WASHINGTON — If you’re somebody who doesn’t frequently wash your dish towels, you may want to rethink your behavior.
A 2014 study conducted in five cities tested towels for total bacteria, coliform bacteria and E. coli. The study found 89 percent of kitchen dish towels carried coliform bacteria, while 25 percent contained E-coli.
The study found that in addition to E. coli, the towels also contained other bacteria, namely Enterobacter cloacae, Klebsiella pneumonia and K. oxytoca.
“If you are using a dirty kitchen rag, you may actually be introducing hundreds of thousands of bacteria,” Kelly Reynolds, a researcher with the University of Arizona, told The Huffington Post.
In a peer-reviewed article published in Food Protection Trends, the researchers recommended “frequent replacement or decontamination of kitchen towels.”
But you may want to soak the dish towels in bleach for 2 minutes to reduce the bacteria.
“Detergent washing and drying of kitchen cloths in the kitchen only slightly reduced microbial contamination, and regrowth occurred within 24 hours, since the towels remained damp,” the researchers wrote.
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