A pic linked in another thread reminded me of something I have been wondering for a while. A lot off bulk foodstuffs are handled by earth moving equipment. I have never seen a motor that wasn’t leaking at least a small amount of oil or grease or whatever. Do these companies have any special means to make sure that we aren’t getting a little motor oil mixed in with our sugar/corn/etc.?
Lots of engines don’t leak. I see them every day.
Many of these vehicles are designed to, or have been modified to, run on propane. I know this for certain.
I wouldn’t be surprised if castor oil or other vegetable oils were used to lubricate.
Less petrochemicals to leak.
The linked picture shows a relatively new front loader working in a large barn with wooden walls and a door that isn’t completely closed. I suspect that the amount of oil and grease is insignificant compared to the amount of rodent droppings, rats and snakes and other predators that live in the grain. I could easily be wrong, but I’d much rather see grain stored in a silo, where there is no direct handling and the oxygen has been displaced with nitrogen.
The picture in the OP is of a warehouse and shows raw, unprocessed sugar. It’s still going to be dissolved, refined and concentrated. (Even the color shows the impurities in the sugar.) Here is the same photo in context.
These machines are lubricated with food grade grease. The bearings in food processing plants have to be lubricated and they also use food grade lubricants.
Here, Mobil food grade grease.
Heavy equipment uses hydraulic fluild to move the operating arms, plows, buckets, etc and sometimes a hydraulic line blows spewing fluid everywhere, so even the hydraulics can be powered with food grade fluids.
A longer explanation here:
http://www.foodmanufacturing.com/scripts/Products-Why-use-food-grade-lubricants.asp
Many of the processing machines in food factories are operated by pneumatic power, eliminating even hydraulic fluid.
Even if there is some contamination, a little grease won’t hurt you. If you took that front-end-loader and scaled its bucket down to the size of a measuring cup, it’d probably have less grease and such on it than an actual measuring cup.