Some restaurants wash their dishes with bleach – should you?

Have you bleached your dishes lately?

Restaurants do it all the time. Bleach kills far more germs than plain old soap and water – and if you’re washing dishes by hand, a little bleach is a good idea. Melvin Pascall, a professor of food science and technology at Ohio State University, works with restaurants to make sure they meet FDA guidelines. He says the most effective way to do the dishes is to wash with dish soap and water and then add a few drops of bleach to the rinse water. He also says letting dishes sit in the skink is just inviting bacteria and germs. The substance that attracts the most bugs is dried-on milk – so be sure to rinse your glasses right away.

As far as your dishwasher is concerned – you can skip the bleach in there. Some detergents already have dishwasher-safe bleach in there. Regular bleach can actually damage the rubber seals of your dishwasher so save it for the sink.