It’s that time of year when viruses are bound to hit your family at one point or another. Some viruses are impossible to avoid, between kids bringing home lovely germs from school, and flu season being at it’s peak, but there are some surprising origins of viruses that you can avoid. About 76 million people get sick each year because of food-borne illnesses. Most of these may be from restaurants and public restrooms, etc, but many are caused by culprits hanging in your own home.
According to the Center for Disease Control, kitchen and bathroom towels pose a big threat to you and your family. Most of us wash our bath towels and dish towels, but you may not be washing them often enough. Damp towels are the perfect breeding ground for bacteria, and if you’re using a used towel to dry off with or especially to dry your hands off on during meal prep or dish washing, your chances of getting sick go up tremendously. The CDC says food-borne diseases cause an estimated 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,200 deaths in the United States each year! So it’s something that should be taken seriously.
So, the simple way to keep the family more healthy? Just wash your towels, hand towels and dish towels/rags with hot water and soap. “If everyone is otherwise healthy, a few times a week for a kitchen towel and once or twice a week for a bathroom towel should suffice,” Dr. John Swartzberg, clinical professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, told the Wall Street Journal. If you use kitchen towels for food prep or cleanup, don’t reuse them, wash them right away.
