Do Dish Mats Harbor Germs

A toilet seat your cellphone or the menu in a restaurant.

Do dish mats harbor germs.

If you have a cloth bath mat and can t easily wash and dry it completely throw it out. Also the tines of forks provide a nice protected hiding spot for germs. But unlike bath towels bath mats aren t washed frequently. A dish towel you know a sponge can harbor nasty germs but a recent study of hundreds of homes across the united states found that about 7 percent of kitchen towels were contaminated with mrsa.

To keep cutting boards clean use a solution of one part white vinegar to four parts water. Health experts suggest that this goes a long way towards keeping bacteria from spreading. For example if you cut up a raw chicken and then use the same cutting board to slice a tomato for your salad you run the risk of cross contamination with bacteria from the chicken being transferred to the tomato. Studies have found menus to harbor over 100 times the germs found on a typical toilet seat.

Specifically the researchers found that towels used for a variety of tasks such as wiping utensils drying hands holding hot utensils or cleaning surfaces had more bacteria than towels. Many people dislike glass cutting surfaces because they can dull knives. Like bath towels bath mats are constantly exposed to damp dark environments bacteria love. Thanks to an aerosol effect that happens when you flush a toilet with the lid up bacteria can land on damp dark places.

Where the germs are which of these do you think has the highest bacterial count. Probably not especially if the bar gets rinsed off between. Your best bet is to replace rags about once a. But those bacteria actually do poorly on those surfaces gibbons says.

Anything that touches your food can be a source of contamination and foodborne illness including cutting boards. The answer is the restaurant menu. It is a good idea to cut vegetables on one cutting surface and meats on another. Actually when compared to other bacterial laden surfaces toilet seats.

Your dish rags are really no better than your sponges.