Disclaimer: Not for the faint-hearted (neat freaks).
Looks like we were blaming the wrong guy in this “dirty” pursuit all this time, when the real culprit was hidden away safely in the heart of the house.
Your honorary “spring cleaning” is no good- the house is literally teeming with germs. Although not harmful in all cases, your mattress, bed sheets, and bath towels alone harbor several different kinds of fungi, bacteria, and allergens such as dust mites and cockroach dander.
Not exactly a shocker eh? Well this should be-
According to a new study, the kitchen sponge has raced past even the seemingly dirtiest object in town- the toilet seat- to become the dirtiest, most germy object. It is literally a hotbed for germs.
The kitchen sponge- not even the trashcan could beat this guy- has now been found to host a local density of 54 billion bacterial cells per cubic centimeter. That is equivalent to the number of bacteria estimated to be in human feces.
“Despite common misconception, it was demonstrated that kitchen environments host more microbes than toilets,” the researchers wrote in the study. “This was mainly due to the contribution of kitchen sponges which were proven to represent the biggest reservoirs of
active bacteria in the whole house”Sponges are ideal breeding grounds for microbes because we supply them with a nourishing, warm, moist environment — and tons of food.
The study shows these sponges could possibly be home all kinds of nasty bacteria, including campylobacter, salmonella, staphylococcus, E. coli, and listeria — all of which can cause mild to severe gut and skin infections. The scientists, the curious creatures they are, dug a little deeper after this little fact was revealed and found the most abundant type of bacteria belongs to the Moraxellaceae family, averaging 36 percent across the sample. Moraxellaceae represents the typical human skin bacteria, so we bring them to the sponge, where they multiply and can become potentially dangerous. Most of the bacteria they found was not dangerous, although some were.
The three main types were Acinetobacter johnsonii, Moraxella osloensis, and Chryseobacterium hominis.
“Sanitation by boiling or microwave treatment has been shown to significantly reduce the bacterial load of kitchen sponges and can, therefore, be regarded as a reasonable hygiene measure. However, our data showed that regularly sanitized sponges (as indicated by their users) did not contain less bacteria than uncleaned ones.” Said the investigators.
So the next time you are cleaning up after a meal, forget the microwave, and throw that sponge into the bleach water. Your intestines will thank you.
