Although many households have automatic dishwashers (actually, they are only semi-automatic as you still have rinse the dishes, load the dishes and then empty the dishes), there are still a number of households, like ours that wash dishes by hand.

Walk down the detergent aisle of your local store and you will see a large variety of dish soaps, along with sponges and other tools to help you wash your dishes. My wife likes the plastic covered sponges, like those of brand name Dobie, as they help to clean off stuck on food particles. Others like ordinary sponges, some like sponges with a scrubber surface on one side and then there are the traditionalist who prefer using a dish cloth.

However, I doubt if any of you would even think about washing your dishes in your toilet. But what if I told you that it could be healthier for you and your family if you did wash your dishes in your toilet and that doing so could reduce your medical bills?

With healthcare coverage still a big issue in Congress and with many of us struggling to afford any form of healthcare insurance, staying healthy is very important. Especially if you have your own healthcare insurance. Did you know that the cost of your healthcare insurance is directly affected by how much you used it in the previous couple of years? The more visits you make to the doctor and more prescriptions you purchase, the higher your premium rates could be the next year.

So, what does doing dishes in the toilet have to do with keeping you and family healthier?

The answer depends on what you use to wash your dishes with. If you use a dish cloth, we can only assume that you put them in the laundry on a regular basis, but what about those of you who use a sponge, even the plastic covered ones?

According to a recent report:

“Do you wash your dishes in the toilet? In a study published in Scientific Reports, researchers from Germany showed just how germy 14 different used kitchen sponges actually were with more bacteria than typically found in the toilet. I say typical because you know the common saying, ‘different people, different toilets’.”

“The team from Justus–Liebig–University Giessen (Massimiliano Cardinale and Sylvia Schnell), German Research Center for Environmental Health (Tillmann Lueders), and Furtwangen University (Dominik Kaiser and Markus Egert) used 454–pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes and fluorescence in situ hybridization coupled with confocal laser scanning microscopy (FISH–CLSM) to analyze the bacteria content of used kitchen sponges including those that are regularly “cleaned”. (I know what you are thinking, it’s been a while since you’ve used pyrosequencing, fluorescence in situ hybridization, and confocal laser scanning microscopy together.) They found not one, not two, but 362 different types of bacteria. And many of these are not just benign, friendly bacteria. Five of the 10 most frequently detected bacteria species had ‘pathogenic potential.’ In other words, they could cause problems and disease in humans, i.e., you. Yes, your kitchen sponge is a huge and shady nightclub for bacteria.”

One of the reasons there are more bacteria on your kitchen sponge is that you handle a lot of different foods, many raw and use the sponge to clean up raw juices. Believe it or not, there is more bacteria in your kitchen and around you sink than there is in most toilets.

Is there a way to regularly clean your dish sponge? The researchers found that many of the sponges that owners said were regularly cleaned were just as infected as the non-cleaned ones. They did treat some sponges by placing them in the microwave or in boiling water for several minutes and these methods did reduce the amount of bacteria, but did not eliminate all of them.

You’ve heard that you should regularly boil your toothbrush and still replace it every 3 months or after you are sick, but no one thinks of doing the same with their kitchen sponges. If you want to keep your family and yourself healthier, I’m not advising you to wash your dishes in the toilet, but it would be wise to regularly replace your sponge, even if it doesn’t seem worn out. Most kitchen sponges are not that expensive, so make it a habit of regularly replacing it and throwing the old one away. It could make a big difference in helping to keep your family healthier and keep your healthcare premiums lower.