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Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

cbc.ca

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Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#181

Slight related topic: Anyone else BBQ a lot, reach to open a beer bottle, but are missing an opener? Why don't they make every BBQ utensil have a decent bottle opener at the end. Better yet, every utensil in your house? Please take this idea and run with, just tell me where to buy a set.

Everything is a beer opener. You just need skills.. :)

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I'd imagine that long-term you might want to avoid it. It's safe now. People use it for compost all the time. The real danger from a BBQ is smoke.

The whole point of barbecue is indirect cooking with smoke. Unless y'all mean grilling when you say BBQ.

is this for real ? I've always meant grilling and assumed anyone else meant the same :(

EDIT: might be a linguistic issue, wikipedia has different meanings of BBQ in different languages.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#183
post #153
post #91

It's interesting many countries such as the US, UK and NZ have banned rare earth magnets due to fear of people swallowing them. The data they used to back the banning included all products ingested, and vice wrote up an article here: http://www.vice.com/read/the-consumer-product-safety-commiss... If a product is causing similar health risks, isn't it fair to apply the same ban to it too?

In the cases of product being banned for safety, one of the reasons it's generally due to is the potential of swallowing it and causing harm or choking being high enough that a simple warning isn't sufficient. E.g. Buckyballs (swallow two separate groups of those and you'll be lucky to be in IC), Kinder Surprise (sucks, but somewhat understandable). The brush, while potentially dangerous, isn't probably dangerous eno…

> Kinder Surprise (sucks, but somewhat understandable)

I still don't understand this, the explanation I have read is that it's due to the inner plastic being totally hidden, but the potential to swallow a Kinder Surprise whole is very low, unless your kids are _really_ large.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but I'd imagine that long-term you might want to avoid it. It's safe now. People use it for compost all the time. The real danger from a BBQ is smoke.

The whole point of barbecue is indirect cooking with smoke. Unless y'all mean grilling when you say BBQ.

That's just one of the many words that have different meanings in different countries. We Australians take our barbecueing very seriously and it rarely involves indirect cooking. :-) The most common form of barbecueing here involves cooking on a flat hotplate over direct heat.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#185
I hate to add to the wire brush worry, but it's not just BBQ.

So many resturants use wire brushes.

The last burrito I had was a few months ago. It had piece of wire in it. I kept the wire for a few days, and thought about it. The wire was not from a brush. I think it was old copper telephone wire. It that might have fell onto the grill from the ceiling, or wall?

Anyways, I haven't had a burrito since that instance. And tonight, I just got the visual of them cleaning the grill with a big, old wire brush--with gusto. Now I think about it, they had all types of black brushes near the grill.

Those grills are just large pieces of steel, without holes, or spaces. If loose wire isn't caught by the cook it just gets mixed in with the of steak, chicken, whatever.

(They make small metal detectors. My watch parts supplier is always advertising them. They claim they will find watch parts on the ground. I wonder if they could detect those small bristles?)

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#186

Related: If you tenderize with a Jaccard-like tool, examine the teeth very closely before you cook your meat. I have had the blades break in half longitudinally where it still looked like a full blade, but had actually "delaminated" toward the end and left a 15mm chunk of pointed metal in my steak. It ended up in my gums. I still use the broken blade set, but simply make sure it has all the parts before moving on. No…

Oh gosh. It almost makes you terrified of using any implements along those lines. Honestly, I would've never looked for a failure mode like that. You're exceedingly lucky.

I have a very distantly related story, although one that's much more benign (thankfully!). Years ago, there was a really nice grocery store in town (local chain) that would make fresh flour tortillas. Whenever we'd think about it, we'd usually stop by and buy a dozen or two. It ended for a few years when I was eating one of them and bit down into a washer that clearly had been pushed through some part of the machine such that it was slightly elongated, flattened, and very slightly sharp on one end. I was lucky in that I neither broke a tooth, swallowed it, or cut my gums; but you can imagine my surprise when I bit down and felt something lodge between my bottom molars. More so when I pulled it out and found a steel washer!

I still have that washer somewhere.

They eventually sold off their tortilla equipment, possibly also changing management. It's been upgraded in recent years with brand new machinery, and we started buying them occasionally, but I've since developed a slight paranoia whenever I eat food I haven't made myself. I'm a softer chewer now than I was in those days for that reason. :)

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#187
This issue is actually not isolated to just barbecues and barbecue brushes although the fact that it gets into your food does make it worse.

A few weeks ago my friend invited me to their high class HOA pool that had a sand beach. Wading around in about a foot of water I felt something pierce my foot when I took a step. When I pulled my foot out of the water to see what it was I could see it was a thin piece of metal and it had gone in all the way to my bone.

I concluded it probably came off a metal brush they use around the pool. Maybe something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Tool-W1148-Stainless-3-Pi...

That's when I realized that these types of metal brushes are a huge environmental hazard in general. They should probably be illegal in certain settings -- sand beaches being one of them.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#188
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you do about rust? The chrome coating on my grill comes off and the iron underneath rusts. The wire bristle was the only thing working.

Well there's your problem, iron is fine, it's the iron oxide you want to avoid.

Iron oxide isn't particularly bad for your health, either. Your steak is already filled with rusted iron. Your body is filled with rusted iron.

Chrome, on the other hand... that shit is nasty.

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#189
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I see the comparison. There are plenty of similarly priced alternatives to barbecue scrapers that work just as well while not being as dangerous. What are the alternatives to cars?

Planning that favors alternative modes such as walking, bicycling, and public transit.

"Planning" is not a product that a consumer can buy, and even then walking, bicycling, and public transit are most useful when you live in a densely packed area and aren't too concerned about traveling outside it.

Plus, I was being contrary to what my parent said about the dangers of cars. Aren't bicycles more dangerous?

Re: Canadian surgeons urge people to throw out bristle BBQ brushes

#190
post #61
post #22

A trick I learned from Argentinian circus people, who make amazing BBQ, is let the grill heat up and then cut an onion in half to rub on the grate. It imparts a nice flavor and cleans the grill very well.

Same method was used (and probably still is) in Israel when I was growing up. I guess I'm going back to onions now :)

Yes.. There no 'al haesh' without that onion dipped in oil
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