Did you know that the kitchen harbours more bacteria than any other room in your home? Keeping these nasty germs away from your family’s mouths is essential to maintaining family health, so take a look at these five steps to protect your household:
Wipe and spray regularly
There are many places that harmful bacteria can build up in your kitchen, from taps and fridge handles to cupboard doorknobs and stove tops. It’s recommended that you thoroughly wipe and spray around your kitchen on a weekly basis – with a basic wipe up following the preparation of every meal. Don’t forget to wipe over the top of your bin and any appliances that might gather grime, such as your phone, microwave or blender.
Make sure you are choosing the right disinfectant for the kitchen too, specialised kitchen sprays are perfectly designed to kill as many germs as possible.
Microwave your sponges
It might seem odd, but zapping your sponges in the microwave is an excellent way of getting rid of any germs that they hold. When it comes to germs, kitchen sponges have been named as the biggest source of household germs ever! If you use a dirty sponge to wipe your kitchen surfaces or clean a dish, you’ll actually be simply transferring these germs from one location to another. Yuck!
Practice good dishcloth hygiene
Another much overlooked kitchen germ-harbourer is the dishcloth. As with a dirty sponge, using a dirty dishcloth to dry up or dust down a surface will actually just leave that item even dirtier! Allow your dishcloths to dry thoroughly before using again. Germs can only live for a few hours on a completely dry surface. Machine wash them regularly, if possible, and dry on a high heat.
Clean your cutting boards
There are plenty of places for bacteria to grow in a chopping board. Health professionals have stated that the average cutting board has actually got around 200% more fecal bacteria on it than the average loo sea – a horrifying thought. Most people just don’t disinfect their cutting boards instead opting for a quick wash in the dishwasher or with soapy water. This doesn’t kill all that lurks here! For the safest use, make sure you use separate chopping boards for raw meat and fruit/salad/vegetables. Then you can be sure that any germs that touch your raw meat products will be cooked off.
Whilst we’re at it, don’t forget to thoroughly clean and disinfect your fridge, microwaves and cupboard surfaces regularly too! Any surface on which you might place food should really be treated with a bacteria killing solution on a frequent basis.
Disinfect your drains
A bad smelling drain is not just an inconvenience, it could be a sign that there’s dangerous bugs living all around your plug hole. Be sure to kill off these germs using bleach or another kitchen disinfectant and clean stains with baking soda to remove any dirt and grime that might encourage bacteria too breed.
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