Kitchen Hygiene Tips: How To Clean Dish Cloths And Keep Germs Away

Kitchens can have all kinds of germs and bacteria. These can come from humans, pets, raw food or even through plants, meaning that a high proportion of foodborne infections are acquired directly within the household. An important cleaning tool in most kitchens is the tea towel, also known as a dishcloth. Usually made of cotton or linen, they are used to dry wet hands and kitchen equipment, as well as to wipe surfaces – so they play an important role in kitchen hygiene. But, because hands and raw fresh produce are often full of a variety of germs, tea towels are at risk of bacterial growth when they come into contact.

Indeed, in one study in which tea towels were used to wipe a chopping board used to prepare raw chicken, salmonella (which can cause diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps) was found in 90% of the population. The clothes also became contaminated with salmonella. It has been observed in many studies that tea towels spread germs commonly present in the home kitchen. One study sampled 100 used tea towels and found a notable presence of Staphylococcus aureus, which is often found on the skin but is also a pathogen that can cause boils, joint infections, and even Can cause many problems like pneumonia.

Tea towels are good at catching germs, which is important because another study of 46 kitchens found a wide range of harmful bacterial species living on kitchen surfaces that are frequently cleaned with tea towels. Surfaces include Enterobacter (which can cause respiratory tract infections, skin infections, urinary tract infections, and heart, bone, and eye infections), Klebsiella (which is associated with serious infections of the lungs, bladder, brain, and blood ) found. ), and E. coli (which can cause stomach upset and urinary tract infections).

Many of the kitchens also contained Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can cause lung infections. Bacillus subtilis, which can cause eye infections and boils, was also found in more than half of the kitchens. And staphylococcus and micrococcus were found in all kitchen samples. In people with weakened immune systems, Micrococcus has been linked to lung infections, such as pneumonia and septic arthritis, as well as eye and heart infections.

The levels and types of germs found on these tea towels were affected by how they were used, how often they were washed, and how long they were dried. Washing tea towels in hot water at 60°C has been found to reduce the level of bacteria spread from later contaminated clothing, which is important because the likelihood of infection is often related to how much bacteria you ingest. Are.

clean your clothes

These studies suggest that tea towels are prone to infection and that most kitchen cloths may be contaminated with high levels of bacteria. Then, it is easy for these germs to be transferred to food preparation surfaces, potentially causing serious food poisoning.
The risk of infection from using tea towels is well recognized by the medical profession. In fact, fabric tea towels are not allowed in UK hospitals. Instead, the patient’s crockery, cutlery, and food preparation work surfaces are cleaned and dried with disposable paper towels.

One reason tea towels act as such good microorganism reservoirs is that they are often damp because they are used to absorb moisture and clean up spills. Water enables germs to thrive. And so a damp tea towel left out in a hot kitchen provides an ideal environment for bacteria to thrive. This is especially the case if traces of food are also present.

So what’s the best way to clean your used tea towels? Tea towels that are hung to air dry faster than those that are laid and squeezed into balls, which can affect the bacteria levels in the towels. Laboratory experiments covering tea towels in Salmonella found that the bacteria multiplied in all types of clothing that were folded. But if the tea towels were hung to dry at room temperature for 24 hours, the bacteria levels dropped by 1,000 times.

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reduce germs

To avoid spreading kitchen germs from tea towels, it is recommended that cloths be washed regularly and allowed to dry completely before re-using them when they get wet. Using disposable cloths or paper towels for highly contaminated areas, such as areas with raw meat, can also help prevent the spread of bacteria.

, The UK Government recommends that tea towels should be hand cleaned by washing them in a washing machine with laundry detergent on a hot wash cycle of 90°C.

Laundry detergents contain hard water softeners, surfactants (which increase the wetting effect of water by lowering its surface tension), detergents, bleaches, and digestive enzymes. Food stains on tea towels will likely be a mixture of proteins, fats, and carbohydrates, which are broken down by enzymes.

And the detergent helps dissolve those stains, which are released into the wash water. Since proteins and fats are also involved in the attachment of bacteria to surfaces, laundry detergent will help break them apart and thus reduce the level of bacteria in the tea towels. If you hand wash the tea towels, be sure to remove any obvious food and dirt by washing them in hot water with detergent before disinfecting. After washing, you can clean off any remaining germs using boiling water or a disinfectant such as bleach according to the manufacturer’s directions.

Ironing the tea towel at a hot temperature will also effectively clean it as the temperature is above 90°C. You should store your washed tea towels in a dry, clean area, away from any raw food and dirty hands.