“Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide - Why Food Grade?”
When you are using hydrogen peroxide around the
house, it may seem no big deal to use drugstore variety
or grocer brand hydrogen peroxide.
After all, cleaning bathroom tiles or toilets,
we don’t really need to think about the trace elements
of additives in the store brand varieties do we?
It’s a worthy question.
Using food grade hydrogen peroxide in the kitchen, however,
is a basic “must” of best practices usage of hydrogen
peroxide. You do not want to be putting chemicals like
phenol on your foodstuffs. Even in trace amounts. Or, if you
do, then please don’t invite me over to eat at your place,
thanks much…
But what about carpet cleaning, stain removal
and other areas where the hydrogen peroxide is
not coming in direct contact with you, really? After all,
we use the drug store variety to daub cuts and scrapes…
can’t we use it on our furnishings and floors?
The simple answer, of course, is… “Yes you can.”
The more complex answer is… “Well, you can, but you might sorta want not to…”
Why not? Because the chemicals used in drug store variety hydrogen peroxide are
known to be toxic to humans, and many of them are “environmentally persistent”
which means that even after the hydrogen peroxide is long gone to water and oxygen,
these “stabilizing chemicals” are not gone. They just move around in the environment,
down our drains, into our rivers and streams, and out onto our agricultural fields and
farmlands.
On the other hand, if you are not using hydrogen peroxide for the kitchen, or for any
of the more personal care type uses (foot soaks, baths, toothbrush cleaning, mouthwash)
then buying food grade hydrogen peroxide only to clean carpets is just plain silly in
my humble opinion.
Food grade hydrogen peroxide does not mean it is safe to eat. Just in case there
was any confusion about that. It means it is safe for keeping food preparation tools,
surfaces, packaging and equipment clean, and also safe for things like egg washing and
cheese making. In the end, it IS the hydrogen peroxide home use “best practice” choice,
but the final decision will depend on how you predominantly use hydrogen peroxide
around your home.
