Dear Cheapskate: I’m writing in response to a past column in which you gave a tip on washing loads of dirty potatoes. As a first thought, it may sound like a good idea to put your potatoes through a dishwasher cycle to clean them. Two reasons it’s a bad idea: 1) In a well-maintained dishwasher, there will be “clearing agent” like Jet-Dry that will be introduced in the rinse, and 2) the food filter has trapped food. Dishwashers were never designed to wash food for human consumption. Terrible idea. There are always residual chemicals left behind. Check with the manufacturer. I’m sure they never intended their dishwasher to be used as a food prep device.—Robert, email
Dear Robert: Points well taken. However, isn’t the purpose of a dishwasher to sanitize and present dishes, glasses and utensils clean and ready to handle food for human consumption? If, as you posit, the potatoes get coated with a rinse agent, wouldn’t the dishes come out that way, too? If the rinse agent is properly removed from the dishes at the end of the rinse cycle, wouldn’t the potatoes get the same treatment? If a rinse product like Jet-Dry were toxic, would any of us be comfortable using it to clean the glasses we drink from and utensils we eat with?
