To Avoid Bacteria Buildup, Ditch the Kitchen Sponge and Switch to a Brush Instead

It’s your trusty kitchen sponge that you just use for the whole thing. Whether it’s to scrub the dishes, wipe down the counters, or scrub your pots and pans. But analysis has proven that sponges may not be your absolute best software within the kitchen. In truth, they harbor extra micro organism than nearly another kitchen software.

According to Markus Egert, a microbiologist at Furtwangen University, in Schwarzwald, Germany, used kitchen sponges are colonized via a big variety of microbes, together with micro organism, fungi, and viruses. 

“There’s an entire universe of microbes,” says Egert. In all, 54 billion of them in line with cubic centimeter.

Comparing Your Kitchen Sponges to Feces

Just to offer some context, this may be round an identical quantity of micro organism that one would to find in human fecal samples. So mainly, your kitchen sponge could be as grimy as feces. 

“The quality of bacteria would be different, but the amount is similar,” says Egert.

In a July 2017 find out about revealed in Scientific Reports, Egert and his workforce discovered that kitchen sponges had been “microbiological hot spots” that “collect and spread bacteria with a probable pathogenic potential.”

Surprisingly, Egert additionally discovered that when you attempted to scrub your sponge, you may make it worse than it was once prior to since the sponges contained upper percentages of doubtless pathogenic micro organism that may be much more likely to unfold illness. 

“We think that this is a kind of selection phenomenon that, by cleaning, you select the more resistant bacteria,” says Egert.

Read More: Wood vs. Plastic Cutting Boards: Which One Is Cleaner and Healthier?

Will the Bacteria on a Kitchen Sponge Make You Sick?

Much of the micro organism discovered on kitchen sponges got here from environmental resources like water, soil, meals, or the ones from the surface’s floor, says Egert. Egert notes that the micro organism they discovered weren’t identified to make other folks in poor health, however that doesn’t imply that they don’t exist on sponges and will unfold illness.

Trond Møretrø, a microbiologist at Nofima, a number one meals analysis institute in Tromsø, Norway, stated that sponges are a haven for micro organism as a result of they sit down at room temperature, by no means dry out, and are lined in meals residue. In a September 2022 article he authored within the Journal of Applied Microbiology, his workforce discovered that sponges repeatedly harbor microbes that come with extra risk free micro organism but additionally the ones that may be bad, together with Salmonella. 

“The majority of the bacteria that we found were those that don’t make you sick,” says Møretrø.

Still, bad micro organism like Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli present in kitchen sponges could also be a device for spreading illness. Even when you don’t devour meat, bad micro organism can nonetheless unfold via uncooked fruit and veggies.

The Best Way to Clean Your Dishes

According to Møretrø, it’s a lot better to make use of a kitchen brush to scrub your dishes than this can be a kitchen sponge. His January 2021 find out about, revealed within the International Journal of Food Microbiology, discovered that kitchen brushes tended to dry out quicker and “are more hygienic than sponges.”

Kitchen brushes paintings higher as a result of they have got a take care of that helps to keep your palms secure from touch with probably bad micro organism. Møretrø added micro organism to each sponges and brushes and located that the micro organism died extra all of a sudden on kitchen brushes than they did on sponges, in large part as a result of kitchen brushes dry quicker at room temperature than sponges do. 

“When the brushes dry off, the bacteria die,” says Møretrø. 

You too can building up the temperature of the dish water within the sink in order that it’s much more likely to kill micro organism when you’re the use of a broom as opposed to a sponge, since the take care of means that you can stay your palms most commonly out of the water.  If you select to make use of a sponge, you must substitute it every time, he provides.

So when you’re seeking to stay your kitchen freed from bad micro organism that would purpose foodborne illness, a kitchen brush is your absolute best software.

This article isn’t providing clinical recommendation and must be used for informational functions best.

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Sara Novak is a science journalist primarily based in South Carolina. In addition to writing for Discover, her paintings seems in Scientific American, Popular Science, New Scientist, Sierra Magazine, Astronomy Magazine, and lots of extra. She graduated with a bachelor’s level in Journalism from the Grady School of Journalism on the University of Georgia. She’s additionally a candidate for a grasp’s level in science writing from Johns Hopkins University, (anticipated commencement 2023).