No, but you would need to give some argument showing that is a hazard. - The vertical in rack plates become dry quickly, and one reason why I don't dry them is there are many more germs on the cloth you probably use to dry your plates, etc. with. I don't know about you, but our "tea-towels" are always a little damp and in constant contact with the air. Do you smear your plate with those germ laden cloths? We don't live in side a sterile bubble - just breathing room air gives your more germs than can grow on a thin film on the plate before it dries. I make yoghurt - two liters at a time, and start the next batch from tiny fraction at end of the one nearly gone. I am very careful not to contaminate my yoghurt - only pour it out from the jar, and use the most sterile thing you will find in your house - never touched by human hand and made white with acid bleach at the factory to wipe away yoghurt still clinging to the rim of the glass jar - the inner surface layer of toilet paper role reserved for this purpose after outer a 360 degree loop has been discarded. After about five batches, 10 liters, despite this extreme care, some wild "bug" has gotten in and the sweet taste is fading to more sour, but still useable yoghurt. Then after good cleaning of jar, with light touch of soap, many rinses, jar with plastic lid loosely on so steam can escape, and table spoon of water in the jar, that water is microwaved away or almost so - not good to run microwave with no load. When tiny beads of water form on the inner walls of the jar, the lid is screw down tight and only briefly opened when cool and I am adding the boiled (and cooled to about 38C)* milk plus starter yoghurt to it. Then it is wrapped in towels to stay warm/ very slowly cool for about five hours before checking to see if it is full of nice firm, but still pourable yoghurt. Often I use zero fat powdered milk, with less than normal water to get the really thick yoghurt I like (Stores call it "Greek yoghurt" and I think vacuum pull some water out). With powdered milk we get for free (Employers give it as part of the monthly food basket they must provide) main cost is the cooking gas! Neither wife nor I like the taste of reconstituted milk, but my the yoghurt bacteria love it. Typically in the three or four months of daily use, before I need to use store bought yoghurt as new starter, my yoghurt jar has been open to the air much longer than it takes plate with very thin grease film to dry. That grease is not nearly as good a substrate for culturing germs as my moist yoghurt is. Thus, the air dried plate is almost sterile by comparison - certainly nothing to be concerned about - possibly a few germs on it help keep my immune system in top fighting condition. * Can be a little cooler, especially if it will be in the towel wrap over night. You can just stand the pain when pressing your finger tight to the covered metal pot when it is at 38C. - of course, I don't use a germ contaminated thermometer to know when to open my sterile jar and pour my sterile warm milk in, add store's just opened yoghurt, screw lid tightly on and shake well. Then back off lid a very tiny bit so CO2 can escape as milk becomes yoghurt.
Right, as long as they are clean. If they are dirty they dry very slowly as the food dehydrates. During that time pathogens can grow. If the plate is clean - that's true. Right. I make beer and have to take the same level of care. Why? Because food (whether dairy, or wort, or dirty dishes) is an excellent medium for propagating microorganisms.
The bits of food left on those utensils can go off and you can end up becoming very ill. Especially with things like chicken, eggs, dairy, for example. Not to mention that it is not very hygienic. Which is why you want the plates to dry as quickly as possible, so that pathogens have less time to grow. If a plate has grease or fat from food still left on it, it takes longer to dry and the fat and food still left on the plate provides breeding ground for germs to grow.
In an attempt to derail this ridiculous thread, do any of you have a microscope? If so, have a look at a normal fired ceramic dinner plate. See the fine scratches that bacteria can 'hide' in? Surfactants like soap, and ionizing radiation like the UV lights you might see in labs and hospitals are there for very good reasons. Go ahead and eat from the floor: You might be better off immunologically, but you'll damned sure have few dinner guests. Of the two-legged variety anyhow...
I just do my best to not use insane amounts of detergent. Pans I fry off with a bit of water if left for a while, but usually they get scrubbed off immediately.
Frankly I am astounded that some members on the thread appear not to have heard of the Germ Theory of disease. One can be over scrupulous, true, but one can also be damn near suicidal.
Yes, that too is among my frugal sins but only for small dry item that just fell there. At breakfast, in addition wife (human, two legs) my two-legged cockatiel, "Sunshine," joins us. She gets walk around on the table (only when it has no table cloth - normal condition when we are not feeding over-night guest) to eat small piece of bread and all the salt she can lick out of the top holes of the salt shaker. (I fill them for her by slamming it upside down into my other hand.) Although smarter than any dog I have ever owned, she is incapable of anticipating results of her own actions so her tiny piece of bread will fall on the floor a few times. After she is full, half the bread piece (then less than 2cm^2) is still setting on the table, and I eat it when cleaning up. - We have been doing this routine for about 10 years now with no ill effects for either of us. Sunshines' wings have never been clipped. - She roams the house at will, but sleeps in her large covered cage at night, but usually during the day finds a perch* only a meter or two from me. She is a strong flier - can even fly straight up, but does not like to do that. - It is a huge, noisy effort, she can sustain for only a second or two - a meter vertical rise. (And only close to a wall - I think she is using "ground effect" off the wall or is moving forward in the air stream she has bounced off the wall?) I also want to note how sensitive to texture the human hand is. As I wipe off all trace of food on a plate, with water and hand swirling over the surface, I know when 99.9% of the grease is gone. - I. e. when the plate, If I turn the water off, is "squeaky clean." I too need soap when cleaning a greasy frying pan - walls limit "hand/water swirling." I cook several meals at once in large wok. First step is bring oil well above 100C and then add four large, fine-chopped onions. It does not have rim limiting hand/water swirling - It has never seen soap in 15 years of use - and germs that grow during the week or so between uses, are well cooked in ~130C oil before the onions are added. Fragments of them that make it thru the walls of my gut, may help keep the immune system in fighting trim - I don't know. * On a chair back that has a plastic cover - about half do.
There are about 10 times more germs in the intestine than there are cells in the body. Probably 9/10 of us die from aging-related causes, including cancer. I eat out of the cookware after I get done cooking in it. Dairy has been pasteurized, but I don't don't eat it or chicken anymore. The only thing that I really have to be careful with is eggs.
Why? Do they break? Sorry, drive-by sniding... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! We are a colony of our body, our bacteria, our yeasts and our virii. I know some folks I suspect of harboring algae. What's the point here?
Those 100 trillion germs in the human gut tend to fight unintentional introductions of new ones. Germs probably aren't generally a Westerner's worst risk, except maybe for the elderly or others with compromised immune response. That goes back to how so many deaths directly or indirectly result from aging.
But you haven't made any logical connection between the numbers of germs in the gut and death from aging. Most of our germs work with us so they can live, too. Please, make a point. Edit: And what the hell does West or East have to do with it?
Watch your manners, please. The human biome in a healthy person boosts immunity. In the elderly, it might not give enough extra edge.
My manners are right where they should be, thanks. You still haven't made your points in any lucid fashion.
Let's try again then. What is elderly? When do our passengers, if you will, decide that we're old and conspire against us? Have the elderly no control over their environment as the young do? And, really, what do east and west have to do with any of this?
Okay I'll try. It's not that it conspires, because if it is stable it is still helpful in fighting new different germs. It's that a person with an aged immune system won't get as much help from that immune system in the fight to wipe out invaders. That's a reason why older individuals are particularly cautioned about Salmonella. Elderly here particularly refers to the state of weakened health from old age, which depends on the individual. West is shorthand for Europe and North America. That is in contrast to what are often called third world countries like many in Africa. The West has chlorinated water, and sewage systems, to mention a couple of things. Given, there are countries not in the West that also have those things. However, to get back to the question of the relevance of the West, most of the writers on this forum are native Westerners, and also Australians. I hope that helps. I'm best a writing in sketchy or outline form, so if you are still having trouble understanding, I might not be able to help further.
We're OK. I'm in Texas, which qualifies as a third world country in many respects, but I still wash my dishes and myself. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Regularly, and all.
Well, I don't have to wash my utensils, and I'm glad for it because I have limited energy. I cook my food in them, which sterilizes them, and then I eat out of them. If a person washes the body too much, that can actually be bad for it because it removes protective oils. Also, the body is adapted to not being washed much. Like the intestines, it naturally tends to develops a balanced biome. So even though we wash often to keep fresh or unscented, it generally isn't optimal for the body.
The neighbors are alright. But life here is pretty austere. Hydrogen peroxide works decently as a deodorant if applied right.
