Rust on kitchen utensils

[jgm]

I have a couple of cheap whisks I keep around to fall back on if my good ones are dirty. At the point on the end where the wires cross, there's a bit of rust.

One of my friends has thrown a hissy fit and insists I must discard them.

I know that if you step on a rusty nail, you should get a tetanus shot; I guess I always assumed that the environment that rusted the nail would also be a place where bacteria would be encouraged to grow --dark and moist.

My friend insists that rust, itself, is 'dangerous'.

What's the deal?

[jsolomon]

A couple quick web searches on iron toxicity lead me to seriously doubt that the small amount of iron you would get exposed to would cause any toxicity problems.

Now, if you were talking piles of rust, there may be something different, but just a bit off of where 8 thin wires cross each other is probably more beneficial to your diet than detrimental.

Happy eating!

[mikeycook]

I had a meat grinder and the disks with the wholes (can't recall the name) that the meat comes through developed rust because they were made of carbon steel. I made some sausage and after the batch was completed realized the level of rust, so I called poison control. They assured me there was no danger to serving the sausage, despite the rust.

[andiesenji]

Nah, not to worry. As long as it doesn't eat into the metal and cause it to break, no problems.

The rust is simply oxidation of the metal from moisture and esposure to oxygen.

rusty nails that have been exposed to dirt, particularly outside and most especially around barns, where there is a puncture wound, is where one gets tetanus. The bacteria is anerobic, that is, it like a closed enviornment where there is no oxygen.

Having stepped on a rusty nail, outside the stable, when I was a child, hiding the fact from my grandmother and developing the tell-tale red streaks up the leg, along with a lot of pain and having to have shots of the tetanus antitoxin to stop the progression of the infection, I speak from experience. It ain't fun. Almost as bad as the shots for getting bitten by a possibly rabid raccoon.

(What can I say, I was an adventurous child.)

If you want to remove the rust, get a jar of Naval Jelly

Paint it onto the wires, wait 5 minutes or so, then rinse it off with hot water, swish the whisk in hot soapy water and rinse well.

Dry the whisk. I usually dry mine as well as I can with paper towels, then put them into the oven and turn it to very low (140 degrees) and turn it off after 10 minutes or so. During the summer I just put them out on the deck in the sun for a few minutes.

[deltadoc]

In the early part of the 20th century, and maybe even before then, women commonly put iron nails into apples, then ate the apples to get iron into their diet (after taking the nails out of the apple of course!).

doc

[andiesenji]

In the early part of the 20th century, and maybe even before then, women commonly put iron nails into apples, then ate the apples to get iron into their diet (after taking the nails out of the apple of course!).

doc

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I am just thinking about the amount of rust I inhaled when I used to grind and polish old iron hardware I found out in the desert back in my rock-hounding days. Since that was nearly 40 years ago, it apparently hasn't done much harm. I did wear a respirator whenever I worked on anything containing lead or stuff from the old mine tailings - cyanide not good. However the rusty iron never bothered me.

Heck, when we went camping in the Sierra's, I had a steel skillet that used to rust overnight if someone was silly enough to wash it, but I just wiped it out with some grease on a rag and cooked in it. I usually wiped it clean and hung it over the fire to keep it dry, but it seem there was always someone along who felt the stuff should be washed with soapy water. Not a true camper!!

I have an ancient spatula that gets a bit rusty now and then and I still use it. I also have some of the old "waffle-pattern" tinned steel baking pans that get rusty in the corners, where the tinning has worn away, but I still use them for baking, they are an odd size that I like and I always figure that the grease I use will be enough of a barrier.