Friday, February 17, 2012

Remediation Methods for Rice Contaminated with Broken Glass

Question

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Still Life: Rice with Broken Glass Jar

I dropped a glass jar filled with rice. I've picked up the macro-sized pieces of glass, but am wondering if there is any way on earth to make the rice safe to eat, given that I am sure it contains small fragments and shards of glass. I could, naturally, go through it grain-by-grain, but this is only a couple of bucks worth of rice, and I don't think it warrants the time.

Does anyone have any suggestions? (Or is this too localized?) I would also welcome suggestions for a better tag than "rice."

Asked by James McLeod

Answer

Purely academic (because I wouldn't even use the rice for blind baking) but just dissolve salt into the water until the rice starts to float. The glass will remain at the bottom. Give a good stir to avoid surface tension and glass-stuck-to-rice problems. Rice farmers used to do this (and probably still do in some countries) to separate out little stones and even damaged grains.

Answered by jontyc

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