Sometimes, lately, when I have been using my coffee grinder (not necessarily for coffee ) it has been smelling kind of funky. So i took a look, and it looks like the blades have been scratching the sides. I hope this hasn't been putting metal shavings into all my past projects, because that would not be very good for my body. What do you think?

Whilst it is good to have your gear in good shape and I would be inclined to get a new grinder I don’t think you need to worry too much about ingesting the metal if you are extracting the material ground in it.

if you are abusing a cheap coffee grinder like we all do, then the funky smell is more likely the brushes on the electric motor are burning. you can probably bend the blades away with pliers.

yeah i have been bending them.

The only reason I am slightly concerned is that I do actually use it for coffee too, along with powderizing other herbs to encapsulate them.

When one starts to get a smell of burning electronics from a dc-motor, there's a 90% chance that indeed the brushes need to be replaced. This however could exceed the cost of just buying a new one (depending on your initial expenditure of course). If you bought a "white label" my suggestion is to just buy a new one. better yet, buy two. Dedicated tools for the job at hand eliminate worries of cross-contamination like you have. I do this at home, as I live with someone who is sympathetic to my endeavours but does not care to partake and is a little paranoid about accidently imbibing something. I do it mostly to humour her, but I think the principle is a good one to apply to most things one undertakes, not just kitchen chemistry.

If you're really worried about a build up of metals in your system there are some over the counter measures you can take (but I suggest you get some blood work done first):

http://www.medicinefromthesea.com/site/779141/page/925116

Let us now how it turned out.

PotB