Silver has it's usesSilver Used To Battle Bacteria Inside Your Home
Can Help In Food Containers, Clothes & Washing Machines
Sara Underwood
Reporting
(CBS4) BOSTON A new type of container infused with pieces of silver may help keep food fresh when stored for a few days, illustrating silver’s ability to beat bacteria.
Ryan Merenda loves to fire up the grill.
“Usually I love to grill chicken, steak tips, some veggies,” he said.
And he puts his food in plastic containers to keep it fresh. But with his busy schedule, it can sit there for a week before he gets around to cooking it.
“I've used containers before where stuff in two, three days, it goes bad,” he said.
Now a new kind of container--infused with pieces of silver-- may solve that problem.
Silver has been used for decades by the medical community to fight bacteria and odor. And, now it's showing up in everything from clothes to soap...even washing machines.
“I kind of view silver nano-particles as the next "it" product,” says Dr. Andrew Maynard.
So, how does silver actually beat bacteria?
Dr. Maynard says when the silver comes into contact with a certain germ like E-coli or staph: “That will end up in stopping that microbe being able to breath or reproduce, effectively killing the microbe.”
But how well do these products really work?
Ryan decided to put a silver container and a regular plastic container to the test filling them both with strawberries and leaving them in his refrigerator for ten days.
The winner?
“The silver container….they're actually still looking very fresh like the day I bought them”
Because silver is highly toxic to aquatic life, some environmentalists have expressed concern over these products and what kind of affect they will have on the environment. And if you're wondering what the risks are to your health, experts say they're minimal.
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