Eli5: Why are we told to wash our hands for 20 seconds to kill all the bacteria etc, but not told anything similar for dishwashing? What makes dishwashing different, if anything?

Question

Eli5: Why are we told to wash our hands for 20 seconds to kill all the bacteria etc, but not told anything similar for dishwashing? What makes dishwashing different, if anything?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Public Health Sanitarian here; excellent question! In fact our hands and nails have lots of places for germs to ‘hide out.’ Twenty seconds of scrubbing has been shown to reduce bacterial ‘load’ about 99%.

As stated above, utensils and dishware are constructed of materials and design with washability in mind. Interestingly, most modern food codes require restaurant dishes to be sanitized *after* washing and rinsing. This usually involves a solution of bleach water or quaternary ammonium to reduce bacteria by 99.9%.