Expert: Jamie Novak - 1/3/2008

Question
I eat a lot of Italian and Mexican foods with tomato based sauces and put them in a Gladware or Ziploc brand type plastic containers to store them in or even take them to work.  Problem is that no matter how short of a time the sauces/foods are in the plastic containers, they always leave a red stain inside the bowl.  No matter how much hot soap and water I use to clean it, I can't remove the stain from the tomato-based product in the food.

How do I easily remove these red stains from inside my plastic containers to leave them looking clear and new looking?

Thanks!


Answer
Great question- thanks for asking :)

I have a few ideas for you to try:

1. spray the container with cooking spray (olive oil or any other of your choice) before putting in the food.

2. only put the food in after it has cooled, the heat makes the stain.

3. a cleaning mixture of: 1/2 cup bleach, 1/4 cup baking soda, and 1 cup vinegar

4. Cascade makes a plastic power booster cleaner you can see it on amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CEO5AU/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

I hope one of these tricks works for you- those stains are unsightly. I now have a small stack of red sauce only containers and do not use my good ones for red sauce- drives my husband crazy but it works for me.

My sister only uses the Chinese soup containers for sauces...

Good luck, Jamie

PS Hope you'll pop by my site JamieNovak.com I'm having a call on Jan. 24th, it would be great if you called in.