Wonders of Baking Soda

Get the cheapest baking soda you can find, since generic baking soda is also sodium bicarbonate. 

I've been exploring the use of baking soda for all my kitchen cleaning needs and i have to say it's really good stuff. So useful, in fact, that i sacrificed one of my precious Ikea spice jars to be used as a baking soda sprinkler. I use this little jar much more often than you'd expect:

1. Range-top cleaning. Sprinkle on some baking soda, spritz with water. Wait a little bit. Wipe off with sponge. For heavy burned on food, use more and keep it wet, let it sit longer then wipe.

2. Oven-cleaning. Don't need to use caustic oven cleaners. May need to let it sit longer and make sure to keep it damp to loosen up burned on food. Some people leave it overnight. Worked for me and my oven which i haven't used in 4 years since i thought it would be too hard to clean.

3. Rescuing a scorched stainless steel pot where i boiled off all the water. I thought i would have to throw it away and get a new one, but i gave it a shot and it worked great! Doesn't look brand new but still pretty good and no scorched odor.

How does it work? I hear it's because most burned things are acidic in nature. Baking soda, being a weak base, chemically neutralizes the acid, weakening the bonds in the burned mass. When the baking soda is dry, it acts as a mild abrasive, so it will lightly scratch highly polishes surfaces if you just use it completely dry. I like to sprinkle it on a damp sponge, or sprinkle it on a surface and spritz with water not so much that i completely dissolves. This way you get some abrasion and some chemical cleaning.

absorbs moisture, preventing odor-causing fungi/bacteria from growing.

The other major benefit is that baking soda is very safe, non-toxic cleaner. For you and for the environment. Not to mention sprinkling some in your garbage disposal grinder and trashcan absorbs odors. I make small cloth packets of it and leave them in my shoes to dry them out and absorb foot odors.