The kitchen serves as a place for preparing food but can also be a breeding ground for bacteria and mold. Everyday kitchen items, such as sponges, dishcloths, and cutting boards, create environments where microorganisms can thrive. So how can we prevent these microorganisms from contaminating our food? Shao-Hung Wang, an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Biopharmaceuticals at National Chiayi University in Taiwan, introduced methods to avoid the growth of pathogenic bacteria in the kitchen on the Epoch Times’ “Health 1+1” program.
In 2017, a study published in Scientific Reports examined 14 kitchen sponges used in German households. Researchers found that each cubic centimeter of these sponges contained as many as 540 billion cellular structures, with the majority being gammaproteobacterial, including pathogenic ones such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella. The concentration of E. coli in kitchen sponges was found to be the second highest in residential environments, surpassed only by drain traps.
