Wow: you should wash your dish towels this often

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: Wow: you should wash your dish towels this often.

The yellow cloth is the dirtiest kitchen item we know.. In second place is the dish towel, because you should actually replace it much more often than you might think.

Keeping your kitchen spick and span is a challenge. Cleaning that slippery deep fryer or with dust-covered ventilation grilles are indeed those chores that you prefer to postpone thirty times before you start. A few handy cleaning tips come in handy.

Ultimate place for bacteria
Take the dish towel, for example. Despite the fact that you might neatly hang it back on the hook after use, we often forget to throw it in the laundry basket. Just because the dish towel has dried in the air doesn't mean it's still clean. In fact, a damp dish towel is, just like the yellow cloth, the ultimate place for bacteria to grow.

Back on the hook
But how often should you wash your dish towel? That depends, of course, on how often and for what you use it. Does it only involve occasionally drying glasses and your hands? Then twice a week is probably enough. Do you use the dish towel (also) for other things, like wiping up spills on the floor, drying the stove, or wooden cutting boards or do you just use it for your daily dishes? Then it's wise to hang up a new one every other day.

Musty
In any case, the rule is that as soon as your freshly washed hands smell musty after drying them on the dish towel, you should throw the dish towel straight into the laundry basket. This smell is a sign that bacteria and mold are already at work. By the way, it's best to wash them at 60 degrees!