Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I understand that using paper towels can add up but they really are more hygienic, and this can save you money in the long run.
Having said that, if you take the time to clean the rags out well you should have no problems. At the end of the day I boil the rag in a dedicated saucepan with water and some dish soap. Let it boil for at least 10 minutes then drain the water, (esp, if the rag was really dirty) then refill and boil one more time and then air dry. Basically it's a form of sterilization. FYI, use a pair of tongs to pick it up out of the pot! Ouch!
I would not place dish rags in the washing machine, and certainly not with other clothes. The hot cycle is not hot enough and you basically are spreading the germs etc. around.
Dish rags aside, do an empty load in the washing machine every couple of months with hot water and bleach. This will disinfect the washing machine.
Also, it's a good idea to boil a large pot of water every night and slowly pour it around the sides of the sink and down the sink. Drains are notorious for being very dirty.. There is a big bend in the drain tubing under the sink and germs harbor there and multiply, especially if you've cooked any raw meat during the day.
I was raised using paper towels. My dh, on the other hand was not. He uses a very nasty "dishrag" to wipe up stove and counter top messes and such.
He gets this from his mother who would sooner have her toe cut off than use a paper towel because it is "wasteful".
So, my question my frugal friends. Do you think that paper towels are "wasteful" and expensive or do you use them.
Thanks
20yrsinBranson
My husband will re-use a wet gross dishrag forever. He'll never break that habit -- BUT -- I have a large supply of dishrags and towels, and I put out a clean set every day, sometimes twice a day. He grabs what's convenient.
In our house, paper towels are for cat sick or cat poo drops (sometimes the long haired cats get cling-ons -- and drop them on the floor) or patting dry chicken or draining bacon. I try not to use them as much as possible.
All kitchen messes are cleaned with rags. We do dishes by hand and we use a piece of nylon net wadded up -- it's scrubby, but by not sewing it up, I can easily straighten it up and shake the food particles out, and shake it dry.
And we have Formica countertops, so any food prep is done on a cutting board, keeping germy kitchen messes to a bare minimum. If something DOES happen with chicken (we eat a lot of chicken), I clean it up with a rag and hot soapy water, and toss the rag on the dryer.
So the dishes are washed in hot water, rinsed in hot water and set up to dry. The clean wash rag gets dunked in the soapy water and the counters get cleaned, and the drawers get wiped and the stove gets cleaned (repeated dunking in hot soapy water). The cloth gets a final dunking, then wrung out, shook, and tossed onto the dryer where I keep all the wash rags and towels for the laundry.
On laundry day, I wash all the wash rags and towels with hubby's socks in a nicely bleached load. For us -- I wouldn't have enough whites to do a full load with anyway, so using towels and rags isn't an inconvenience.
Frankly, I think people are way too scared of germs in our country. The only people that need to be that wary of germs are people who have sick people in their households.
Having said that, if you take the time to clean the rags out well you should have no problems. At the end of the day I boil the rag in a dedicated saucepan with water and some dish soap. Let it boil for at least 10 minutes then drain the water, (esp, if the rag was really dirty) then refill and boil one more time and then air dry. Basically it's a form of sterilization. FYI, use a pair of tongs to pick it up out of the pot! Ouch!
Do you also boil your underwear each week? (g)
I was a sanitarian years ago but I don't get too hysterical about bacteria. They are out there but in small quantities and in less hospitible climates, they don't do too well.
If you saw the paper that is used to make paper towels (as well as all of the chemicals used to bleach out the color of the news print and other paper), you might reconsider.
I use mass quantities of both. Kitchen towels are generic Sams Club. I think we have about 50 in use right now and they are single use then wash. Of course, if I have just wiped up a little drippage on a counter they may stay on the counter for a few hours. But, every night every kitchen towel is in the laundry. They come out sparkling white from a few ounces of clorox added to the washer. The rare persistent stain results in the towel going into the rag bag for such things as wiping up paint of glue, checking oil, etc.
Paper towels are like $.79-$1.00 a roll. How many can one use?
We've switched to the paper towels that are half sheets, instead of whole sheets. This literally cut our usage in half. Plus I've developed this weird habit of drying off my glasses with them and then saving the papertowel to dry them off the next day.
The problem with germs comes from using the same dish cloth over and over--get fresh ones often throughout the day and the problem is solved. I am absolutely baffled by the idea that it is somehow more sanitary to keep dish cloths out of the regular laundry--and for the record--everyone I know accuses me of being nearly "crazy" clean. If you don't kill the bacteria washing them with regular clothing, then why do you think you're killing the bacteria washing them in a load by themselves? With that logic, they would NEVER be clean. My kids are all athletes, and I have to wash really dirty, sweaty clothing daily. I regularly use either a laundry disinfectant like lysol concentrate (safe for laundry) or bleach with white cotton. I promise you--everything comes out germ free. We are an amazingly healthy family.
My gripe about paper towels isn't the financial price--it's the waste and the cost to the environment. If there's an equally effective and safer product to use, why wouldn't you do it? If I used only paper towels, I'd go through at least a roll a day--that's ridiculous.
I don’t boil my underwear every week but under the right conditions I would boil my underwear, my night clothes, my bed linens, my towels etc…. Low temperature washing machine cycles do not kill candida spores, fungi, viruses, and parasites like scabies, pinworm, tapeworms etc. or bacterias. Pathogens survive on surfaces for hours or days, depending on the species.
Many Americans harbor parasites but don’t know it. In the case of parasites, a yearly purgative to clean out the intestines is done in many cultures as a preventative measure and it used to be practiced in this country until we became an “advanced” society. Many seemingly unrelated health issues like intermittent diarrhea, malnutrition, failure to thrive in children and many assorted syndromes are actually caused by or greatly aided by lack of good hygiene measures.
Sick people are not the only ones at risk. Small children, people with pre-existing conditions that are otherwise healthy, or healthy elderly people can be affected. Even a healthy person can become sick by introducing a pathogen through a paper cut or blister on a hand or finger for example.
Regarding chemicals in paper towels, the benefit of these products far exceeds the risk of these chemicals when dealing with things like animal excrement, vomit, blood, spoiled food and other infectious agents.
Were you as effective in your job as a sanitarian as the sanitation workers who were sent in to clean the schools in the news last year with confirmed cases of H1N1? I got a real kick out of how they were wiping all the surfaces down with the same dirty rags. All they were doing was transferring and spreading microorganisms from surface to surface all around the room, contaminating and re-contaminating.
Other health measures you may find amusing, boil hairbrushes/combs occasionally, replace your toothbrush monthly. Replace pillows yearly to prevent the harboring of mites that can aggravate asthma and other pulmonary conditions. Don’t use crock pots to cook food. They do not reach the sufficient high temperatures needed to kill any existing organisms. Plus, they stay unattended all day in a nice warm, dark environment perfect for bacteria etc…to multiply quite nicely. I also spray doorknobs with Lysol in cold and flu season. You may find all these precautions inconvenient while I find poor health to be the bigger inconvenience.
The problem with germs comes from using the same dish cloth over and over--get fresh ones often throughout the day and the problem is solved. I am absolutely baffled by the idea that it is somehow more sanitary to keep dish cloths out of the regular laundry--and for the record--everyone I know accuses me of being nearly "crazy" clean. If you don't kill the bacteria washing them with regular clothing, then why do you think you're killing the bacteria washing them in a load by themselves? With that logic, they would NEVER be clean. My kids are all athletes, and I have to wash really dirty, sweaty clothing daily. I regularly use either a laundry disinfectant like lysol concentrate (safe for laundry) or bleach with white cotton. I promise you--everything comes out germ free. We are an amazingly healthy family.
My gripe about paper towels isn't the financial price--it's the waste and the cost to the environment. If there's an equally effective and safer product to use, why wouldn't you do it? If I used only paper towels, I'd go through at least a roll a day--that's ridiculous.
I would never wash kitchen towels with anything but kitchen towels. Same for face towels. Same for bath towels. Buy enough to have a full load of each and it makes laundry so much simpler.
I have 36 identical socks that all get washed at the same time and never paired up. They wear at the same rate and so one never feels thinner than another. Toss and replace all at once. Buy in bulk.
My husband will re-use a wet gross dishrag forever. .
I hope you don't think you have just discovered the real reason why women live longer than men. Women live longer than men because they don't have to endure nagging about dishrags.
As for me, I guess I am now immune to every germ encountered in the American kitchen, so I have nothing to worry about. And when I feel slightly out of sorts for a day, I'm probably fighting off something that would have most of you in isolation in the ICU.
I don't even use dish soap in the kitchen. Immediately after each meal, I rinse off everything in hot tap water, rubbing off sticky spots with a scrubber that just gets rinsed out until it is worn out and replaced. If a cooking pot has stuff sticking, I leave it full of water overnight. I wipe my cutting board every week or so with the same scrubber. If it looks clean, it's clean.
I wipe the counters and stove top with a wet rag that gets thrown in the wash, which is done when the hamper is full, and that's not even weekly.
Sometimes I leave my butter knife out for a few days and just keep using it. It builds up an interesting melange of peanut butter, banana and butter.
Last edited by jtur88; 09-22-2010 at 09:13 PM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
