Anyone have a garbage disposal

[Laurenfra]

Our new house has one. What are the rules? What can and cant you put down there? My GF said never put vegi peels they dont grind right. I thought it was sort of for vegi peels, that and soggie cereal.

[Lyssie]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

I had one in an apartment and I stuck both items down it, and egg shells, and actually, pretty much really a lot of things and it never hated me... well, except about the whole silverware thing, it never really liked me about that... or the bottle caps... but basically any food product I stuck down it it was ok with.

[britt997]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

I have one and of course I can't find the manual for it but I do remember the landlord telling me not to put anything into that I couldn't chew up myself. I have put meat, cereal and scrapings from our dinner plates. Hope this helps.

[Laurenfra]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

Thanks for the help ladies

[Atkid]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

I did get a clog from potato peels. Would advise against them in large quanitities (I was doing 10 pounds of potato salad at the time). Oh and beware your silverwear, nothing like having your good spoons and forks all chewed up by the disposal.

[jimmie 48]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

my experience -
no potatoe peels. no coffee grounds, no egg shells.
run water through the disposal as you grind stuff up.

if it quits, there should be a red reset button on it. sometimes on the bottom, often on the side.

[Lyssie]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

Oh yeah, I forgot about the water thing... I always ran the water with it...

[jimmie 48]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

and every so often it's a good idea to run baking soda through it too. keeps things smelling jsut a bit better.

[julirama723]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

Also, grind half a lemon in it occasionally--that'll make it nice and fresh!

Just make sure you ALWAYS run water when you're grinding!!!

[biogeek]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

Do you know how much horsepower your disposal has? That will determine how much food stuffs you can grind up & which types. Mine has no issues with peels, eggs shells, and even meat. To date, this one has not gotten stuck.

With our previous one, it was pretty finicky. It did come with an allen wrench that you used at the bottom of it (the unit that you can see under the sink cabinet) to free up the grinders with a couple of twists. It also had a reset button.

Citrus peels of any type are great to make the disposal smell nice.

[dream]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

The only thing I've ever had problems with were potato peels and onion skins.

[BigRunner]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

The rule of thumb I always heard was don't put anything down a garbage disposal that you wouldn't eat. Like:
egg shells
chicken bones
potato peels
coffee grounds

Of course, if you go crazy you can plug it up with just about anything.

Rich

[sadie147]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

Garbage disposals seem to me to be an American thing. I've never met anyone here that has one, or knows anyone that does? I've never even heard them mentioned here other than on US tv shows, and when i'm in teh US etc. wonder why??

Anyone from anywhere other than the US have one? are they big in Britain for instance? Are their any other Canadians on teh board that have one or know someone that does? is it just me? I'm really curious now.

They seem like such a good idea, i don't know why we don't seem to use them.

[Miss Phode]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

The only thing I've had a problem with in my garbage disposal is artichoke leaves. Never ever ever put artichoke leaves down the disposal. If you don't eat whole artichokes, this will not be a problem for you. If you do decide to put the leaves of 2 whole artichokes down the disposal, you will end up with your sleeves rolled up, your hands in the disposal, fishing around in green soup pulling out the mess. It's disgusting.

Egg shells have never posed a problem for me. I have not and would not put bones in it. That seems scary to me. And beer bottle caps do not grind in the disposal. They just jam the thing up and make it overheat. lol

[not2late]

Re: Anyone have a garbage disposal

fingers, especially your own, aren't a good thing to put down there either!