David Hare-Scott wrote:
>
> I have just been bombarded with a series of dopy advertisments on TV that
> together say: if you don't use this coloured stuff in your toilet, that
> spray on your benches, floors and almost every surface of your house, some
> perfume or insecticide in this dandy dispenser, and half a dozen other
> cleaning products, then you are a bad parent, you will be shunned by your
> neighbours and you and your family will die a lingering death of some
> disease mediated by green and purple monsters.
>
> Almost every day well meant questions are asked here along the lines:
>
> - w has been in the fridge for 3 days
> - x was out of the fridge for 2 minutes
> - y still has it's skin on
> - z was only washed once
> - I wish I had (a tiled floor, or whatever) so my kitchen can be really
> clean
> - etc etc
>
> what should I do, is it safe, and will this horrid lapse cause me illness,
> death or just eternal shame?
>
> We live in a micobiological soup of billions of organisms that occupy the
> air that we breath, the water that we drink and every object that we touch.
> Many of these bugs are pathogenic in the right circumsances. Your body is
> covered with them inside and out no matter how much stuff you put in your
> bath, or spray on to yourself or gargle, or the colour of your toilet water.
> The food that we eat and you and I are dirty from the day we are born to the
> day we die.
>
> Unless you are conducting surgery or are dealing with a person in poor
> health whose imune system is compromised all this fuss over super
> cleanliness is doing nothing but causing you worry and enriching vendors who
> know how to play on your fear and your desire to conform and 'do the right
> thing'. Use common sense cleanliness routines - wash your hands, wash your
> cooking equipment and so forth. Do these measures make you and your stuff
> really clean? No. Neither do all the bunkum products
>
> That is why you have an immune system - to deal with the potential
> pathogens. You need keep clean enough to reduce the numbers of the bad bugs
> to the point that the immune system can deal with them and to reduce toxins
> below harmful levels. Simply measures and common sense will achieve this.
> Yes you do need to sterilize things in some circumstances (when even a small
> number of bad bugs will get the time and conditions to grow to harmful
> levels) this is what brewing and preserving are all about. In normal
> cooking sterility is neither needed nor possible.
>
> Those routines taught by grandma or in home economics before the era of 1001
> perfumed sprays were actually pretty useful. So trust your nose and your
> life experience more and relax.
>
> There I feel better now.
>
> David

Indeed. I don't go insane sanitizing my kitchen floor because I don't
cook on it. The floor does of course get regular vacuuming and periodic
washing. I don't care if my cat walks on my kitchen counters either.
Before a start preparing food on any of the surfaces I wipe it down with
Clorox Cleanup which I rather like. I wash my hands frequently when
handling raw fish or meats of course and also wash the surfaces those
items have contacted.

Even if I didn't sanitize the counters before preparing food there is
little to no chance I'd have any problem as the small number of bacteria
that a steak would pick up while I was seasoning in would not have time
to multiply to any problematic level before the steak was on the grill
or under the broiler.

It makes little difference what contaminated surface food touches in the
minutes before it is cooked. It only matters if it is contaminated and
then allowed to sit so that the bacteria have time to multiply. Cross
contamination of food that will not be cooked i.e. some vegetables, is a
far greater threat.

Pete C.