It’s happened to us all. After a long day you still feel a bit hungry after dinner and you decide to heat up some left overs to eat while you are watching TV.  You walk into the living room with your food and drop down a little too hard on the sofa and hear a soft splat. A bit of your food has tumbled down onto the sofa and the carpet. What do you do next? Do you need to immediately run and grab your stain remover? Turns out, it really all depends on what you are eating.

If what you spilled is made from 100% natural ingredients, such as vegetables, milk, grains or fruit, you can slide down to another section of the sofa and clean up your spill after you’re done eating. Basically, you have some time before the food or beverage permanently stains your upholstery or carpet. However, if what you are eating includes any heavily processed foods, such as no-name sauces, ice cream, canned soups or if it has any sort of food colouring in it, we highly recommend you put down what you are eating and grab your cleaning supplies. Letting food spills made with heavily processed ingredients set/dry makes it next to impossible to get them completely out, even for awesome upholstery and carpet cleaning professionals like us.  

Food Stain Cleaning Tips

Usually getting food (highly processed or not) out of carpets or upholsteries is fairly easy, if you tend to them before they fully dry. Here’s what we recommend:

1. Pick up larger pieces of food so they do not continue to saturate the area
2. Pat the stained area with a clean damp cloth to remove any smaller pieces/crumbs
3. Use a new clean damp cloth to blot the stain from the outside in. This ensures you are not further spreading the stain.
4. If required, spray a vinegar and water solution (one-part vinegar to one-part water) onto another clean cloth and blot the stained area. Vinegar is a great natural product that can remove most food stains.

​If you find that you are constantly cleaning up food stains, consider having your carpets and upholsteries Scotchgarded. Scotchgard helps to repel liquids, making it easier for you to wipe away spills before they create a permanent stain or damage your upholstery. 
 

What If I Can’t Clean Up the Spill Right Away?

Sometimes you’re not in a position to clean up a spill right away. Maybe you’re in the car on the way to work and you drop some food on the seat. You can’t stop to thoroughly clean up the mess, so what can you do?  Simply do the best you can with what you have around you. For example, remove any chunks of food and lightly blot the stain with a damp clean napkin. Any food particles that you can immediately remove will lessen the colour of possible permanent stains from a spill that dries.

Have a stain in your upholsteries, carpets or car that you just can’t seem to get rid of? Contact us for a free evaluation, our professional cleaning services may be able to remove or minimize the stain.