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| A lovely, fresh salad? Or a stew pot of bacteria? |
Taking care of a loved one with a compromised immune system means relearning a lot of things you thought you knew.
Recently I heard that 85% of the bacteria contaminating foods in this country didn’t even exist 25 years ago. Unless you are able to eat locally grown foods, which is tough to do in winter, almost all your groceries are processed in factory farm storage facilities that serve the entire country. When bacteria arrive at the warehouse from one contaminated source, they multiply and spread there and are delivered to supermarkets across the country. We bring bacteria into our homes by the grocery bag full. And, if we’re not careful, we can compound the problem by growing our own.
325,000 Americans are hospitalized each year with food-borne illnesses.* For the most part, these are people with healthy immune systems. Those with lowered immunity are less able to fight off bacteria and are at higher risk of developing complications because of it. Think of the number of food-borne illnesses that must go unreported because they are mild cases or the symptoms are wrongly attributed to an intestinal virus. Altogether, “food poisoning,” as it used to be called, is a big problem that is growing, in every sense of the word. We can preclude bacteria from setting up colonies in our kitchens by following some techniques practiced by commercial kitchens and working in tips from the medical world.
You’ve all heard the maxim “Keep it hot, keep it cold, or don’t keep it” with regard to food storage. But you have to consider not only the food, but everything the food has touched: the cutting board, the paring knife handle (it’s not sufficient to wash the blade) – every tool that you used once and set down to be used again later, the cupboard door knob that you touched with contaminated fingers, the inside of the refrigerator. If you’re like me and use a dishwasher with a good hot water cycle, your dishes are clean enough, but that means you’re not filling the sink with hot soapy water every day. You may have a breeding ground there.
Wash the sinks, sink strainers and faucet handles every time you clean up after preparing food. At least a few times a week, spray it with a bleach solution and give it an extra careful going over. Once a day, spray cupboards and drawer pulls with anti-bacterial cleaner. Clean the refrigerator regularly, especially the drawers where you’ve stored unwashed produce. Needless to say, meat should always be kept in a washable container, not directly on a refrigerator shelf. Use paper plates in place of a cutting board. Use paper towels instead of fabric dish cloths and dish towels.
It’s not an environmentally friendly way of living, but it’s safe. Under the circumstances, it’s what we have to do now. We’ll do penance for the environment in other ways.
If this blog post has kept you on the edge of your seat, just wait till you see my series on cleaning bathrooms!
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| Have you washed your hands??? |
*According to U.S. News and World Report, December 2010.
Well, I can safely say that being such a germophobe, I'm already pretty much there. I already do most of these things. Another little thing I do is to boil hot water and then pour it over already washed cutting boards and sinks. And don't use the plastic or wood boards! I have three cutting boards. One for veggies, one for meats and one for "any other". Marble. AND...before opening those cans-soda, soups, anything-WASH them first! I keep a bottle of bleach solution both in the bathroom and kitchen. I use those for wiping down the counters-daily. I have a little "recipe" for washing those fruits and veggies that I will send you too. I've always figured, even if they aren't bringing in germs from the farm or factory, think of all the peeps picking them up and handling them at the store...eeewww!
ReplyDeleteAnd by the way...you're lookin' good Mrs. Merrill! Miss you.
OK, I'm off to clean my refrigerator RIGHT NOW!
ReplyDeleteDO NOT BRING ROGER ANYWHERE NEAR MY HOUSE! Okay? I RARELY clean and I don't even own any anti-bacterial cleaning products, etc. In fact, I don't own many cleaning products, period. Bleach? What's that? My joke this summer was we bought a new refrigerator because I didn't want to clean the old one--which hadn't been cleaned in easily 5 or 6 YEARS.
ReplyDeleteSo, I think it's safe to say Howard Hughes and I would NOT have gotten along!
All that said, I'd gladly take Candi moving in for a week! What week looks good for you, Candi? :)
Ha! Clare & I have talked about this before. And Clare, you've seen my place. It's not spotless by any stretch of the imagination. I've just always had a thing about certain "things" and it's gotten worse from working at the home. Jackson and I both probably wash our hands far too much. We've both had problems with them getting so dry they crack and bleed at times. So it's probably a bit overboard. I'm sure it's something I've passed on to him. I can't touch the "flusher" in a public rest room. I use my foot. I usually try to open doors with my elbow, or pull my sleeve down so my hand isn't touching the door knob. I suppose if I was ever tested, they'd say I was OCD. Sometimes I wish I WASN'T as paranoid as I am. When I wash dishes by hand, I've had people that put their hands in the water, jerk them back out and ask how I can stand to have it so hot. Some of this stuff I have done since I was very young and probably had that passed on from my mother (whose house is one of those you are afraid to sit down in or step into it's so clean!).
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