You Are Probably (Definitely) Not Washing Your Kitchen Towels Often Enough

You dry a pot with it, wipe your hands on it, and maybe use it to swab the counter. But when you’re done, if you’re like most of us, you probably hang it right back on the oven or dishwasher door handle. And this cycle repeats for days…weeks…maybe months with a single dish rag.

And yet, we also all know that the kitchen is the perfect breeding ground for all sorts of potentially harmful germs. The dish towel, unfortunately, is not immune to this. 

You Are Probably (Definitely) Not Washing Your Kitchen Towels Often Enough

“Kitchen towels are contaminated with all the different bacteria, viruses, and fungi found in the kitchen,” says microbiologist Jason Tetro, host of the Super Awesome Science Show and author of The Germ Code and The Germ Files. These can include E. coli, salmonella, and campylobacter.

Germs grow on kitchen towels because there are likely microscopic bits of leftover food (cooked and uncooked) on your used dish towels.

“Simply stated, the food residues that end up on kitchen towels are food for microbes, especially if the towel is wet for long periods of time,” says Brian Hedlund, a microbiologist from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 

What exactly is on your towels depends on how you use them and clean them.

“Dish towels will build up microorganisms as they are used, and the extent of that will depend on how they are used (the types of soils/foods encountered vs. just water, and how they are dried),”  says Martin Bucknavage, an expert in food safety in the Penn State Department of Food Science.

How Often to Wash Kitchen Towels

Now that you’re sufficiently grossed-out, let’s talk cleaning. How often you wash towels depends on how you use them. “For constant food preparation, cleanup, and washing, changing them every few days would be best,” Tetro says. “If they are just there to dry hands and maybe clean dishes, then they can last about a week.”

Bucknavage prefers washing dish towels each day as they are used, particularly when they get dirty.

How To Wash Your Kitchen Towels

Experts suggest washing your kitchen towels separately from other laundry, so that you can use hot water, detergent, and preferably bleach to kill germs. Finish them the dryer on high heat to help destroy any lingering microorganisms.

Water temperature and the type of cleaning products you use are also important. 

“High temperatures with detergents and oxidants (e.g.. Oxiclean) would generally kill microbes more effectively than cooler water, not using detergents, and not using oxidants,” Hedlund says.

When Is It Best to Just Use Paper Towels?

Sometimes spills are so messy or cleanup is so germy that you might consider reaching for some paper towels. Although this isn’t the most environmentally friendly option, it can be a good choice in some situations. The choice of dish towel vs. paper towels depends on the person and the situation.

“For example, if cleaning up something that is completely nasty, perhaps something that smells bad, has a high level of contamination, may discolor the dish towel, or make cleaning the dish towel more difficult, then a paper towel is probably the way to go,” Bucknavage says. “Or if it is an occasion where you do not want to dirty a clean towel just for this one instance, then a paper towel may be better. Cleaning up meat juice that leaked out of the package onto the refrigerator shelf, for example.”

And if you wipe up after any raw meat or obviously soiled product, be sure to clean the area afterwards with disinfectant wipes or disinfectant sprays and paper towels. Stay away from using the kitchen sponge in that instance.

“The sponge is the germiest item in the kitchen and should never be used to wipe an area where pathogens may have been,” Tetro says. To make your sponge safe, microwave on high for a minute or two. But make sure your kitchen towels do serious time in the hot cycle of your washer and dryer.