Essential Guide To Kitchen Cleanliness
As regular readers of our blog will know, we are lovers of great food. There’s nothing we like more than creating beautiful, tasty dishes from the comfort of our kitchen. But, no matter how great you are at cooking, you can’t create a stunning meal without keeping your kitchen clean. So, we thought we would look into cleanliness today, and go through a few ways that running a tight ship can help your food taste better than ever.
Your kitchen sink
Let’s start with your kitchen sink – one of the biggest culprits for germs and growth of bacteria. Ask anyone about the dirtiest areas of the home and most will tell you that it’s the toilet. But, they are very wrong. In fact, the average sink contains well over 100,000 more germs than anywhere in your bathroom. That’s a significant amount, and unless you deal with it properly you are going to end up consuming those bacteria, which could lead to illness. Make sure you wipe down well and disinfect your sink after every wash – it will help your dishes stay clean.
Your washing cloths
Dishcloths are nightmares for bacteria – especially sponges. Because of the tiny crevices in a sponge, they tend to pick up lots of nasty germs, including E.coli and salmonella. And what do you think happens when you wash up and use an old cloth? That’s right – you end up smearing all that bacteria all over your dishes, making them dirtier than they were before you started. And, the next time you cook a nice meal, the bacteria will have multiplied several times over.
Your kitchen devices
All the modern equipment in your kitchen can help you cook up a meal, heat up your food, and clean it away afterwards. The trouble is, it all needs regular maintenance or you could be making yourself ill. Take your coffee machine, for example. A study in the USA found more than 4.6 million colonies of bacteria in just 28 different machines. So, make sure you stack up well on coffee cleaning products if you want to avoid making you and your loved ones ill. It’s the same for everything else, too, from your dishwasher to your toaster. It can all harbour harmful bacteria and needs proper cleaning, often.
The chopping board
So, you are preparing a great recipe for tonight’s guests, and you use your chopping board to dice some veg, slice some meat, and do all your prep. What could go wrong? Well, quite a lot actually – and it might shock you. Did you know, for example, that the average chopping board has over 200% more faecal bacteria on them than the average toilet seat? Pretty gross, right? Faecal matter is only part of your problem, too. You should use different boards for chopping up different foodstuffs to prevent contamination. Poultry products should have different boards from your veggies, and red meat should be different from fish. Try using different colours for different foods – visual reminders tend to work well.
OK, so we hope that the next time you cook up an excellent meal for your loved ones, you also take the time to clean up properly! Happy cooking!