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I have a customer who is complaining of a smelly food chopper. She used it to chop onions and now can't get the smell off of it. Everything I have told her to try she says is not working. We tried baking soda and bleach water. Any ideas?
S
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#2
Maybe it doesn't smell any more and she's so used to it that she can still smell it. You might offer to pick it up and throw it in your dishwasher (if you have one). Maybe she doesn't know to take it all apart and there's a piece of onion still in the chopper somewhere. Have you actually smelled it?
If she's letting food sit in there for awhile before cleaning it or sticking it in the dishwasher, maybe it gets all dried up way up in the blades. I know that happens to me with onions if I let it sit all day and it's not in water. I've used a baby bottle nipple brush to clean way up in those blades if I'm afraid something might have dried on a little. THEN I stick it in the dishwasher. And, yes, make sure she knows you should take it all apart before cleaning it. If she doesn't know that, who knows what kinds of nasty stuff is up there.
I have found that lemon juice takes the stink out of even the most atrocious smells. It works great on garlic - so it ought to be great on onions. Just let it soak overnight in a little lemon juice/water combo and it will be almost brand new.
Use the chopper to puree the lemon,so it goes up and down where the onion would have gotten into.
Or take a lemon wedge and wipe down the blades and the inside.
I've found that the veggie wash sprays that you buy work very well to take out the onion and garlic smells from utensils and even your hands. They're made with citrus oils to safely clean fruits and veggies. I keep it on hand to clean my produce, but now it does double duty. I spray it on the smelly object, wait a few seconds, and wash as usual. It works great!
However, it does make sense. Plastic does absorb oders. It does sound though as if she is not cleaning it properly or not soon enough. I actually use the brush from the Baster to get into the tight blade areas because sometimes even my dishwasher won't get out everything. There is nothing worse than pulling it apart at a show and finding something stuck in the upper part either. Gross!
You can bleach it as well but you could also try the soaking it in the Sink Fizz as I found that will clean and deoderize a garbage disposal so why not a Food Chopper.