Your Kitchen Sponge Is Dirtier Than Your Toilet Seat — The 30¢ Amish Fix

My name is Darlene Hollis. I cooked in a school kitchen for thirty-five years, feeding four hundred children a day, and there was never one sponge in that kitchen. You wipe the counter and your hands smell sour. You track it to the sponge, run scalding water through it, work in dish soap, rinse it and set it back down. You did the work. The soap just talked you out of believing the smell. Dish soap lifts grease. It does little to what lives down in those holes. In 2017, researchers in Germany found used kitchen sponges denser with bacteria than just about any surface in the house. Denser than the toilet seat. Miss Doris, who trained me, said it plainer: anything that stays wet, stays dirty. A sponge is a million little pockets built to hold water, and the middle stays damp for days. A thin cotton cloth hung open over the faucet is bone dry in an hour or two. The fix is plain white cotton dishcloths from the dollar store, about thirty cents apiece. A fresh one every morning, wrung and hung open after each use, and the whole pile washed hot once a week with your bath towels. My drawer cost about four dollars, once. Sponges, replaced the way the package says, run around forty dollars a year. In this video I show you why dish soap does not clean a sponge, the German study, Miss Doris and her three-bay sink, how feed sacks became dishrags, the five steps of a one-day rag, the raw meat rule, and the arithmetic of four dollars against forty. I also tell you where it falls short. The cotton is not what does the work. The drying and the hot washing are, and a cloth left wadded wet in the sink will sour like the sponge did. --- WHAT YOU WILL NEED Twelve to fourteen cotton dishcloths, about 30 cents each A hook or the faucet neck to hang them open A small bin under the sink Stiff nylon dish brush or pot scraper, $1 to $2 Plain unscented bleach, 1 tablespoon per gallon of cool water A WORD OF CAUTION Never send your dishrag after raw chicken or pork. Wipe the juices with a paper towel, throw it away, and sanitize with bleach water left to air dry. Never mix bleach with ammonia or any other cleaner. Bleach and plain water, nothing else in the bucket. Subscribe for the old kitchen ways, and next week I'll show you how to wash a whole supper's dishes in one basin. #kitchensponge #dishrag #frugalliving #amishways #homemaking #cleaningtips #savemoney #oldfashionedliving