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Do you hand-wash dishes or use a dishwasher?

2/25/2015

5 Comments

 
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Okay. This is a mundane subject, but we all need to wash dishes. Most, apart from the people who eat out or use takeaway containers, need to wash the dishes and cutlery we've eaten from.

The latest news is that if children eat food off crockery that has been hand washed, rather than cleaned in a dishwasher, they are far less likely to develop allergies.

Scientists found that manual washing-up left more microbes in place on utensils and crockery meaning that children’s immune systems became more developed, making them significantly less likely to develop eczema and asthma. The same goes if they grow up on a farm, or have pets, or eat fermented food.

In a paper published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, Swedish researchers report that kids who grew up in households where dishes are hand-washed as opposed to sterilized in a dishwasher were less likely to report suffering from eczema, asthma, or hay fever. With the goal of uncovering practical habits that might protect against allergies, the study questioned the parents of 1,029 Swedish children aged 7 to 8. 

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The result of the questionnaire suggests that hand-washing dishes (and leaving some microbes on a fork, bowl, or plate in the process) may help reduce the risk of allergy development in the young.

The finding is in line with the hygiene hypothesis, which suggests that excessive cleanliness is responsible for a growing allergy epidemic. The idea is that exposure to germs in early childhood is necessary to stimulate the immune system and reduce the risk of allergy development.

However, abandoning the use of a dishwasher could be an expensive prospect. Households with a dishwasher were found to use on average 50pc less water and 28pc less energy than the households that didn’t own one.

Previously, experts warned that while dishwashers can be more hygienic, poor designs and overfilling can leave dishes less clean than hand washing. But if you wash up by hand for more than nine minutes while running the hot water, or use more than six washing-up bowls for your dishes, then you are likely to save more by fully loading the dishwasher up once.

The revelation that dishwashers could result in more instances of childhood allergies came as it emerged that peanut consumption can reduce allergies. The New England Journal of Medicine's findings from the first large-scale trial testing a method of preventing food allergy, suggest parents may have been given wrong advice about peanuts for decades. Barring peanuts and other allergenic foods from babies altogether might actually increase the risk of food allergy.

Ho, hum! What are we to believe? Experts and studies clash in their advice all the time.

I'm a firm believer in allowing young children to live as natural a life as possible, playing in the soil, rolling about with pets, and exposing their skin to the elements in all types of weather.

We have a small dishwasher, but rarely use it. My husband, who is the chief cook, prefers to wash up in the sink. How about you?


5 Comments
Alana link
2/24/2015 07:46:38 pm

I haven't heard of that one but - I haven't had a dishwasher in almost 35 years. I raised my son totally without one. He had dust mite allergies (my husband also suffers dreadfully from sinus issues) but nothing else. I have a lot of medication allergies (and they started as a baby, over 60 years ago) but not environmental ones. Does make you wonder.

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Amy link
2/24/2015 07:55:10 pm

We have a dishwasher, but we also wash by hand, and eat fermented foods AND have pets and lots of dirt, so my kiddos should be safe. According to this study, anyway, Francene! Who knows what we'll hear next year on the same subject!?

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Kristen from The Road to Domestication link
2/24/2015 09:07:32 pm

This is interesting! I'm inclined to believe it may be true, that children who eat off dishes that have not been in the dishwasher develop less allergies. Makes sense. In our house, the dishes get washed in the sink (just with water and a good scrubber) to get the food off, and then are placed in the dishwasher for sanitizing.

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SnarkyMommaWithLove link
2/25/2015 03:34:31 am

I do both, hand and dishwasher. The dishes, cutlery and glassware go in the washer which is currently very old and needs replacing. Then the pots and pans are all hand washed.
Though I do feel the study may have some merit. There is a saying I used with my kids, which may seem weird because I am agnostic but here goes..."God made dirt so dirt don't hurt". Every time one of them dropped something on the floor and then put it in their mouth, I kept saying this. Saved my sanity many days. None of my kids have allergies.

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Anamika Agnihotri link
2/25/2015 04:42:48 pm

This was an interesting piece of information. In indian homes, we do not have dishwashers and we depend on the maids for cleaning dishes. Hence, we must be having more microbes sitting on our dishes than those who wash themselves. This brings me to think we must be more healthier too than. :D

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    Francene Stanley
    From England, I use news items in my novels which you can see below, all linked to an Amazon near you.

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