Clean these 6 things in your kitchen with citric acid

Looking for new, and more importantly – green – ways of cleaning your home? Tired of relying on dangerous and expensive commercial cleaning solutions? Then you’re in luck! This article has just the thing that you’re looking for – 3 excellent ways to clean your home in a green and healthy way. We’ll show you a couple of tried and tested techniques on cleaning with citric acid, which is in the well-known lemon juice. If you keep reading until the end, you’ll even find a couple of additional tips.

Why clean your home with citric acid?

Well, for starters, only few things can match the refreshing aroma of a freshly-squeezed lemon. And sadly, most of them come in the form of prohibitively expensive and more often than not – toxic and dangerous for your health, commercial cleaning products. Lemons, on the other hand, are:

• Affordable
• Easy to use
• Entirely eco-friendly
• Pleasantly smelling

So, here’s our suggestion – the next time you‘re faced with a domestic cleaning dilemma, instead of reaching for the commercial cleaner in your closet, give cleaning with citric acid a shot! And if you can feel your interest growing, we’ve got some great news –  you can use citric acid to clean nearly all surfaces in your home! The kitchen, bathroom, a variety of appliances, and even your garbage bin … lemons can make quick work of it all! If combined with baking soda, or just plain old hot water, lemon can eliminate most stains that you’ll encounter, leaving nothing but fresh and sparkly surfaces in its wake.

Things to never clean with Citric Acid

Even though lemons are great for general domestic cleaning tasks, there are a few things that you should never clean with lemon juice. Due to its acidic nature, citric acid can cause damage to certain surfaces, namely porous stone surfaces, like marble countertops, for example.

General Domestic Cleaning Advice

While we’d like to be able to assume that everyone knows this, you’d be surprised at the number of people who overlook the basic rules of domestic cleaning! So, before we begin, let’s get a couple of things out of the way:

• Always use the appropriate protective gear – yes, even if you are cleaning with entirely eco-friendly methods, you will want to keep the cleaning solutions, dust, dirt and grime away from your skin, eyes and mouth.
• Always use gear and face masks when appropriate.
• Restrict access to the room that you’re cleaning – cleaning is best done in one go. You don’t want any interruptions in the form of children, pets, friends or relatives. Furthermore, if you were using potentially dangerous solutions (and let’s face it – most people do, even with the abundance of information about them on the Internet), you wouldn’t want your loved ones anywhere near the cleaning process!
• Aerate well – letting some fresh air in after cleaning up a room is a great habit to get into. Not only does it add to the effectiveness of any cleaning session, but it also lets things dry up faster while getting rid of any excess dust that your activities might’ve raised.

How to clean kitchen surfaces with citric acid

Before we begin, ensure that you’ve got the following handy:

• A lemon
• A couple of paper towels
• A damp washcloth
• A pair of rubber gloves

Cleaning your kitchen countertops

The start of the cleaning process with citric acid isn’t all that different from the one you’d use with commercial products. Begin by ridding yourself of all debris and crumbs, by wiping them away with your paper towel. Then, grab your lemon, cut it in half and squeeze the juice over the laminate surface. If you feel like your cleaning session could use a bit more of a punch, you can also rub what’s left of your lemon directly against the countertop that you’re cleaning. Then, give the citric acid anywhere between five and ten minutes to do its thing, and you should be good to go.

In case you encounter any particularly resilient stains, you can repeat the procedure.

Cleaning your cutting boards

Citric acid, especially when coupled with salt, can make short work of any cutting board stains and dirt build-up.

Cut your lemon in half and, after liberally sprinkling salt across the cutting surface, place it face-down on your board and begin rubbing. Making sure to scrub the salt all across the stained areas, give it a bit of time to do its magic (5 minutes should be plenty), and then clean using a bristle brush. Wrap your cleaning board session up by rinsing with hot water, and you’re done.

Cleaning your plastic containers

Even though we’d advise against using any sort of plastic containers in your household, we can definitely understand the convenience that they represent. If you do opt for using them, you’ll be happy to know that they too can be sanitised with the help of citric acid! Here’s how to do it:

1. Squeeze the juice of one lemon inside your plastic container;
2. Add 1-2 tablespoons of baking soda into the mix and gently scrub the inside walls
3.  Put the lid on and let your concoction spend the night inside the container.
4. In the morning, simply rinse with hot water and your plastic container will be good as new!

Cleaning your microwave with lemons

To clean your microwave with citric acid, you’ll need the help of a microwaveable bowl. As an added benefit, however, you’ll also be cleaning the bowl itself with this method.

Pour about 120ml of water into your microwaveable dish, add the juice of one medium-sized lemon, and add the fruit leftovers into the mix while you’re at it. Microwave for about 3 minutes on a high enough setting to bring your water to boiling and then let it sit inside for around 5 more. Once the steam settles, take the bowl out and, using a clean cloth or sponge get to wiping. As a side-note, the exact same technique can also be applied to your oven, but you’d want to give it a bit more time (along the lines of 30 minutes) before you start wiping.

Cleaning tarnish with lemons

You can use a mixture of lemon juice (from one medium-sized lemon), along with a bit of baking soda or salt to create a paste that can clean the tarnish off of any copper pan or pot. Simply rub the paste into the problematic area, give it a couple of minutes and rinse away with fresh water. This technique can work wonders for your copper and stainless steel dishes but should not be used on any other type of metal surface, as the lemons’ high acidity can severely damage them.

Clean your garbage disposal with lemon slices

Slice up a couple of lemons in small pieces, gently squeeze them into your garbage disposal and, after giving them a few minutes, pour cold water down the drain. Then, begin slowly dropping the pieces into your disposal, one by one. This will not only clean your garbage disposal’s blades up, but it’ll also get rid of any nasty odours.

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