Carbon Fiber Pot Lid; Food safe question

If it can't make contact with the food, it shouldn't be a problem.

Sometimes you can get lucky and find a recycled plastic lid that fits. I prefer roaster pan foil or a chunk of aluminum pie plate bottom to plain aluminum foil. I just tuck the foil inside for travel if it's a problem.

"So, again, do you think wrapping with aluminum foil would provide a food safe method to use a carbon fiber lid?"

Not if you have acidic foods, like tomato sauces.

"If it can't make contact with the food, it shouldn't be a problem."

Hard to imagine steam from inside the pot not condensing on the inside of the lid and dripping down into the food…

"Ruta Lorca…. food safe epoxy"

Food Safe epoxy? Seems and oxymoron to me, food safe glue????
I wouldn't trust it.

Billy

…

An autopsy may reveal my rashness, but I will brag it's too late for me to die young. IMO (gotta think all this exercised before) when dealing with toxicity of a substance, dilution is everything. Protech epoxy isn't "food grade" because they don't mfg to testing standards/protocols required for such a designation. $$. It's like superlue. Medical grade is way more expensive than Ace hardware. I judge them the same for my sentitivity, use & exposure. I say aluminum will reduce any leachate from epoxy, but also say any said leachate is pretty darn benign. Boil CF a while to leach & reduce. The acid/aluminum/alzheimers was fairly well debunked I thought. Nano particles from smoke (or loose CF fibers) look far more harmful than anything else around you by evidence I read. I disclose I still carry a lexan water bottle.

Dale, concern is with condensed water dripping back.

Greg, I'm not much of a acidic food eater in the backcountry, at least at this stage in my life :)

Billy, I'm going by a quote from him at http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=62431

Roger, yes; functional lid for cooking and protective lid in the pack. I was thinking that the aluminum foil would keep any dissolved chemicals from the carbon from dripping back into the pot. Do you think they go through the aluminum foil?

Charley, I was thinking of going down that road, reducing the leachate by prior usage. But I thought the minuscule weight of the aluminum foil would eliminate the need/potential threat.

Thanks all, appreciate the discussion.
Steve

"The acid/aluminum/alzheimers was fairly well debunked I thought."

No mention of alzheimer's by me, but tomato sauce and some acidic fruit juices will eat holes in aluminum foil, making it a less than ideal barrier.

"It's like superlue. Medical grade is way more expensive than Ace hardware. I judge them the same for my sentitivity, use & exposure."

Be careful here, Charley. Superglue is made of methyl cyanoacrylate, and medical grade is butyl cyanoacrylate. The methyl radical has 2 carbons, the butyl has 4. The toxicity dramatically decreases when you go from 2 to 4 carbon atoms, due to the lowered release of cyanide when in contact with water (or sweat). I think that it was the Canadians that came up with a spray-on version of butyl cyanoacrylate during the Vietnam war, for use in treating the skin after napalm exposure. One would never, ever want to spray methyl cyanoacrylate over their entire body. That would cause instant cyanide exposure.

The atmosphere of any (sub)urban environment usually has enough crap in it to kill you prematurely. Getting into the woods and breathing fresh air more than compensates for some minor leachate from epoxy. Heck, the food you are cooking will often have enough preservative or additive in it to be of "concern."

As long as you're sweating you're ridding your body of toxins. Most of the worry is over something that will potentially kill you over many years (so will hiking by that logic) and rarely will anything kill you from minor and occasional exposure. Our bodies are surprisingly well equipped to repair damage and handle toxins…like alcohol, caffeine, nicotine and a million others.

A couple of notes (from a chemist):

1) There is no chance something can get into the water through aluminum foil. Gluing the foil to the bottom of a lid would be a permanent solution.

2) Whether an epoxy is food safe or not depends on the additives in it, so you should check for the particular type used. The instructions for a resin I use state that for applications where contact with food occurs, the resin should be washed in an acidic bath after curing. This might be helpful with any resin. Vinegar is a readily available, food safe acidic bath.

3) The resin mentioned above contains bisphenol A (BPA). While the "BPA-free" marketing might suggest opposite, the use of BPA in food-grade materials is not banned (in some countries, it is not allowed in baby bottles).

4) To the medical superglue (butyl cyanoacrylate) mentioned in this thread – that statement on cyanide release is (as far as I know) not correct. The chemistry involved in the polymerization of both cyanoacrylates is the same, the difference is in mechanical properties of the cured glue – butyl cyanoacrylate polymer is flexible while methyl cyanoacrylate polymer is solid an brittle. For gluing skin, you want the flexible one. Of course, the purity of a medical-grade glue is strictly controlled, in contrast to a common superglue.

>Food Safe epoxy? Seems and oxymoron to me, food safe glue????

Many metal containers that hold food at a commercial level use a epoxy or epoxy-phenolic lining.

Jan, I respect your expert opinion on this topic, and your contribution to this thread. As a dentist, I was taught to discourage patients from re-cementing a loose crown with Super Glue, due to possible leaching of cyanide when it was exposed to water (saliva). I remember reading somewhere 10+ years ago that the longer chain cyanoacrylate molecules were more chemically stable (resistant to breakdown) than shorter ones, after the original polymerization. Now, whether the difference is truly significant, given the small amounts involved in dental applications, is perhaps questionable. I can fully appreciate the flexible nature of butyl cyanoacrylate for application on the skin, especially considering the low chance of moisture contamination there.

Food safe-epoxy is in common use in many industries. Various food and beverage container products are lined and/or assembled with it, including for camping etc. We've probably all used it whether unwittingly or not.

Epoxy suitable for potable water applications is commonly referenced as "NSF-61 Compliant".

For additional reference the relevant US law on safe adhesives for food applications is CFR 175.105.

There are numerous sources for food-grade epoxy; some are huge corporations, some small companies, but few of them are willing to sell small quantities of their food-grade epoxy products.

Epoxy for hot potable water is even more specialized.

Years ago I bought epoxy for NSF-61 compliant potable hot water epoxy from a company called Progressive Epoxy Polymers, in Pittsfield NH. Their product worked great inside thermos lids that I was modifying for hot beverage use.