If you are prone to tea-towel reuse than this post is calling for your urgent attention. A new research study performed indicates the increased risks of food poisoning on account of reusing the tea towels.
To conclude the study, the researchers involved around one hundred towels. Each of these one hundred towels has been in continuous use for a month.
Their thorough research work reveals that the multiple use towel shows the presence of Escherichia coli. On the other hand, the damp cloth was home to bacteria. Bacteria also marked their presence on towels with traces of meat on it.
The study involved a research team from the University of Mauritius. Critical observations of the research conclude that multiple uses of the towels may give rise to cross-contamination by potential pathogens. Such contamination may end up in food poisoning.
The United Kingdom government recommends some precautionary measures to be adopted at the individual level. It claims that the clothes, tea-towels, dish-wash sponges and the oven gloves should regularly be washed to maintain hygiene.
The scientists swabbed, cultured and preserved the bacterial contamination from such towels. Approximately forty-nine percent of the towels had bacterial growth. Out of these forty-nine positive samples, 36.7% shows the presence of Coliform bacteria. The Coliform bacteria are the lactose fermenting bacteria. Escherichia coli is a prominent member of this coliform bacterial group.
The towels incurred from the meat-eating houses showed a higher prevalence of Coliforms along with the Staphylococcus.
Escherichia coli or E.coli belongs to the group of coliform bacteria which are the natives of human and animal intestines. Majority of the strains are harmless; however, some can give rise to severe cases of food poisoning and other severe infections.
The findings of the research will be presented at the American Society for Microbiology at its annual meeting. The meeting is scheduled in Atlanta, Georgia.
