Hey Aussies … we need to lift our game. A recent study revealed that Australia is one of the dirtiest countries in the developing world when it comes to hygiene. In fact, our kitchens have a higher level of bacteria than our bathrooms!
The Hygiene in the Home Study 2009 covered Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Germany, India, Malaysia, South Africa, Britain and America. Virology expert Prof John Oxford from the Hygiene Council says Australia has high levels of contamination in the kitchen. Kitchen cleaning cloths are the dirtiest item in the home, followed by the kitchen tap. The study found that toilet areas were relatively clean because they were considered important places to keep hygienic.
Prof Oxford says Australia is at the top of the league in regard to kitchens because 95 percent of cloths and 80 percent of taps contained high levels of bacteria. The study showed that only India and Malaysia were worse than Australia when it came to contamination.
What's up with this?
PS who cares?! and who says so anyway- I don’t remember them checking my kitchen- how many kitchens did they check before they came to this conclusion- 10? – statistics can be made to say whatever you want depending on sample size and many other factors- personally I doubt the study since many people I know are rather obsessive about cleanliness- esp those with OCD- personally I’d rather a bit of dirt as long as people have a life!!
Most of us are so obsessed with saving water- and saving money on our water bills- that they have eased up on ye old cleaning-
Go aussies- get a life and a bit of dirt under your fingernails!
They obviously didn’t check my mother’s place or mine.. or anyone in my family or extended family, most of the places I know you could serve food directly on their kitchen benches they are that clean..
Is it that…err…
we have more Indians and Malaysians living here…?
Now now Richard 🙂 A lot of my best friends are Malaysian and Indian and I never got sick eating from their kitchen 🙂 My friends take pride in their presentation and cleanliness. On a personal level, I make sure my dish cloths are disinfected and toss them out on a regular basis, when they cannot be washed anymore. Actually some bacterias are good for you, so we cannot become so sterile as to elimate those.
Hmmm……I wonder if the study included Prof Oxford’s own kitchen too?
Yet people in Oz probably have a life expectancy greater than most countries quoted. Now this could be accounted for by several factors such as better diet, better medical care or dare I suggest that people in this country have developed better immune systems – perhapes because of the germs we are exposed to in our ‘dirty kitchens’
R Poynton,
Did you know that a study was conducted several years ago that showed that Australian travellers who had a dishwasher got sick when travelling to Asia at a much higher rate than those who did not…?
It was put down to dishwashers killing the bacteria’s left on food plates and utensils that we naturally build up a resistance to.
Smililarly New Sceintist magazine found children who were allowed to play in the dirt got sick less often than children who were (over)protected and played in ‘clean’ environments.
Dirt is good.
High Richard – No I did not know about the dishwasher killing bacteria etc. Does not really surprise me though. Doesn’t science suggest we will eat a large amount of dirt in our life time? 3kgs – can’t remember the figure.
I agree – dirt is good. I really enjoy the process of planting small plants/flowers. Despite having gloves I always take them off to do the planting as I simply get a better feel (real or imaginery) for how much compression to apply around the base. The results are usually excellent. I really don’t mind the dirt or applying manure etc. It feels natural and somehow right – maybe it goes back to God telling Adam he will work the earth when he was kicked out of the garden of eden. Maybe a stretch?
Your kitchen sponge
Maybe you’ve heard about the germs on your kitchen sponge (gross news flash—there may be as many as 20 million microbes on it right now). But here’s the deal: Your method for “cleaning” that sponge may be leaving it loaded with potentially hazardous bacteria that can make you ill. Researchers at the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service found that some common cleaning methods for sponges—soaking them in a bleach solution, lemon juice or water—did not eradicate the germs.
What to do?…. The best ways to clean a dirty sponge, they say, are in the microwave (on high for one minute) and in the dishwasher, which will kill 99.9 percent of all germs.
Your laptop…
You’re the only one who uses it, so how dirty can it be? In a word: filthy. A study by researchers at the University of North Carolina Health Care System found that keyboards were loaded with germs.
Even more disgusting, the average public toilet bowl contains 41 germs per square inch. The average personal keyboard? Some 21,000 germs per square inch. “Toilet bowls get cleaned,” says Philip M. Tierno Jr., Ph.D., director of clinical microbiology and immunology at New York University Langone Medical Center, “but keyboards rarely do.”
What to do? … Tierno says the best way to keep your laptop or computer’s keyboard clean is to gently wipe it down daily with disinfecting wipes.