How much dish towels can be harmful to health?

The preservation and preparation of hygienic food is essential to avoid potential health problems and to maintain their nutritional quality. Especially when the hot season arrives you should take imperative precautions. Moreover, the kitchen should be a neat and tidy place because food is handled there. Poor hygiene can create sources of toxic wastes so you should take care of maintenance and cleaning. The cloth has always been playing a greater role in kitchens, both on domestic and industrial level. At first glance you can’t think of anything bad to dry dishes with a cloth. Rather let the dishes get dry in air on a rack, you do quickly dry them with a rag to save fret. But there are dangers in adopting this irreproachable task as dish towels can be harmful.

How much dish towels can be harmful to health?

When we dry knives and cutting surfaces, food shares space with a kitchen towel, thus potential food safety risks can arise due to the presence of pathogens in dish towel. For its ability to act as a carrier of germs, rags and wipes can be relegated to the background and replaced by paper towel. According to a recent British study, many of the cleaning cloths used in restaurants and large kitchens in the country contain high levels of bacteria, resulting poor hygiene and cross contamination as a result dish towels can be harmful.

It is not enough to frequently wash just used rags in the kitchen because bacteria are present along with hands and other utensils of habitual use, one of the main routes of formation and propagation of pathogenic bacteria in food. These products, although be practical, involve in the production of micro-organisms.

A study showed that dishes rags may contain harmful bacteria. Rags can acquire bacteria from the hands of the people and dirty dishes so dish towels can be harmful. If left wet, rags become a centre of production of bacteria and the next time you use them for drying dishes, do transfer bacteria to dishes. So it’s recommended to let your dishes dry via air, instead of using dishcloths. Due to improper hygiene in the kitchen and improper handling cooking of food can largely cause possible food poisoning, particularly common in the summer, the most common is Salmonellosis.

These food borne illnesses are caused by eating contaminated food by micro-organisms (bacteria, viruses, parasites) or their toxins that get into food through improper handling or poor maintenance. We recommend using a rag or cloth for each use should wash and dry after use. Sponges and brushes should be perfectly cleaned if washed in the dishwasher. The change of clothes and mops should be done often. Cloths used for drying dishes and cleaning the kitchen must be clean. It is advisable to wash them at least once a week in hot water or if possible use paper towel.

Some people do not differentiate between hands rags and dishes rags, which can affect serious bacteria. If you do not wash your hands with plenty of soap for a long time to kill the bacteria, you are transferring the germs to rag you use to dry your hands. If you use the same cloth to dry your dishes, you are adding bacteria to dishes, glasses as well as cutlery.

The objective is to reduce the level of contamination, since when the kitchen rags are used for cleaning, bacteria spread from one place to another and act as reservoirs, especially if they are wet rags. The humidity is a great ally of pathogens. The same recommendations apply to wipes or cloths, considered as another possible risk factor and whose conservation should be done once they have been cleaned with a soap solution or disinfected with bleach and have dried.

Fabric “versus” paper, this dichotomy present in the field of food security arises from the need to ensure that hygienic conditions are met in this area. The paper has more followers because they are disposable, it reduces the risk that pathogens are present in a medium of food, and spread to other areas. For this reason it is advisable to replace kitchen towels with paper. Its uses also extend to the hand drying, cleaning of any harmful particles, including soil, washing area in the kitchen and drying of other surfaces such as tables. This alternative to the textile version minimizes the risk of spreading germs between different areas and parts of the kitchen.