Dun dun dun!  The kitchen can be a bathhouse for germs and bacteria.  As a matter of fact, improper cleaning or cross contamination can cause some serious health issues.  As a prior salmonella victim, I take all precautions to make sure my kitchen sink, stove, and counter top are wiped clean after every meal I prepare (and sometimes before I prepare just to be safe).  Here are some tips from silive.com in protecting you and your family from falling ill.

Sponges

It’s best not to buy them. Unless you plan on tossing them after a few uses, those nooks and crannies make happy homes for germs. Putting the sponge in the dishwasher and soaking the sponge in bleach is helpful in killing microorganisms, but there comes a point when you’ve just got to throw it out. Consider using a strong paper towel (or two) for light scrubbing. Then dispose of the wad when you’re done: This way you’re not tempted to reuse your makeshift sponge over and over.

Baby in the Bathwater

Be sure to thoroughly scrub the sink (a.k.a. the tub) and the drain after bathing the baby. Wash the sink out with hot soapy water then sanitize with a bleach cleaner.

Hand Washing

This is the most important thing you should do before preparing food. Wash hands under hot, soapy water with agitation for at least 15 seconds. Ideally scrub under fingernails as well. By the way, just because you might use disposable latex or vinyl gloves in food prep, it doesn’t mean you’re in the clear. Change gloves after working with a single item for 20 minutes and never use the same pair of gloves for multiple purposes (i.e. handling oven knobs after working with raw meats, touching lettuce after breading chicken cutlets, etc.). Be mindful to chuck the gloves in the trash between surface contacts.

Managing Compost

Toss your compost collection daily to avoid fruit flies and odors. (Tip: Chuck vegetable matter, used tea bags, etc. into a brown paper bag and add to the composter first thing in the morning.) Rinse eggshells well under hot running water. Accidental hand-to-mouth contact with egg goo may cause salmonella poisoning if the compost isn’t well through the decomposition process. And while human hair and chicken droppings are considered to be ideal compost ingredients, never add human waste, a surefire way to inject pathogens into soil where food is grown.

Freezing

Freeze an item once and once only. After that, food loses its nutritional value and can take on an extraordinary amount of bacteria from fluctuating temps.

Thawing

Rest frozen meats in a deep pan (this prevents juices from overflowing) at the lowest shelf in the refrigerator. Most foods should thaw out within 24 to 36 hours. Dense foods like a turkey need two to three days of thawing. Using the defrost button on the microwave can jumpstart the thawing process safely.

Cooling

Large pots of soup, sauce/gravy and other protein-chocked liquids need to be cooled rapidly. It’s best to plunge the container in an ice bath or store liquids in shallow containers. Messing up on cooling down may result in botulism. And never put sealed hot or warm containers in the fridge. Take the lids off and cool things down on the top shelf of the fridge. (Food cooling on a lower shelf will heat items directly above it.)

Recycling Breadcrumbs

It’s one thing to be frugal but there’s a point where cooks become foolish. Use a little breadcrumb, panko or flour at a time and, for heaven’s sake, throw it all out after using. That’s because egg, chicken, pork, fish or whatever items you’re dunking in a dusting leave behind liquid that rots and breeds bacteria.

I spray the inside of my kitchen trashcan with Lysol disinfectant spray every time the garbage bag is replaced. As clean as my trashcan is (or so it seems), there are certain foods that can turn my recently sanitized trashcan into a harbinger of noxious odors, and I always end up throwing away a new garbage bag with barely anything in it.

For me, the culprits are disposed apple peels, apple cores, raw chicken parts, and the foam tray the chicken meat is placed in.  The disposed apple parts, especially the Red Delicious variety, oxidize extremely fast, causing rapid browning, decomposition, and the release of that rotten fruit odor.  It can wreak havoc inside the trashcan and the smell sticks to the inner walls even when the garbage bag is thrown out.  The same goes for disposed raw chicken, and within 24 hours of being thrown out, that rotten meat odor starts to leak out of the trashcan, even with the lid on.

My solution to prevent this from ever happening again is by placing an ordinary plastic shopping bag in the freezer to serve as a secondary trash bag that only houses disposed food that cause offensive odors.  By the time I’m ready to throw out the garbage, I just take the bag out of the freezer and stuff it inside the larger garbage bag.  Don’t worry, since the disposed food freezes quickly, there’s no risk in odor transference.

I’ve been doing this for a week and it’s worked out rather well.

~ Kin

I was a victim of salmonella poisoning in the sixth grade. These days, I don’t take any chances and I keep my kitchen countertop and sink area as clean as I can. I don’t ever want to go through that experience again!

When I’m finished with cutting chicken, or any kind of meat on my cutting board, I immediately give the board and sink area a good cleaning and rinsing. After that, I go boil a pot of water and pour it over the cutting board to kill of any remaining bacterial stragglers that I might have missed during the cleaning and rinsing process. Sure it takes an extra 3 or 4 minutes to do, but it’s better than 3 or 4 extra hours in the bathroom…or was that 3 or 4 days? I don’t remember that clearly. It was a rough time. Also, I recommend using a non-porous cutting board for meats, and leave the wooden boards for fruits and veggies. Happy chopping!

Aside from the trashcan, the sponge is probably the other most bacteria-filled item in the kitchen. You can play bacteria crowd controller by throwing the sponge into the microwave for two minutes on high heat. Doing so will kill 99% of the bacteria that is colonizing on the sponge.

Here’s some advice:

• Only microwave sponges that are steel-free and metal-free
• The sponge should be wet and free of excess detergent. If there is too much detergent, it can get stinky.
• Heat the sponge for at least two minutes, reheat for another 2 if desired.
• Let the sponge cool down in the microwave after the heating.
• Never heat up a dry sponge!

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