Rinsing Food

[Gdevine]

There was thread here last week or so about a member who rinsed his frozen food 5 times before feeding. I thought, and so did others, this was over kill...and it might be...but I did more research on the topic and no doubt; frozen food is a significant contributor to phosphate introduction.

While rinsing is time consuming and could and will easily wash away a lot of the added vitamins and nutrients added by the manufacturer I started to use a decantering process to rid a lot of the "juice" that contributes to this problem. And from what I have read in numerous publications, decantering seems to be the preferred process.

I simply take the froze food and place in a small super clear (no soap) glass and let defrost for 20 minutes. I then simply let the thawed juice run off the left behind food product. I then dose with a few drops of garlic and let stand in the frig until feeding time.

This process removes a great deal of the phosphates but leaves the food intact with vitamins which could be washed off in a rinsing process.

I also recently installed a phosphate reactor as an additional defence to high phostphates.

I do stand corrected; frozen food does introduce a great deal of phosphates to the closed system unless a decanturing or rinsing process is not practiced by the hobbiest.

 

[rafa316]

Great insight, I think I might stop rinsing and start decanting

 

[Sparty00]

Quick question. So you take a plain glass, then let the food thaw in it, and you pour out the liquid that was from thawing process, then you add a couple drops of garlic juice?

 

[Gdevine]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9792026#post9792026 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sparty00
Quick question. So you take a plain glass, then let the food thaw in it, and you pour out the liquid that was from thawing process, then you add a couple drops of garlic juice?

Yes.

As the food thaws you will see a small puddle emerge around the clump of food. I use a spoon, turned upside down, to hold back the food then slowly turn the glass on it's side (over the sink) and low an behold all the juice will simply run out of the glass. The food sits behind and is ready for dosing or serving. I also use a small bit of paper towel to "mop up" the stream within the glass left behind the pouring.

From all that I read on this process it IS the preferred method as rinsing food will wash away added vitamins and nutrients that you pay for when you purchased your frozen food. And if you're like me, that's why we use frozen food, it's vitamin packed and great for the fish

And it's an easy process.