[TheForge] Finishes for food contact items

[Bruce Freeman]

If you want to use "petroleum wax" for food contact, buy a box of
paraffin wax in the canning section of a grocery or hardware store. 
It's perfectly safe for use with or in foods.  (Chocolate bon bons are
made with paraffin wax.  Some of them even taste as such!)

A year or so back I experimented with polyethylene, for use when the
color is objectionable.  I think it would be suitable for use with food
in some cases.  You can melt it like paraffin wax, but at slightly
higher temperature.  (Actually, it's chemically very similar to paraffin
wax.)  However, be sure to use plastic meant for food use - like the
cover to a coffee can - because additives to polyethylene might be
undesirable for food contact.

However, the baked-on vegetable oil is a better choice, if the color is
not objectionable.  It's very tenacious, giving way only when abraded.

It might be interesting to make soap from polyunsaturated oil, then use
a baked-on soap finish.  Possibly, it would not take on the dark color
like a baked-on oil finish. I could be way off-base with this idea, but
it would be interesting to try.

Another approach would be a baked on polyunsaturated olefinic oil. 
Polyunsatureated olefinic oil bears a chemical resemblance to
polyunsaturatic vegetable oil, but lacks some of the reactive groups of
the latter.  Hence, it seems likely it would form a coating that like
vegetable oil, but perhaps wouldn't darken as it does so.  The big catch
is that this oil would have to be purchased as a chemical, and it's not
likely it would be available in a food grade, if at all.  Oh, well...

Bruce
NJ

>>> xlch58 at swbell.net 10/11/2006 10:25 PM >>>
Jerry Frost wrote:

> Tiolet seals are now made with additives to keep them pliable and are

> NOT safe for food contact. Bee's wax can be found at farrier's supply

> but may have additives too, I don't know. You can look in the yellow

> pages under "bee keepers" and buy direct. When it comes to bee's wax,

> I trust bees more than chemists. <grin>
>
Damn, your right....  I still have an old one in a box that advertises

itself as 100% pure beeswax, but looked up the new oatey's and they 
claim 100% pure petroleum wax.   Looks like the "petroleum wax"  is
more 
resistant to fungus and bacteria.   I suspect that they are still great

for treatment of non food items and in a handy form. 

Charles


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