Search results

True. Certified organic products might have to tell you there's sodium lactate as an ingredient, but whether it's derived from corn or beets they don't have to tell you that. Also I thought the regs on listing ingredients for non-food products were much looser than for food.

As much as I love olive oil, the fact that there's so much fraud is troublesome as well. I need to know my olive oil is actually olive oil. In the US we have a crazy policy that subsidizes anything except fruits and vegetables. Then we wonder why poor people are more liable to be fat? I use...

You're right, I did. It's a forum and yes, I tend to keep things short because people's eyes glaze over. Since you also publish I'm sure you know how this is talking to the general public. I don't generally talk about my work in any detail. (Aside from which I'm retired from that so there...

Thanks for the useful info, CanaDawn. More useful than you suspect, even. :) I've used hexane in extractions in the lab, but most of the exposure there is in the air. How it's used in food is practical knowledge I lack, so this is good to know. I think I should probably switch my canola oil...

For the record, hexane is a hydrocarbon and is a small fraction of what's in gasoline. It's as toxic as gasoline and kinda smells like it too. Um, yeah, please don't put that in your soap.

Knit

As someone always on the hunt for a safe soap, I can only say the booths where soap is treated like an afterthought are the ones I pass by. I assume they don't really know much about what they're selling, and in many cases they may be reselling and really not know the process. And that level...

Thank you very much! I got my old ceramic crock back from mom last year, so I'm thinking go old fashioned and use that. :)

What did you want to know? BHA and BHT are suspected carcinogens or are just carcinogens, depending on which nation you ask. Those I tend to avoid. And yes, most scientific research of any value is behind paywalls and not available on the Internet. And how does a layman know a good study...

The pork belly here is sliced into nice bacon for the most part, and the Asians buy it like crazy. And I'm experimenting with curing some right now. :) Since it's halal the price is probably out of this world. But it can't hurt to ask! I know it's crazy I can't just find plain old pork...

Manteca can be flavored or unflavored. Unfortunately all I'm finding around is here flavored, and my Spanish is awful lol. There are probably regional differences, and for all I know the large quantity of people we have from Central America is why the manteca always has stuff in it. Maybe...

Hydrogenation is not creating a mixture of one chemical and some hydrogen gas, which is what you just described. It's a chemical reaction. You end up with a different chemical. Trans isomerism around a double bond does not occur in nature. Only cis isomerism does. The hydrogenation process...

lol very few humans are actually carnivores. I think you meant omnivore?

Oh wow, my husband's family is Polish but all his aunts passed away before I could learn how to make their dishes with sauerkraut! Do you have a favorite recipe you'd be willing to post? I'm finally making my first batch of sauerkraut (from a red cabbage) and it seems to be coming along...

I expect it requires a wire string, and gut will not hold up under the pressure, and likely not cut either. But now I know I need to ask my son to save his old guitar strings for me. At least I'll get something out of listening to him play his Japanese metal stuff. :lolno:

Do you mean the lard or the manteca? The "lard" in stores, as you say, is not real lard, but trans fat. That makes it not useful for me or my daughter. I'd be fine if I could find plain rendered lard, but I can't. Manteca can be flavored or unflavored, so I read on the Internets. But...

Lye solution doesn't go bad. It's not customary to keep premixed alkali solutions in a chem lab, as different reactions may require different molarity, but once in a blue moon it makes sense to do so.

I haven't noticed much difference cutting out carbs, but then mine are pretty much limited to fruit or baked goods I make myself. And wheat is one of my safer food categories, so oh well. *shrug* I do try to stay away from the highest GI fruits, and if I have a carb, I pair it with a protein...

Thanks! I've seen it out on soapcalc and thought that might be my next experiment. I mean...free? What the heck. I'm still nervous about what else might be in that Manteca. I have some pretty obscure allergies, as do friends of mine. I'd be willing to buy just real lard if I could find...

Well, Kirk's Castile oil isn't castile either. I've found Dr. Bronner's to be unusally helpful when I had to call about ingredients and how they were sourced, so I'd be surprised if their label was intentionally inaccurate.