It's Just Common Sense, Folks
I'm kind of shocked by a new study
revealing that kitchen towels can make you sick. To me, the shocking
part wasn't the bacterial growth on the towels so much as how it got
there.
The study was recently presented at the
annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology. CNN reports
that, according to a lead study author, Susheela D.
Biranjia-Hurdoyal, senior lecturer of health sciences at the
University of Mauritius, nearly half of the common kitchen towels
examined – 49 out of 100 – exhibited growth of bacteria normally
found in or on the human body. Nasty stuff like staphylococcus
aureus, normally found on skin and in the respiratory tract, and e.
coli and enterococcus, usually found in.....well, most everybody
knows where you usually find those. The point being that any and all
of them can make you sick as a dog.
The study broke things down a bit:
researchers discovered that the type and amount of bacteria differed
based on a family's size, socioeconomic status and type of diet. For
instance, the aforementioned “staph” germs were more likely to be
found on towels from big families and those of lower socioeconomic
status, while the intestinal bugs were more likely to occur among
meat eaters. The logic behind the latter statistic is that people who
prepare meat regularly tend to grab a handy kitchen towel to wipe
down cutting boards and countertops.
The paragraph that got me was this one:
“The bacteria were also more likely to be found on wet towels than
dry towels and on towels that were used for multiple purposes, such
as wiping utensils, drying hands and cleaning surfaces, according to
the study.”
Wait a minute. The wet towel thing is
obvious and I get that part. But what's with the “used for multiple
purposes” thing? “Wiping utensils, drying hands and cleaning
surfaces?” You mean there are people out there
dum......errrr....uninformed enough to use the same towel for all
that? My mother the clean freak who would even wash and sanitize
paper towels before she threw
them into a carefully compartmentalized and segregated trash can –
wet stuff in one plastic bag, dry stuff in another; food scraps in
one container, paper trash in another – is absolutely spinning in
her grave at the thought!
In my restaurant
kitchen, there was a progression. In the first place, you can't use
“dish towels” to dry dishes in a restaurant kitchen. Nope. Health
code violation. Points off your score. If you don't have a dishwasher
with a heat cycle, hand washed dishes have to air dry on racks.
That's always one of the hardest things to get across to new
employees who are used to using “dish towels” at home. But we did
use towels to wipe down surfaces. Once you used a “clean” towel
to wipe down a countertop or a table a few times, the by then “dirty”
towel moved down the ladder to be used to wipe up spills on the
floor. Then it went into the laundry hamper. Towels for drying hands
were always of the “sanitary roll” type, or came out of a paper
towel dispenser mounted at the handwashing sink.
My home kitchen
works pretty much the same way. I usually air dry dishes in a dish
rack just because I'm lazy. But if I do dry them with a towel, it's a
dedicated “dish” towel. It gets used for dishes and nothing else.
I won't even dry my hands on a “dish” towel; I have “hand”
towels looped over the oven door handle and on a metal towel rack
that fits over one of my cabinet drawers. “Dish” towels are for
dishes and “hand” towels are for hands. I have special bar mops –
thick, super-absorbent terry cloth towels designed for the purpose –
hanging around to wipe down countertops, stove top, appliances, etc.
And I either use dedicated “floor rags” or dirty dish or hand
towels or bar mops to wipe up floor spills and such, depending on how
nasty the spill is. I can't wrap my brain around people using the
same towel for everything. Although I know they do it. They're the
same ones who use filthy, smelly, raggedy dishcloths over and over
again and then leave them wadded up wet beside the sink in an open
invitation to any nearby bacteria to set up shop and party. Those are
also the people in whose houses I will not eat anything.
Another
story I was reading on the subject inferred that some people were not
regularly changing out their kitchen towels; as in they were using
them for weeks without
washing them. Yikes!
There have been
numerous articles published about changing out your dishcloths or
sponges or scrubbers or whatever every couple of days at most. But I
guess dish towels kind of get overlooked. Okay, so lets look. I do a
load of “kitchen laundry” every week. Towels, dishcloths, aprons,
bar mops – anything made of fabric that I use in my kitchen – go
in the wash on “hot” with bleach every week. Potholders and oven
mitts get the treatment from time to time, as well. And I don't do
endurance testing to see how long I can go without washing something.
If a dish towel or hand towel or whatever has seen extra heavy use
for some reason, into the laundry hamper it goes and a fresh one
comes out of the linen drawer. I don't try to “make them last”
for a whole week.
I also keep a spray
bottle of the same sanitizing solution I used in my restaurants (and
still use for catering) in my home kitchen to wipe down surfaces so
I'm not just spreading germs around with those nice clean towels. Add
about a quarter teaspoon of liquid chlorine bleach to two cups of
water. Pour into a one quart spray bottle. This yields a mixture
that equals approximately the 100ppm concentration recommended by
most health departments for low level disinfection.
The FDA says: “Consider using paper
towels to clean up kitchen surfaces. Then, throw the germs away with
the towels! If you use cloth towels, launder them often, using hot
water. Note: Don't dry your hands with a towel that was previously
used to clean up raw meat, poultry, or seafood juices. These raw
juices may contain harmful bacteria that can spread to your hands and
throughout the kitchen.” (The agency also says, “keep pets off
kitchen counters and away from food,” but that's a topic for
another time.) I can get behind the paper towel notion, too, but many
environmentally conscious folks are vehemently opposed to it. When I
do use paper towels, I use the heavy-duty, thick, absorbent variety.
Yes, they are more expensive, but they are cost effective and
relatively “greener” because you need fewer of them to do the
job: one or two sheets as opposed to half a roll of the cheap dollar
store brands. But I'm cheap too and I tend to limit the use of paper
towels to food prep and use cloth towels for cleanup.
It's just common sense, folks. I know
someone who changes out bath towels and wash cloths after every
single use. Germs, you know. Yet that same person will leave a dish
towel on the counter by the sink until it resembles a battle flag
from the field at Gettysburg. Go figure.
Bottom line: heed the advice of
scientists, the FDA, and yours truly. Wash your dish towels
regularly. Heat dry or air dry your dishes as much as possible, but
if you do take a towel to a fork, plate, or glass, make sure it's not
the same one you just used to wipe the floor. Or the one you used to
wipe your hands after you handled raw chicken. Or the one with which
you wiped your toddler's nose. (I swear, I've seen it done.)
Multitasking is fine for some things but not for kitchen towels. Try
my method of separate towels for separate tasks. Or don't. After all,
dealing with food-borne illnesses will give you lots of opportunities
to check out the condition of your bathroom towels, too.
Just sayin'.
