Food Crimes

[Mrs Pingu]

Mayo AND ketchup on chips are wrong.

[Kim]

Probably showing my age, it's all online now, but back in the day you'd thumb through the book, thinking of the most dangerous chemical you could buy and hand over to the least-favourite work-study student in the lab.

Ob-Ignition:

Chlorine trifluoride, ClF₃, or “CTF” as the engineers insist on calling it, is a colorless gas, a greenish liquid, or a white solid. It boils at 12° (so that a trivial pressure will keep it liquid at room temperature) and freezes at a convenient –76°. It also has a nice fat density, about 1.81 at room temperature.
It is also quite probably the most vigorous fluorinating agent in existence—much more vigorous than fluorine itself. Gaseous fluorine, of course, is much more dilute than the liquid ClF₃, and liquid fluorine is so cold that its activity is very much reduced.
All this sounds fairly academic and innocuous, but when it is translated into the problem of handling the stuff, the results are horrendous. It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water—with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals—steel, copper, aluminum, etc.—because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminum keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal–fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.

[TheLurker]

This leads us neatly onto brown sauce, which is some sort of northern conspiracy against colourblind people.

It's worse than that, it's a truly degraded version of Tamarind sauce/chutney that could only be brought to you by the British "genius" for taking food from other nations and rendering it both unpalatable and close to unrecognisable.  Curry powder.  Raisins in curry.

Mind you *I* like brown sauce, you just have to think of it as vinegar with caramel & flavourings rather than real food.

[spesh]

Probably showing my age, it's all online now, but back in the day you'd thumb through the book, thinking of the most dangerous chemical you could buy and hand over to the least-favourite work-study student in the lab.

Ob-Ignition:

Chlorine trifluoride, ClF₃, or “CTF” as the engineers insist on calling it, is a colorless gas, a greenish liquid, or a white solid. It boils at 12° (so that a trivial pressure will keep it liquid at room temperature) and freezes at a convenient –76°. It also has a nice fat density, about 1.81 at room temperature.
It is also quite probably the most vigorous fluorinating agent in existence—much more vigorous than fluorine itself. Gaseous fluorine, of course, is much more dilute than the liquid ClF₃, and liquid fluorine is so cold that its activity is very much reduced.
All this sounds fairly academic and innocuous, but when it is translated into the problem of handling the stuff, the results are horrendous. It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water—with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals—steel, copper, aluminum, etc.—because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminum keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal–fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.

 

Derek Lowe's "Sand Won't Save You This Time" - the all-time fan favourite from his "Things I Won't Work With" series - has that quote, and also mentions a spillage involving a ton of the stuff:

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-you-time

[Kim]

Clark goes on to describe that incident too, in his inimitable way:

(click to show/hide)

And even if you don’t have a fire, the results can be devastating enough when chlorine trifluoride gets loose, as the General Chemical Co. discovered when they had a big spill. Their salesmen were awfully coy about discussing the matter, and it wasn’t until I threatened to buy my RFNA from Du Pont that one of them would come across with the details.
It happened at their Shreveport, Louisiana, installation, while they were preparing to ship out, for the first time, a one-ton steel cylinder of CTF. The cylinder had been cooled with dry ice to make it easier to load the material into it, and the cold had apparently embrittled the steel. For as they were maneuvering the cylinder onto a dolly, it split and dumped one ton of chlorine trifluoride onto the floor. It chewed its way through twelve inches of concrete and dug a three-foot hole in the gravel underneath, filled the place with fumes which corroded everything in sight, and, in general, made one hell of a mess. Civil Defense turned out, and started to evacuate the neighborhood, and to put it mildly, there was quite a brouhaha before things quieted down. Miraculously, nobody was killed, but there was one casualty—the man who had been steadying the cylinder when it split. He was found some five hundred feet away, where he had reached Mach 2 and was still picking up speed when he was stopped by a heart attack.

In this context, 'RFNA' is red fuming nitric acid, another strong contender for the nope list.

[ian]

I'm sure I mentioned the time I logged an old bottle of n-butyl lithium in the fume hood that needed disposal in a place that didn't contain water because splody will ensue. Then I forgot about it until five blokes in full armour from the actual bomb squad turned up to remove it with metre-long tongs. I'd been holding it in my hand and giving it a shake not so many days before.

(To be fair, it's not that bad, considering some of the other stuff knocking around, we had an entire cupboard of potent mutagens that women weren't allowed near on the vague off-chance they might be unknowingly pregnant. I had a small tub of ricin on my desk, I think 5g. Happy times.)

[spesh]

In this context, 'RFNA' is red fuming nitric acid, another strong contender for the nope list.

Especially when mixed with hydrazine...

Segueing from mayonnaise to hypergolic rocket fuel components probably has to be thread drift of the year. 

[citoyen]

Mayo has its place, but it's sloppy ubiquity on every sandwich is criminal.

Word.

I have no idea what Miracle Whip is, and it sounds like I don't want to find out.

[citoyen]

Perusing Sainsbury's website, I see
Taste the Difference Black Forest Gateau flavoured porridge
Taste the Difference Figs in Blankets (bacon & fig) flavoured potato crisps
Jalapeno & cheese pigs in blankets
Snowy Blond Chocolate Spread (white chocolate & caramel)
Spiced Ginger Biscuit flavour Irish Cream Liqueur

FFS.

Novelty food is one of my top pet hates. It's a symbol of everything that's wrong with capitalism.

It's not just Christmas either - take abominations like jars of combined peanut butter and Marmite, for example. I've got nothing against people who like both peanut butter and Marmite on their toast, but I'm sure those people are capable of buying two separate jars. No civilised society needs someone to go to the trouble and expense of combining the two in a jar together. It's offensively frivolous. It's the Matt Hancock of food.

The biggest problem with novelty foods like this is that they take up valuable shelf space, usually at the expense of something I actually want to buy.

[ScumOfTheRoad]

@ian  How many people could 5 grammes of ricin kill?

[Ashaman42]

At least twelve

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[Jaded]

Perusing Sainsbury's website, I see
Taste the Difference Black Forest Gateau flavoured porridge
Taste the Difference Figs in Blankets (bacon & fig) flavoured potato crisps
Jalapeno & cheese pigs in blankets
Snowy Blond Chocolate Spread (white chocolate & caramel)
Spiced Ginger Biscuit flavour Irish Cream Liqueur

FFS.

Novelty food is one of my top pet hates. It's a symbol of everything that's wrong with capitalism.

It's not just Christmas either - take abominations like jars of combined peanut butter and Marmite, for example. I've got nothing against people who like both peanut butter and Marmite on their toast, but I'm sure those people are capable of buying two separate jars. No civilised society needs someone to go to the trouble and expense of combining the two in a jar together. It's offensively frivolous. It's the Matt Hancock of food.

The biggest problem with novelty foods like this is that they take up valuable shelf space, usually at the expense of something I actually want to buy.

However, Berxit has meant there is quite a lot of free shelf space in our supermarkets. Empty shelves or this.

[ian]

@ian  How many people could 5 grammes of ricin kill?

I'd say about 6 by ingestion. If you wanted to be sure. Plenty more by inhalation (probably about 30,000) though there's no practical way to do it. It's still not as bad as Miracle Whip.

(its more prosaic use is binding n-galactosyl units – incidentally how it kills you, glycosylation is a vital)

[phantasmagoriana]

Perusing Sainsbury's website, I see
Taste the Difference Black Forest Gateau flavoured porridge
Taste the Difference Figs in Blankets (bacon & fig) flavoured potato crisps
Jalapeno & cheese pigs in blankets
Snowy Blond Chocolate Spread (white chocolate & caramel)
Spiced Ginger Biscuit flavour Irish Cream Liqueur

With the exception of the pig in blanket-related items, those sound rather good!

[Hot Flatus]

Perusing Sainsbury's website, I see
Taste the Difference Black Forest Gateau flavoured porridge
Taste the Difference Figs in Blankets (bacon & fig) flavoured potato crisps
Jalapeno & cheese pigs in blankets
Snowy Blond Chocolate Spread (white chocolate & caramel)
Spiced Ginger Biscuit flavour Irish Cream Liqueur

FFS.

Novelty food is one of my top pet hates. It's a symbol of everything that's wrong with capitalism.

It's not just Christmas either - take abominations like jars of combined peanut butter and Marmite, for example. I've got nothing against people who like both peanut butter and Marmite on their toast, but I'm sure those people are capable of buying two separate jars. No civilised society needs someone to go to the trouble and expense of combining the two in a jar together. It's offensively frivolous. It's the Matt Hancock of food.

The biggest problem with novelty foods like this is that they take up valuable shelf space, usually at the expense of something I actually want to buy.

Jazzmags

[Jaded]

That's a good point. How many Marmite Peanut Butter jars to a Jazzmag?

I'd estimate 3 to 4, unless they have taken to publishing them in landscape.

[Tim Hall]

Flatus has reminded me:

Jazz Apples.

Mostly because they sound a bit wrong.

[Wowbagger]

Golden "Delicious" apples. Known as "Golden Disgustings" in our house.

[citoyen]

Jazzmags

It’s not been possible to get jazz mags in Tesco for years. I blame the woke north London liberal elite and/or Albanian drug lords.

[Jaded]

Golden "Delicious" apples. Known as "Golden Disgustings" in our house.

Top shelf, I imagine.

[hellymedic]

Also this. I've never quite understood the point of margarine, when butter exists:

Surprsingly it was invented by that nation of culinary Je ne sais quoi the French I believe. To provide to the troops on Napoleon's march on Moscow. And it's cheap to make. Although, having been to a Margarine producing factory (at the humourously named Port Sunlight) I'd never touch the stuff.

Margarine is vile.
It usefully converts liquid oil to solid yuk, which can be useful.
It made some of my extended family Very Rich in days of yore.

My late grandmother demanded BUTTER on the day she died, at the age of 101.

She was the grand-daughter of a Van den Bergh.

She only wanted BUTTER.

Margarine is vile.

[Flite]

It usefully converts liquid oil to solid yuk,

I never understood claims that things like sunflower or olive oil margarine were better for health when the process hydrogenated the oil to a solid fat.
Eat butter, just eat less of it

[rr]

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g1929977-d12644810-r838225787-Forget_Me_Not_Tea_Rooms_Llp-Tiptree_Essex_England.html?m=19905



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[Cudzoziemiec]

This leads us neatly onto brown sauce, which is some sort of northern conspiracy against colourblind people.

It's worse than that, it's a truly degraded version of Tamarind sauce/chutney that could only be brought to you by the British "genius" for taking food from other nations and rendering it both unpalatable and close to unrecognisable.  Curry powder.  Raisins in curry.

Mind you *I* like brown sauce, you just have to think of it as vinegar with caramel & flavourings rather than real food.

Chutney.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Golden "Delicious" apples. Known as "Golden Disgustings" in our house.

Top shelf, I imagine.

Golden dustings – definitely niche but Rule 34 applies.