A clean kitchen keeps your family safe from illness, prevents the spread of bacteria and germs, and helps you stay on top of pollutants. If you’re keen to boost your bacteria-bashing regime in the heart of the home, check out these seven tips for keeping a kitchen germ-free:
Non-stick cookware is the easiest to clean as it prevents food from sticking to it during the cooking process. However, many people have learned to avoid non-stick items because of the many news reports revealing that they are made from toxic materials and coatings. Thankfully, you can have the best of both worlds. With non-stick surfaces like ceramic and stone, it’s possible to have healthy and non-toxic cookware that’s safe, easy to clean, and better for the family. For a germ-free kitchen, ensure you get easy-to-clean cookware, and don’t forget to buy oven spray cleaners for thorough maintenance.
A disorganised and messy kitchen provides more places for germs to hide. By decluttering and minimising what you have in there, especially on the worktops, you can minimise how many germs you have in your kitchen. You’ll also reduce the number of places that cockroaches and other critters can hide in.
Materials like cork, sealed stone worktops, and tiles are all great materials to use in a kitchen design because they don’t allow germs to get trapped in the pores of the material. It’s a great step to take if you are about to renovate and improve your kitchen and want to make things easier to clean moving forward.
Meat has a particularly nasty habit of spreading pathogens in the kitchen. Certain germs were found to proliferate quickly on tea towels in meat-eating households, and that is usually because those towels have been used to dry chopping boards on which meat has been prepared.
Following best practices for raw meat storage and preparation – such as cleaning and disinfecting a meat cutting board before air drying it or patting it dry with disposable kitchen towels – ensures fewer nasties can spread through your kitchen.
Fans of natural cleaning solutions will enjoy using vinegar to combat germs. While vinegar can kill some pathogens like salmonella, it can’t take them all out. For that, you will need antibacterial sprays and disinfectants. By using a range of products that kill different germs and pathogens, you can ensure the best possible protection against germs in your kitchen.
A recent study showed that around 75% of dish sponges and cleaning wipes were contaminated with bacteria. Imagine how quickly those bacteria spread if you’re cleaning with those items across the whole kitchen.
Thankfully, you can stop this from happening easily. Buy cleaning items that are washable rather than disposable. This means you can boil-wash them regularly and disinfect them thoroughly. By doing this, or replacing disposable items regularly, you can greatly reduce the spread of germs in the kitchen.
Germs on the floor can be really nasty and diverse as this is where pets walk, where we walk with outdoor shoes, where debris is dropped, and even where pets might have accidents. So if you have a spill, avoid the temptation to just grab your dishcloth. Keeping items you use to clean the floor separate from your other cleaning items is an easy way to prevent the spread of germs from your kitchen.
With these easy-to-implement tips, you can wave goodbye to germs in your kitchen. Simple changes can make a huge difference, keeping the heart of your home safe, clean, and free from germs.
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