Not rinsing dishes?!?!

My husband also shattered my illusions when I caught him washing the dishes and not rinsing them, the very first time in our home. My best friend, who was visiting us from Houston, put a stop to it by making gagging noises. Then I discovered his Gran, my MIL and my son's childminder didn't rinse either. That is why in most photos of our family gatherings, you see me in the kitchen with marigolds on!! Seriously!

As for the spigot, it didn't bother me, at all. What got me was that when we bought our first home in 1999, we had to pay extra for a shower in the main bathroom and an outside water tap. I did have a dishwasher (no excuse for not rinsing dishes now!) and a single garage though. However, the single garage did not exactly fit my Citroen Saxo. Okay, it did but I found out I couldn't get out of the car by opening the door. That model of Saxo had a fully retractable roof so guess how I got out of it, the first time?

I think that many would be happy to delegate dish washing duty anyway! haha

live and let live 

Live and Let Die! *fireworks explode* 

I think that many would be happy to delegate dish washing duty anyway! haha


Live and Let Die! *fireworks explode* 

You are too funny 

I read up on this a bit, and there are a few theories this was originally done in the UK to save water. And also because of the mixer tap thing. So there's that.

Back when I was waiting tables in a little restaurant in rural NC (how I paid for my 1st degree), one of the cooks always pricked the tops of the pan of biscuits with a fork before baking them. One day I asked her why she did that, and she said she always had, and probably her mother did as well. Then she told me a story that had gone round her family. (Yes, she really did.)

Seems there was a little girl watching Mama cook, and Mama always cut the end off a ham before cooking it. She asked her Mama why, and Mama said she did it because grandma did. So the girl went to ask grandma, who said because my mama did. Now great-grandma was still around, so off she went to ask her why she cut the end off a good ham before cooking it. Grandma replied: "Because my pan was too short for a ham to fit in."

As everyone will no doubt understand, the moral of the story is, we often carry on unnecessary or bad habits because we learned through observation, and never question the logic. I hand washed some dishes this morning...things that don't go in the dishwasher. I rinsed...as I always do. Then I emptied the plastic bowl and the water was yukky with a crap load of sediment and general remains on the bottom.

If you don't rinse, some of that very crap is drying on your dishes. End of. If that works for you, go for it. Personally, I don't want to eat soap or the remains of breakfast on the dishes I use for dinner.

If nothing else, rinsing often makes you see the spots you missed while washing...Or do I miss spots from time to time because I'm an old lady and my eyesight is failing?

Well it's all a bit relative, isn't it?

This regarding a report from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine:

They found 16% of phones and 16% of hands harboured E. coli (Escherichia coli), bacteria which inhabit the human intestines.

The largest proportion of contaminated phones was in Birmingham (41%) while Londoners were caught with the highest proportion of E. coli present on hands (28%).

Dr Curtis explained that they were using E. coli as a marker for the presence of faecal matter.

So while your dishes may sparkle....if you shook hands with someone in London today.....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15284501

Can't disagree with the results of that study.....my EX-sister in law said she didn't bother washing her hands after a trip to the toilet....."because I don't pee on my hands".   

Needless to say, after that announcement, I took great care NOT to shake hands, OR go to her house...didn't invite her over either.

My hands are currently quite rough because I seem to be washing them frequently, particularly during meal preparation.

Oh gosh I am crazy about washing my hands during meal prep. If I even look at raw meat I feel like I need to scrub up to my elbows. Raw chicken in particular real grosses me out.

Oh gosh I am crazy about washing my hands during meal prep. If I even look at raw meat I feel like I need to scrub up to my elbows. Raw chicken in particular real grosses me out.

I've gotten weird about chicken. You bring out say the packet of chicken fillets...and open it.....now you have that wrapper thing to deal with. I hold it carefully by the outward facing side and put it carefully in the kitchen bin.

So now you have to pick up the chicken...which I use a fork for now....and put it on the chopping board (which has little scars in it from chopping stuff - which comes into play later). With knife in hand  now I am forced to grab the chicken and slice it. First contact. But now, like a virus in a sci fi movie, I am contaminated.

So I then shove the chicken into the pan with the now contaminated knife. The right hand is still sterile, so I use it to turn on the stove. With the contaminated hand, the cutting board and knife go into some pre-prepared hot soapy water in the sink. It is important to keep the right hand sterile so that you can now turn on the tap....and without splashing too much, apply antibacterial soap to the contaminated hand and wash it. 

All surfaces are then sprayed down with some antibacterial spray and wiped carefully with kitchen roll. Then the board and knife are scrubbed well...especially the board as I think there may be some bits lurking in the little slice marks (I foreshadowed that above).

I am going to stop eating chicken.

Yeah, I'm kinda the same way about meat - keeping one hand clean to use knobs and things.  But... can't we go overboard with sanitizing and prevent ourselves from building up resistance?

Anyway, back to dishes:  I remember that big drought in California in the 1970s.  We/They were thinking up all kinds of ways to save water.  Not rinsing dishes was NEVER one of them.

I first saw the "not rinsing dishes" thing on TV when a program was spotlighting a family, interviewing them as they worked in the kitchen. Thankfully, my husband's mum worked as a cook in the military and always rinsed dishes, so my husband does, also. Yahoo.  We've worked as part-time cleaners for an office before, and if we had just washed the dishes and not rinsed them, we'd get reported to our manager. So I do think some UKers believe in rinsing.

Wasn't there a report a while back that doctors should not offer to shake hands with patients.  And their neckties were full of germs too.  Casual dress for docs!

Personally I always rinse dishes.  I don't think it's "gross" or necessarily unsanitary -- I just prefer not to taste soap in my next cup of coffee.

Casual dress for docs!

I've always like this look:

Debates like the this always set my teeth on edge. Of course germs are everywhere, because they are a major part of the ecosystem of planet Earth. You're never going to eliminate all of them completely, so why stress about it? They're not even all bad, and exposure to them does help strengthen immune systems. There are reasonable measures of hygiene, like washing hands after using the toilet, and then there's obsession. Personally, I find this modern sanitise-everything craze disturbing.

As for the dish-rinsing, I couldn't understand it either when I first moved here, but now, well, we have only one tiny sink, and rinsing dishes is a massive pain. I can understand why people wouldn't want to bother. We usually end up leaving the taps running and washing the dishes with a soapy sponge, which wastes so much water that I feel guilty every time.

At my parents' home in the US (and in every home in which we have ever lived), we have two sections to our sink so one is filled with the washing water and one is filled with clean, post-wash water.  Every home in which I have lived in the UK has only had one section to the sink which, as historyenne mentioned, makes it awkward to rinse.  I can't not do it, though.

And I use a fork when handling any raw chicken.  Cannot stand to touch the stuff!  Drives the hubs crazy.

The houses I grew up in always had two sinks as well.  Then in eastern Europe we had one little sink the size of a postage stamp.  In the UK I still have just one.  The method I picked up there was : pour a bit of hot water on the dishes to get them warm, wash each dish with a hot wet soapy sponge, then rinse each with hot water.  It doesn’t take much time or effort, it uses very little water – and the dishes are sparkling.