August 27, 2006
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Does a box of baking soda in the fridge absorb odors?
The other night I pulled out my Arm & Hammer baking soda, and my best friend proclaimed, “That’s a myth!!” I looked at her quizzically. “Is that what they said on ‘Mythbusters’?” She said, “Yes!!” My best friend and her hubby are avid watchers of a program called “Mythbusters” — a program which seeks to discover whether commonly held urban legends are true or false. They go through great lengths to test out all kinds of ‘myths’. I figured that was where she got her information from. “What if they’re wrong?” I challenged. Hubby said, “Google it.”
I was a bit skeptical — I mean, doesn’t everyone ‘know’ that baking soda helps to absorb odors in the fridge? So I googled it and found this from KitchenMyths:
“A box of baking soda in the fridge or freezer absorbs odors – FALSE!!
This is a very clever and successful marketing ploy by the baking soda people, but the fact is that baking soda is very poor at absorbing odors. It seems to make sense, however, so lots of people have spent untold billions of dollars to put boxes of baking soda in their fridge or freezer to no effect. Activated charcoal would work much better but is expensive. Better to wrap your food and clean the fridge once in a while.”
Source: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem00/chem00388.htm
However, I also found from Good Housekeeping:
“Baking soda deodorizes a refrigerator. True
But only to an extent. The chemical properties in baking soda will neutralize unpleasant odors caused by sour milk, tuna or cabbage but won’t make them disappear entirely. To test baking soda’s effectiveness, our food appliances lab placed an open jar of chopped garlic in two refrigerators for two days. In the first fridge, they put an open box of baking soda and let it sit for 24 hours. Then, they put the Institute’s noses into action. The sniffing testers noted that there was less odor in the refrigerator that contained the baking soda, but that the odor still existed.”
So — I don’t know if it’s true or false (did these sniffers from Good Housekeeping KNOW which fridge had the baking soda? cuz that then would nullify their oh-so-very subjective conclusions)
— what do you think? Baking soda — thumbs up or down??
Comments (12)
i’d believe the mythbusters just because they’re cool. but in reality, Good Housekeeping could have some bucks involved in whether or not you believe it. Mythbusters is a fair 3rd party–no kick-backs involved. and, they blow up stuff. that makes them cool. (thumbs UP to Mythbusters – thumbs DOWN to Good Housekeeping)
i think it is true — but like good housekeeping says, only to an extent. if you guys are good at not keeping rotten food in the fridge, then you probably don’t need it
in the test that Good Housekeeping performed, they used an open jar of potent smelly garlic — and the result was just a small reduction in smell to the people who were purposely trying to sniff a difference. OK, i’ll buy into that. but if smelly garlic only got absorbed a little bit (but still leaving some smell), then what effect will baking soda have on just a regular (or even a bachelor’s) fridge that is even semi well-kept? probably negligible. with the money saved, we can invest in a Dyson that actually cleans up our place. =)
Hey, if it makes you feel better, then leave the Baking Soda in there. And if you have a fish tank, you probably have activated carbon that you could leave in the fridge, too.
i believe mythbusters =]
and GoodHousekeeping’s experiment didn’t seem to be a double blind test so it could have just been the placebo effect that made them say there was less odor!
ok ok, baking soda costs like 25c so the cost is almost nothing. but they (the baking soda people) say to replace it every 3 months. i for one KNEW this would make it on the xanga.
am i that predictable? of course, this would make it on xanga! haha.
well, the conclusion at our house is that we’ll toss out the arm & hammer and all the other rotten foods before it gets truly rotten
Hey, I just wanted to let you know that your previous entry was really great. I wanted to ask permission whether or not I could use your entry in my Sunday School Lesson Plan this upcoming week. Let me know. =) Congrats on everything!
<3 Rosalie
I held purity/dating workshops several times for my youth group students at retreats with talks about possibly ordering purity rings and signing contracts… anyways, we never quite got around to it until one of my girls asked me if I could seal the deal before she heads off to college. =] So yes, you probably guessed right…Along with other testimonies, I like yours because your story has a beginning, middle, and end.
hi rosalie, that’s really cool that you are encouraging your youth to make these commitments to the Lord. but if you are telling my story, then i need you to tell the whole story — and that is that it was NOT easy — and it is basically impossible to maintain purity without God’s help. i don’t want your youth to think that it was a walk in the park for us and that we never ‘messed up’ in some ways. that would be setting them up for a huge fall if they believed that there was such a high standard that has been attained. it was a battle and we had to come up with a million new strategies and ideas (over and over again) in order to remain pure. and sometimes we didn’t try as hard as other times. but making the commitment means saying that “no matter what the cost, purity is my priority, my goal, my aim” – and you keep pursuing it — you mess up, you ask for forgiveness, you repent, you believe God’s forgiveness, you ask God to help you again, you come up with new strategy, you follow through on the strategy… our flesh is weak, we can’t do it on our own, we have to ask for God’s help. and we need to ask for someone else’s help. one key factor in helping me was having a very committed friend who held me accountable to purity. she was willing to go out of her way to make sure that i kept my commitment. and on my end, i had to be committed to being totally honest with her. and THAT was hard too. anyway, i’m sure you’ve covered all these things already — but that’s the whole story. (well, in a nutshell) email me if you want to chat more. this was a bit disorganized outpouring of thoughts…
No worries, I got it…i too am in a relationship so transparency & authenticity i know already is key. =) Thanks for everything.I just wanted to add some new blood since they’ve heard the stories of my life several times.
leave it to sam! thanks, girls for setting us free from bondage to cultural mythology!