- Residues of fecal matter, viruses and other unpleasant bacteria are present everywhere in our interior.
- And among the most contaminated and dirty objects, cutting boards figure prominently.
- If some utensils and objects need to be disinfected, for others, simple cleaning is enough.
If you microscopically examined your interior, you might have the fear of your life. Dust mites, bacteria, dog poop residues or viruses: a whole world invisible to the naked eye but not jojo surrounds us. The temptation: disinfect, eliminate, bleach these intruders that we have no desire to see at home.
But is this the solution? Do you necessarily have to disinfect everything to live in a clean interior? Not necessarily. In any case, not systematically. A quick overview of your daily household cleaning.
The kitchen worktop
Coming home with arms full of shopping bags is a sport that many practice. And to store the commissions, many people put their bags on the kitchen worktop. Yes, the bags which, a few minutes before, were placed on the ground, in the metro or while waiting for the elevator. Bags on which we therefore find everything that is on the ground, starting with the residues of animal faecal material that line the sidewalks and come to stick under our shoes.
Residues that we just deposit where we will cook an evening meal a few minutes later. You get the picture ? There, no choice, you must disinfect with a product that eliminates bacteria. An operation to be renewed daily.
Cutting boards
Meat, fish, vegetables: by examining a cutting board very closely, you could easily guess the menus you concoct on it. " So what?" "Some will say, it is never more than a little food. Well not only! The small furrows dug by the repeated passage of the blade of the knife are as many trenches in which come to nest and proliferate the bacteria naturally present on these fresh products. Among them, salmonella. But also the E. Coli, a potentially pathogenic gut bacteria that can cause severe diarrhea and severe abdominal pain. Or campylobacter, one of the four leading causes of diarrheal diseases in the world. Red meat, poultry and unwashed vegetables harbor these bacteria.
A study by the Global Hygiene Council - an international group of experts who advocate for better hygiene practices to prevent the spread of many diseases - has found that the cutting board is one of the the most dangerous utensils in terms of health, since it is home to 200% more fecal bacteria than the toilet seat! "In all the surveys I have done on the house, it turns out that cutting boards are objects that people do not clean properly," commented Dr. Lisa Ackerley, food hygiene expert and representative of Global Hygiene Council, upon leaving the study. This research also revealed that 40% of all food poisoning cases are caused by poor hygiene at home. Hence "the importance of disinfecting your cutting boards with a disinfectant or of putting them in the dishwasher at least 65 ° C", recommends the hygiene expert.
Toilet
We are not going to draw you a drawing, what happens in the toilet stays in the toilet. And it is precisely its function that makes it a place whose cleaning should not be neglected. A step that must be done, if not every day, at least two to three times a week, with a dedicated sponge impregnated with cleaning spray or, for fans of eco-friendly products, soapy water and white vinegar. As long as we are there, we pass a little blow on everything that we touch during its passage in the small corner: the flush button, the switch and the handle of the toilet door.
However, contrary to popular belief, toilets are not as dirty as you might think: "We can sit on them without risk", reassures in his book Your health without risk (ed. Albin Michel) Dr. Frédéric Saldmann, cardiologist and nutritionist. However, in case of gastro (some cases are still lying around at this time), the seat is disinfected, to avoid passing it on to the whole household. Above all, we wash our hands thoroughly to get rid of germs.
We also think of flushing the toilet with the hood down. Why ? Because without that, everything you just lightened is projected aerosol, by the propelling force of the flush, everywhere in the room. If your toilet is in a room that only has this function, it limits the damage (but if we passed your walls in blue light, you would probably have your stomach turned upside down). On the other hand, if your toilet is in your bathroom, imagine all these microdroplets containing urine and poop going to lodge ... even on your toothbrush!
The fridge
Vegetables, meat, fish. So many products that you put in the fridge as soon as you come home from shopping. So many products which, if left in the open air instead of putting them in the cool, transform into broth of bad smelling bacterial culture, they which are frequently carriers of bacteria (E. coli, salmonella ...). Hence the importance of keeping them cool, provided you have a clean fridge.
No need to scour it daily with a lot of bleach: a simple cleaning of its refrigerator twice a month will keep it clean and healthy. On this occasion, we empty it completely and we take the opportunity to check the expiration dates, throw away unnecessary packaging and products that have been in use for a long time and that no longer have a very good head. Then, place in the cleaning with a sponge (clean) impregnated with a mixture of half white vinegar and half warm water, which can be decorated with a few drops of lemon for a fresh fragrance, and voila.
The smartphone
You wouldn't necessarily think about it, but your smartphone is without context one of the most cracra objects that you touch on a daily basis. "Biological analyzes have shown that the toilet seat is cleaner than your mobile phone," we learn from Dr. Saldmann. Let's not be surprised: a recent study has shown that 46% of French people go to the bathroom with their smartphone. A figure that climbs to 85% among adolescents! The smooth surface of your beloved laptop is the ideal playground for bacteria and viruses, which thrive there for a long time and multiply if you do nothing to dislodge them. So, each day, we take a minute of our time to disinfect our smartphone with a disinfectant wipe or "a cotton lightly impregnated with antiseptic product so as not to transform it into a reserve of contaminating agents", advocates Dr. Saldmann in his latest work , You are never better treated than by yourself (ed. Plon). We take the opportunity to also take a look at his glasses if we wear them, and on his bank card, small objects also shielded with bacteria!
The kitchen towel
If your cloth stays in place for several days in a row in your kitchen, have you never noticed that after a while… it stinks? We cook, we wipe our hands, sometimes after having only rinsed them, or not rinsed at all. From then on, the bacteria present on the hands pass over the damp cloth, in which they will proliferate at leisure at an exponential speed. According to the 2014 study by the Global Hygiene Council, “75% of kitchen towels have traces of E. Coli ”. So "the reason your kitchen towel smells is because it is infested with bacteria," says Dr. Lisa Ackerley.
The cloth used for preparing meals contains "more germs than the handle of the kitchen trash can," adds Dr. Saldmann in his book. To avoid turning your kitchen into fields of germs, "wash your hands carefully between each preparation," he advises. And change the cloth regularly, which you will have washed at 60 ° C to rid it of its colonies of unwanted microbes.
The sponge
This little thing sometimes hangs around the bottom of the sink, full of dishwashing water and food scraps that it has scoured with its scraping fir-green face. But it's not the only thing in your poor dish sponge. Often badly wrung out, insufficiently cleaned, the hot and humid sponge turns into real culture broth.
In a clean world like a new penny, we would change sponge every week. In reality, we still try to change it often. At a minimum, he is regularly given a small bath in bleach diluted with water. And we clean and spin it properly after each use.
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- Health
- smartphone
- Food
- Food poisoning
- Hygiene