Saponification

[Guest guest]

This may only indirectly be related to gallstones... I have a lot of very

expensive pots and pans. I do all of the cooking (which I love) and the vast

majority of clean up and maintainance (not so fond) of the kitchen. I also,

pardon me, have a household full of girls (no gender slurs intended, just simple

fact) that can't seem to cook anything on any lower heat than " high " . When you

high heat an oil you change the molecular structure which is not healthy on

several accounts. We have discussed in the past how harmfull this is to the

fats and oils that you ingest and their relationship to the formation of

gallstones. There is another factor that just occurred to me a few minutes ago.

When one of the girls cooks herself an egg, and on that proverbial " high " , the

oils in the pan change molecular structure and almost anodize onto my Allclad

pans. Now no one else has the patience to put the elbow grease in to clean my

pan properly so it gets left until I put 10 to 15 minutes of hard elbow grease

with the green Scotchbrite to get it clean. The bile rises to the level of my

eyes and my liver swells to gargantuan proportions, but I have become apathetic

and clean it anyhow 'cuz I am in love with my pans and they must be appealing to

my eyes when I cook.

A few days back a client and I were talking about slovenly family issues

when she informed me that no matter how bad and gnarly a pan is if you boil some

baking soda and water for a little bit everything always comes off.

So here I am this afternoon, bussing the tables, bedrooms, living room,

etc. and the piles of dishes left for the maid when there, buried underneath is

one of my prized pans with that baked on look... I started with my normal

routine but the Scotchbrite couldn't touch it. The heavens parted, the Divine

intervened to remind my of the discussion with my client. Now mind you, when I

originally heard this, I did not believe it for several reasons. First it was

too simple and too easy, and second, I have never heard this before ( I am one

of those who thinks he knows everything). But I am desperate; at the point of

murder or tears, so with nothing to lose, I boil some water with baking soda in

the pan for a few minutes. When I go to scrub until the far end of my arm is 3

inches from my shoulder, everything just wiped away... effortlessly. How can

this be?! And then I remembered Dale (I think) saying that saponification

requires oil, an alkali (baking soda, though you can bet your gallbladder I am

going to try epsom salts tomorrow), and a lot of heat (I didn't boil on " high " ,

but there was still plenty). So now we can take that burnt on oil, and saponify

it into soap (which is water " soluable " ), and save our children from murder and

ourselves from hari kari (sp?). Hope this helps. Thanks for listening. Send

me a bill for the session.

Always, in all ways,-Dave

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