You can Marie Kondo your wardrobes, organise your cupboards and clear out the fridge weekly, but your stained food containers will still give you away.
Getting deep-set stains out of a plastic container shouldn't be as difficult as it is, but we've all been there: you go to prep your morning takeaway porridge or your child's school lunch, only to find that last week's spaghetti has completely stained your container.
Curries, tomato-based soups and pasta sauces and stews are some of the main culprits and tragically some of our favourite things to eat, so what are you to do? Thankfully, there is a hack for getting those containers spick and span once again.
Writing in the Irish Examiner, Denise O'Donoghue shared her tips for ridding your containers of pesky stains, which is particularly handy in the lead up to school starting up again. And don't worry, there are no specialist cleaning products needed, just your cupboard staples.
She recommends adding some washing-up liquid to the container box, filling it up to a third with warm water and putting in two to three sheets of ripped up kitchen roll. Attach the lid to the container and shake the mixture for 45 seconds, up to one minute. Once soapy and mixed up, rinse the lunch box and "the stain should be gone, as well as any greasy residue", she says.
If you're looking for some visuals on this step, the lifehack has been particularly popular with TikToker and YouTubers - check out Andrea Jean putting it to the test in the video below.
If there's a stain that just won't budge, Denise says don't reach for the bleach as these containers will have direct contact with food you eat. Instead, make a paste with baking soda and water and scrub the container with a brush and the paste. Baking soda is one of the most effective and cost efficient ways of clearing hard stains, so well worth adding to your kitchen press.
Another hack she mentions is to coat the stain in sugar, a dash of washing-up liquid and then filling the container with water. Leave this mixture for 10 minutes and then rinse clean. "The enzymes in the sugar should break down the stain, leaving you with a transparent tub once more", she says.
