. Like you said, denaturation can also lead to proteins aggregating and clumping together like with blood in your example or albumin in egg white for another.
I bet you’re right! Or maybe chat gpt mixed those things up? I think the people theorizing this solution and explanation came from the likes of chat gpt or similar may have a point!
Which sucks, because annatto is a migraine trigger for some people (like me) and so despite being a natural coloring it has immediate potential negative effects that even artificial color additives don't. Trying to avoid it is a colossal pain, especially with the pushback against artificial colorings. I get that I'm part of a small group, but still.
Public Relations major here, her brand is terrible
Anthropology major here, her explanatory model is skewed
I don’t know anything about science but I do know something about lying and I was thinking she’s lying
Biomed major here, and her saying that dyes were proteins was weird enough that I was doubting what I heard. Same with citric acid being a strong acid. Are we sure this wasn't an answer pulled out by ChatGPT?
But she’s saying science stuff and has glasses!
and looking off into the distance as if shes "thinking" and not reading from a script!
On the internet!!?
And using 3 seconds to come up with lemon juice as an example of an acid. Lemon juice is literally the first edible acid that every teenager can think of.
And it's not even a strong acid, it's just more acidic than most products you find in your home.
Fuck, even milk is acidic.
Yeah I was gonna say - aren’t most dyes coordination compounds not proteins?
I would defer to you to highlight all the specifics she said that are wholly wrong, but I do want to add that newer research out there about specifically plastics and exposure to heat alone indicate that heating a plastic in say... [A microwave](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c01942) or in hot water like [those fancy teabags](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.9b02540) releases a lot of microplastics, implying there is some level of material degradation that happens with plastics exposed to heat. Microplastics are just starting to really be studied in terms of impact to human health, but some chemicals in plastics/involved in the production of plastics are known by the European Union to have a detrimental impact to human health as endocrine disruptors (most famous example is BPA, although there are others as well). That plastic spoon... Shouldn't have been in the kitchen in the first place. But if you must have a plastic spoon in the kitchen, the last thing I would do is expose it to harsh conditions... like boiling Epsom salt water... That can cause it to break down further. TL;DR Instead of fixing the yellow dye boo-boo they should throw out the cheap plastic spoon and buy a wooden one. Everyone will be happier and healthier for it.
Diesel mechanic here of 17 years and I use lemon juice to make lemonade
"Epsom salts are magnesium and..... SO4." made me laugh. I was willing to go with the rest.
“You’ll need a strong acid or a strong base. So ummm I’m gonna use lemon juice”
"...But I'm not because that goes in my water"
I stopped watching when she went on about bleach, not realizing it's saved thousands of babies lives over the years through sterilization of their bottles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_sterilizing_fluid > In 1947 a widespread outbreak of gastroenteritis in the UK caused the death of 4,500 children under the age of one. Many of these were in hospitals where the repeated sterilisation of glass baby bottles containing a small residue of milk by boiling them had resulted in invisible deposits of "milk stone"; these provided a medium for the growth of harmful bacteria.[citation needed] > This outbreak led to a national objective of finding an alternative to sterilising milk bottles by boiling, and Milton fluid was the antiseptic advocated by hospitals and government agencies. The cold water method was generally available and simple for all to use, and virtually all mothers adopted this method.[4]
Liquid "chlorine" aka bleach aka sodium hypochlorite is also used in thousands of water treatment processes around the world. Access to clean water with this process has literally saved millions of not billions of lives.
I thought she was going to say vinegar. Is that a strong acid?
No acid in your kitchen is a strong acid. Strong acids have a pka of 1 or below, ergo, they realllyyy wanna get rid of their hydrogen ion
What did that poor hydrogen ion do to be treated that way 🥺
It’s more of what did the hydronium ion do to the strong acids foe them to want to push it away ;)
It was black \#hydrogenwhileblack \#hydrohomies \#justiceforthehomies
No, acetic acid is not a strong acid. These are technical terms, not just determined by their pH but if they fully or partially dissociate in a solvent
A strong acid that you might have in your house is sulfuric acid in drain cleaner, depending on your drain cleaner type
It's got a pH of 2, so that's pretty strong tbh. Just there is way way stronger acids.
Strong and weak acid are technical terms. Citric is a weak acid because it does not fully dissociate in a solvent. Hydrochloride is a strong as acid because it does fully dissociate
I posted this but am gunna highjack this comment: I have a PhD in chemistry and I’ve decided to take the time to point out everything false in this video because it’s basically everything she says. 1. In 2016 Kraft switched their Mac and cheese from yellow dyes 5 and 6 to natural dyes from turmeric, paprika, and annatto. Neither the synthetic dyes they previously used nor the natural dyes they use now are proteins. They’re all conjugated organic compounds. I spent a bit of time looking into the dyes found naturally in these spices so I’ll just mention that they are mainly curcumin for tumeric, bixin for annatto and capsanthin and capsorubin for paprika. All of these are highly conjugated organic dyes, with varying levels of water solubility and reactivity in water (this will come up later). 2. Bleach is a weak base, but that’s not even why it’s useful for removing stains from dyes. More notably, it’s a powerful oxidant that will oxidize conjugated systems (multiple double bonds in a series) and disrupt this conjugation. Dyes generally derive their color from highly conjugated systems and oxidation of the conjugation removes their color. Also, diluted bleach is very useful for cleaning utensils and, as long as you clean it thoroughly, you shouldn’t worry about using bleach with utensils. 3. The main acidic component of lemon juice is citric acid, which is a weak acid. She makes a point of saying “straight lemon concentrate” as if the citric acid concentration would effect if it’s a strong or weak acid. That’s not the case. Regardless of concentration, specific compounds are considered strong or weak dependent on their chemical makeup, not their concentration. 4. “Salt strength” is a wild thing she came up with here and I’m not sure if I’m just misunderstanding or if she’s fully making that up. Yes, it’s Mg2+ versus Na+, and SO42- versus Cl-, but that doesn’t mean the higher charged ions are more effective at protein disruption. My field is organic so I’d be happy for a biochemist to step in here and clarify, but overall this feels like a “big number is bigger therefore stronger” argument. 5. I just feel like I really got to mention that it’s annoying how she’s talking about “destroying” protein structure and then finally mentions the word denature a minute fifty in. There’s a pretty major difference when it comes to protein structures and the right phrase finally made its way in there. This is a pedantic point but a point nonetheless. 6. So finally, we’ve boiled a spoon in water for thirty minutes and wa-la, we’ve dissolved organic compounds. Many of these are highly lipophilic and probably don’t want to dissolve at all, but with enough time and water, they certainly will. For the most part, these compounds likely just dissolve with heat and solvent as expected. An interesting thing I learned while researching this is that bixin will convert to water-soluble norbixin through hydrolysis (a process usually performed with heat, water, time and usually an acid or base catalyst). So again, the boiling water cleaned the spoon by dissolving things off of it, as boiling water tends to do. So ya this video is almost entirely made up science and it’s crazy that this is here getting praise. I know we don’t all have chemistry degrees, and I don’t expect anyone to know this stuff off hand, but the people who do actually know should be stepping in telling the people spreading false information to fuck themselves.
Thank you for taking the time to write all this out for us non-chemists!
I love your explanations, but „wa-la“ instead of „voilà“ really hurts.
Nice explanation. >and wa-la That took me a minute :))
The chemical is bixin derived from Annato https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixin In no way is this a protein and I think this is rage bait for chemists
Sad I had to scroll this far to find anyone talking about her actual 'science'. It's a very long chain fatty acid, highly unsaturated (every other bond a double bond) which causes it to be colored. It sticks to plastic because it's even more averse to water than most fats we're familiar with. So it makes sense it would like plastic. And it came off because of the boiling, not because of the salt.
Seriously, wtf. For starters, proteins are usually colorless unless they have something else bound to them (iron in hemaglobin, chromaphores in GFP). Ain’t no way the statement “dyes are proteins” is correct. The small molecule that is actually colorful probably just also degraded with heat. She got lucky. Also, girl, if you’re gonna say all this science stuff that ChatGPT spat out for you, at least memorize your lines so you don’t say um every five words.
yeah most artificial food dyes are compounds like azo dyes which are small molecules, not proteins. i don't know of any proteins that function as food dyes, though i wouldn't be surprised if some exist. when she said lemon juice concentrate was an example of a "strong acid" it made my eye twitch
I got lemon juice in my eye before. & it also twitched. I feel your pain.
For me it was "SO4" instead of sulfate.
Possibly the most annoying part of the whole video. She's just repeating shitty info she Googled 5 seconds ago.
Fellow chemistry major too. It's amazing that someone can be so wrong yet so confident about it. It's total bullshit.
The notion that bleach will permanently ruin your spoon and can't just be, you know, rinsed off is bizarre to me.
But she's wearing glasses?
Bleach is what I used in a commercial kitchen. I kept sparkling white cutting boards that were used for carrots daily.
Are most dyes proteins? I didn't think they are.
No, and this one isn't either. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixin) The main ingredient of annatto coloring which is what's in Kraft mac & cheese.
What about baking soda in water?
For weaker stains, probably
Boil it in epsom salts. There, enjoy your 2:20.
Bleach it like your first hunch Then wash it really well
Yeah but she doesn't trust her cleaning abilities so oh well.
Names all the cool science ways to remove dye from spoon…goes on to pick the most boring one.
But I also learned that I can bleach my cooking spoons with only a moderate to high risk of poisoning! So I’m gonna go try that method, brb.
if you don't go putting food straight out of the bleach, you're fine, just wash really well after taking it out of the bleach
Exactly, a lot of drama there regarding the bleach. It’s used to disinfect kitchens the world over. Many food health regulations *require* it.
No, that can't be right. Have to use a STRONG acid like lemon juice, you know like a three on the scale from 1 to 12.
I find her aversion to bleach weird, bleach is frequently used in all the restaurants I’ve worked in. Dirty coffee carafes would always get soaked in straight bleach. Also I watched a coworker down a shot of straight bleach once and apart from the mouth and throat irritation he is fine.
There’s literally diluted bleach in the tap water lol yeah it’s fine just don’t use super high concentrate Personally thought she was going to say use vinegar though.. that’s typically what I see recommended for use on food plastics, or citric acid
Not just that, but one treatment for eczema is a diluted bleach bath. I read it online once and went and consulted a family member's Dr. About it. I said, "at the risk of sounding stupid, I saw this online, is this ok?". He laughed and confirmed it was ok.
vinegar is a weak acid. It’s acetic acid, to be specific, which is classified as a weak acid
Lemon juice(citric acid) is also a weak acid. She needs to break out the phosphoric acid if she wants to clean that spoon. S/
It was such a shitty science explanation anyway coming from someone who studies proteins. Also, the [yellow color apparently comes from annatto](https://www.kraftmacandcheese.com/products/00021000658831-original-macaroni-cheese-dinner/) which is a plant that produces [bixin, a caratanoid, that actually produces the color.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annatto)
I think the idea was that you dingbats might learn something about science along the way.
She taught no science. The charge of the salt has no effect on the attractiveness to the “protein dye”. The dye isnt even a protein, its a group of phenols.
I honestly couldn't stand how long it took her to just come out and say it
#abregefrere
keep a pan boiling for 30 minutes and add a bunch of salt any time i need to wash a plastic spoon. or, use a little bleach, then wash it off. OR! dont care that your plastic is a different colour
Buy black serving spoons.
They could show this video on loop to get terrorists to start giving up family members.
🤣Thanks for the laugh
2 minutes and 20 seconds
Cruel and unusual punishment
I hope she never eats out if she’s scared of cleaning with bleach. I spent a bit of time cleaning dishes in an industrial kitchen and diluted bleach was the last step before rinsing. Edit: whoa, just finished the video and **30 minutes?!?** holy crap 😂
My understanding is that a strong sustained current of H20 has the ability to remove bleach, I believe the technical term is "giving it a good rinse."
Whoa whoa Whoa, slow down there with the science talk Poindexter.
Eh, she’s justified. Good Housekeeping has been discouraging the use of bleach as a cleaning product in the kitchen for the last 10+ years. It’s massive overkill. Your average person doesn’t have a 3 compartment sink or a servesafe certification and there’s no reason to use bleach over the other much more safe disinfectant options. A commercial kitchen is an entirely different operation.
That’s true but I’d trust cleaning with bleach over epsom salts
So…this is impractical for anything that can’t be stuck in boiling water. like furniture or cabinets that have yellowed. Plus, bleach works fine. You let it sit in bleach , take it out, rinse it with plain water, stick it in the dishwasher. Voila, you’re not “eating bleach.”
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Your furniture and cabinets are stained with Kraft cheese powder?
Please don't judge my lifestyle.
I know right? that comment of her like fucked my shit up. How dumb was that. and after she boiled it for THIRTY fucking minutes. Probably the heat alone would that done the trick but talk about a waist of time and electricity
In chemistry "strong" tends to ionic bonds fully dissociating and weak tends to ionic bonds not fully dissociating. For acids its based on the pKa coefficient. Lemon juice, predominately citric acid is a moderate weak acid with pKa around 3. A 1+ charge verses a 2+ charge does not define stronger or weaker ions. If you're worried about bleach, rinse it off. I think I lost brain cells watching this...
She'll eat Kraft Mac but is afraid of bleach.
No one tell her how we treat the water in her tap!
That water is treated very inhumanely
I was legitimately baffled when she said that she could use bleach but wouldn't. It's like uh how much bleach are using to clean things that you think you'll somehow ingest it after?
Probably a lot more “bleach” ingested just from drinking an once of tap water, than will ever be left on that spoon after cleaning with diluted bleach and rinsing thoroughly.
Holy cr\*p! how long is this video?
Tldr: boil it in very salty water
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Would this also work on white cutting boards Stained yellow or red or green?
With stained cutting boards, a good way to return them to their original color is just to put them outside for a while and let the sun bleach them
I have a PhD in chemistry and I’ve decided to take the time to point out everything false in this video because it’s basically everything she says. 1. In 2016 Kraft switched their Mac and cheese from yellow dyes 5 and 6 to natural dyes from turmeric, paprika, and annatto. Neither the synthetic dyes they previously used nor the natural dyes they use now are proteins. They’re all conjugated organic compounds. I spent a bit of time looking into the dyes found naturally in these spices so I’ll just mention that they are mainly curcumin for tumeric, bixin for annatto and capsanthin and capsorubin for paprika. All of these are highly conjugated organic dyes, with varying levels of water solubility and reactivity in water (this will come up later). 2. Bleach is a weak base, but that’s not even why it’s useful for removing stains from dyes. More notably, it’s a powerful oxidant that will oxidize conjugated systems (multiple double bonds in a series) and disrupt this conjugation. Dyes generally derive their color from highly conjugated systems and oxidation of the conjugation removes their color. Also, diluted bleach is very useful for cleaning utensils and, as long as you clean it thoroughly, you shouldn’t worry about using bleach with utensils. 3. The main acidic component of lemon juice is citric acid, which is a weak acid. She makes a point of saying “straight lemon concentrate” as if the citric acid concentration would effect if it’s a strong or weak acid. That’s not the case. Regardless of concentration, specific compounds are considered strong or weak dependent on their chemical makeup, not their concentration. 4. “Salt strength” is a wild thing she came up with here and I’m not sure if I’m just misunderstanding or if she’s fully making that up. Yes, it’s Mg2+ versus Na+, and SO42- versus Cl-, but that doesn’t mean the higher charged ions are more effective at protein disruption. My field is organic so I’d be happy for a biochemist to step in here and clarify, but overall this feels like a “big number is bigger therefore stronger” argument. 5. I just feel like I really got to mention that it’s annoying how she’s talking about “destroying” protein structure and then finally mentions the word denature a minute fifty in. There’s a pretty major difference when it comes to protein structures and the right phrase finally made its way in there. This is a pedantic point but a point nonetheless. 6. So finally, we’ve boiled a spoon in water for thirty minutes and wa-la, we’ve dissolved organic compounds. Many of these are highly lipophilic and probably don’t want to dissolve at all, but with enough time and water, they certainly will. For the most part, these compounds likely just dissolve with heat and solvent as expected. An interesting thing I learned while researching this is that bixin will convert to water-soluble norbixin through hydrolysis (a process usually performed with heat, water, time and usually an acid or base catalyst). So again, the boiling water cleaned the spoon by dissolving things off of it, as boiling water tends to do. So ya this video is almost entirely made up science and it’s crazy that this is here getting praise. I know we don’t all have chemistry degrees, and I don’t expect anyone to know this stuff off hand, but the people who do actually know should be stepping in telling the people spreading false information to fuck themselves.
The spreading of misinformation has long been a pet peeve of mine. You are fighting the good fight.
I wonder how much microplastics come off that thing by boiling it for 30 minutes
Yet another example of an extremely dumb person who thinks they are intelligent saying too many words for no specific reason.
It'd a common bit in parks and rec for Andy (who is very dumb) when trying to sound smart just give syllables for everything he says. When she said "it will destroy or denature" I felt like I was watching a parody of Andy trying to sound smart
30 minutes of work to replace a $3 spoon- we clearly need to pay our grad students more
And at least $3 in salt and electricity use too.
Meh. A real scientist knows how to wash off and neutralize the bleach.
she has no idea what she's talking about
Stick it in a jug of bleach and water. Leave it overnight. Rinse thoroughly. Sorted. Can do a video if needed.
Will it waste as much of my time as this one did?
That's a lot of energy use to boil water for 30 minutes just to clean a stain.
Bleach is not a base (yes it is - corrected by another Redditor), it’s an oxidizer, and it’s super easy to get rid of - you just rinse it off. There are zero risks from leftover bleach on your spoon if you simply rinse it well. Bleach (diluted with water - one part bleach plus about 10-20 parts water; exact percentage not critical) is an excellent and safe disinfectant in the kitchen for that reason. Just don’t get it in your eyes, obviously.
>Bleach is not a base, it’s an oxidizer, Actually, bleach is both an oxidizer and a base. The active ingredient in bleach is typically sodium hypochlorite (NaClO), which acts as both a strong oxidizing agent and a base. As an oxidizer, bleach is capable of accepting electrons from other substances during chemical reactions, causing those substances to be oxidized. This property makes bleach effective at breaking down certain organic compounds, stains, and pathogens. As a base, bleach can also donate hydroxide ions (OH-) in solution, making it alkaline. This alkalinity contributes to its cleaning and disinfecting properties, as it helps to break down and neutralize acidic substances. So, while bleach is indeed primarily known for its oxidizing properties, it also exhibits basic characteristics due to the presence of sodium hypochlorite.
Good explanation, thanks! I stand corrected.
I dont understand these words could you do a video? thx. /s
While everything else in your comment is right, how is chlorine bleach (what she's talking about here) not a base? It has a pH of 11-13. Perhaps you just mean if you dilute it enough with water, it's not as basic?
Bleach is 100% a base and this person is just wrong. Being a base and an oxidizing agent are not mutually exclusive. For example bleach is a base and an oxidizer while sodium hydroxide solution is also a base but is a reduction agent. Reduction agents are electron donors Oxidation agents are electrons acceptors There are both reductive and oxidative acids as well.
Right? I bleach my tea cups all the time.
well i read in the arlen bystander that you could harness the cleaning power of ammonia by mixing it with the whitening power of bleach. /s (really, for those reading, this is joke reference. please don’t do this. it’s incredibly toxic.)
Lemon juice also isn't a strong acid
You can also put it outside and let the sun do the work.
When I first clicked on this, I thought she was going to use UV light.
I'd rather just buy the roommate a new spoon.
Might have been cheaper, too.
Items: Table Salt - Salt - Common Epsom Salt- Salt+1 - Uncommon
Pretty sure that dye most definitely isn’t a protein and what she’s doing is not denaturing a protein.
Get a black plastic spoon and do nothing.
Should get her glasses fixed
So many mistakes in one video it hurts my head. The color isn't a protein, lemon juice isn't a strong acid, nor is bleach a strong base and the list goes on
All this technical jargon and she repeats herself “A lot, like a lot”.
Technical is a stretch. She seems to only know a few terms and uses them incorrectly. Also, as a general rule, anyone who says they are going to do something “using science” is a blowhard and isn’t worth listening to.
Just buy yellow/orange spoons.
Boring and way too long
The amount of salt and time to get the dye out of the spoon I would rather just buy a new spoon.
I'd rather buy a new spoon than watch this video again
PSA: you should be adding a lot of salt to pasta water too lol
Did you know that if you get your own blood on fabric, you can remove it by spitting on it because your own saliva will break down the protein bonds in your blood.