Thursday, February 18, 2010

 

Olive Oil for Cleaning - a Hot Topic

From a bed & breakfast guest:

Your posts on using olive oil have opened the doors and windows for me. I've had a grand time with it and you have answered many quesstions I've had for years.

When I read your post about cleaning furniture with lemon juice and olive oil, I pulled out my old wooden chopping board. It is dried out horribly and I haven't used it for a couple years because I didn't know how to treat it. All the literature says clean it with white vinegar, to get rid of the smell, and then rub mineral oil into the wood. Well, I eat what I chop on the board and I was not going to eat something which had been prepared on wood cleaned with white vinegar (acetic acid) - and mineral oil (petroleum). I wouldn't put mineral oil on my food, nor would I put it on my body - which means I don't get professional massages because that is basically what is contained in their massage oil.

When I read your post I thought - what do I have to lose - so I mixed up about 2/3 cups olive oil with 1/2 lemon and went to work on the old board. The next morning I was amazed. It was beautiful. I used the entire amount of olive oil and lemon juice because the board just soaked it up. It is now showing the squares the way it did when it was new. The oil has dried and it is not greasy. I had to wipe the dried lemon off, but that took a second and I am certain the brightness and cleanness of the board is due to the lemon addition, so the extra second was worth the effort.

Thank you! I have my chopping board back; I am not afraid to use it; It is once again a beautiful addition to my kitchen and all is right with the world.

Keep on keeping on. This has made me a loyal reader of your blog and I will also tell everyone I know about this experience.

Somehow, I think this was probably how my grandmother cleaned her chopping board, but I wasn't listening, watching, or learning from her when she was around. I guess I really missed a lot from being so absent from the older women in my family. They are who should have been my role models. Wish I could pass that bit of wisdom down to my own children and future grandchildren to help make their lives easier. Better to learn from them than from the marketing media, who I learned from and because of whom I must now relearn and try to make a better life for myself than they tried to do for me.

The older women in my family had my best interest at heart, although I didn't think so at the time. They were not trying to pry all the money out of my pocketbook leaving me with health issues as a result of their wrong-headed advice. A friend of mine even bought "food grade" mineral oil as a present for me to help me with my chopping board. Food grade or not, it is still petroleum and I didn't use it, although she had all the right arguments to try to get me to use it. I sent her the link to your blog so she could see where she was really an air-head about buying the advice of those who are paid to sell bad stuff. I knew if I waited long enough something would come along to help with these little problems. One down, four hundred ninety- nine to go. Keep those posts coming! God bless you!

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