Keeping up with the household chores is a never-ending job. It also means a constant cycle of laundry since you always seem to be washing something, whether it’s clothes or towels.
All adults know that towels come in many different forms, including dish towels. Our dish towels see a lot of use in the kitchen. Besides using them to dry dishes and towels, they can often become our first line of defense against spills.
Because of their multi-purpose in the kitchen they can often become a breeding ground for germs, depending on how often we clean them.
So, how often should we be washing our dish towels?
As Reader’s Digest has shared, dish towels are actually some of the grossest items within our homes.
One study of 82 different dish cloths collected from homes found that 14% contained Salmonella and 25% contained E. coli.
While it’s shocking, it comes as no surprise since these cloths will often come into contact with moisture as well as food particles. If you’re using these dirty kitchen towels constantly to wipe down your hands or surfaces that come in contact with the food you eat, you could be exposing yourself to harmful germs.
It doesn’t matter if the towels look stain-free, because if its been in your kitchen for a while, it’s most likely dirty.
When it comes to your dish towels, if you’re only using them to dry your hands then they should be washed as often as your bath towels which is every 3-4 days.
However, if your dish towels have come in contact with your countertops, dishes, or stovetops where it could touch residue from raw eggs, fish, or meat, then they need to be thrown in the wash immediately.
Of course, if you can’t wash your towels so regularly, it might be a good idea to stock up on dishtowels so you can switch them out regularly in order to avoid germs.
How often do you wash your dish towels? Let us know!