Who separates meats in their fridge and on their cutting boards, dates the opening times of items, etc? Similarly, a home dishwasher doesn't actually sterilize anything, which is why its safer AFA chemicals. It's just providing the hope that small doses of something you've already interacted with won't cause sickness.
But once you've been sick from some contamination you won't really notice it, but guests might. Some restaurants run the same way as typical homes, and will be universally contaminated and someone who eats out regularly with variety is going to have similar consequences to being a guest in houses all over town..
Dating opening times is going too far IMO: if it's open, and longer then 7 days in the fridge you toss it. Which is to say, if you can't remember when you opened it, that's also a good sign not to eat it.
It's not like any of this is hard to do.
Although this:
> a home dishwasher doesn't actually sterilize anything,
is not really a statement on anything. "Sterilize" is a very specific term which means you did a process which is guaranteed to kill extant micro-organisms and viruses. But the reason hand-washing is so effective at preventing disease is that it doesn't necessarily kill them, but soap will wash them off surfaces very effectively. They're still alive, but they're in the sewer. Commercial dish washers aren't designed to sterilize either - they're designed to get things clean as fast as conceivably possible (i.e. single digit minutes, not hours).
The converse of this is the problem with old rice: reheating rice is periless, because while it will kill the bacterial contamination, the toxins remain and that's what will make you feel sick if you eat it.
If I don't want to get sick, I store stuff reasonably, sniff before cooking, and don't hold things past date/days open.
A restaurant wanting to make money is incentivized against being "better safe than sorry" on throwing away stuff rather than serving it. They care more about complying with the letter of the law with respect to passing health inspections well enough. If they occasionally get someone sick, its not always probable that the customer attributes it back to them, and still.. may return anyway.
For the "you get food poisoning at home all the time and don't know it / its just like flu" crowd.. I'd argue you maybe have not had the most severe, rapid onset forms that you can get from a restaurant.
People who have had botulism know that isn't real food poisoning..
I hope you don't strictly follow that rule or you'll throw away loads of absolutely edible stuff. Pickles, ketchup, mustard, jams, ... Yoghurt is often still fine after a week. My thing of miso has been open for months.
Anything you'd normally consider to need to be refrigerated though starts from the "when did you open it" sort of consideration though - meat and vegetables both have about a 1 week timer on them in my experience (though you'll usually know by smell in advance). But "smells okay" isn't a chance I'm going to take unless I'm in a survival situation - and you need to buy groceries weekly anyway.
What helps a ton is having a cheap chest freezer though - they're much more efficient on power, and you can store a ton of stuff in there for ages and just defrost as you go.
What do you consider to be sterilization? Even my old dishwasher, which was made in 2002, has a sani-rinse option that adds a 10 minute rinse with 160℉ (71℃) water which the manual says satisfies the NSF Protocol P153 for sanitizing in household spray-type dishwashers. Unfortunately I can't find a free copy of NSF Protocol P153 to see what that actually accomplishes.
Looking at a few dishwashers that I'd consider to replace mine when it eventually breaks--and I'm a cheapskate so that basically means what I can find at Home Depot or Lowes or Best Buy in the $500-800 range rather--it looks like sanitizing or high temperature cycles are still common, although nowadays what they are saying they meet is "NSF/ANSI 184: Residential Dishwashers" [1].
That requires a minimum 5-log (99.999%) reduction of bacteria and a final rinse temperature of at least 150℉. The 5-log bacteria reduction is only required if you run the sanitizing cycle.
For commercial dishwashers the required reduction in bacteria is the same, although they are required to reach at least 165℉ rinse if they are stationary rack single-temp dishwashers or 180℉ otherwise. For commercial dishwashers the 5-log reduction is required on the regular cycles.
[1] https://www.nsf.org/consumer-resources/articles/dishwasher-c...
Yes, having a dishwasher program that thoroughly rinses at 90 °C for 10 minutes will kill most germs in there.
I think this leaves out a very important aspect: how you use your dishwasher has a big impact.
I claim that programs at significantly lower maximum temperatures (say 50 °C) can be safely used as long as people are careful about (a) the state of the items they put in their dishwasher and (b) how they position the items.
If you put in items with lots of and/or big food scraps on them you increase the risk of some of the material being left in some sieve or getting caught in the tray. All material that's left for the final rinse will populate the water with some particles which then cover all items.
Same with dried crusts that only get soaked but not removed by the program.
And also the same with items that are inapropriately positioned, so that food residues aren't reached by the water jets, or so they topple over and fill with water which then also spoils the final rinse.
I'd bet if you reliably prevent the above mentioned things from happening by being careful about which items you put in and how you position them, you can use a low temperature program without any risk at all.
And everyone who owns that model uses that option every time? For the industry washers there's probably less options to bypass sanitation.
It's merely statistical matters that make it less relevant how often people insufficiently sanitize at home. If some are actually immuno compromised and kill themselves that's still nothing like single Burger joint to a public health policy.
(I seem to have triggered the HN "everyone has my current OCDs and doesn't behave like my college roommates" on this thread.)
Don’t let me start with a stories from a friend who worked as an interim manager at Burger King. It’s scary! But even worse are smaller industrial kitchens without strong control from state and franchise representatives.
Not to mention that the rate of failure of restaurants implies the probability that any given restaurant is in some amount of financial strain and maybe pushing the limits on ingredient freshness & cleaning standards...
Isn't bacteria growth exponential (up until you reach the maximum number that your environment can support)? And don't they often have insane doubling times (something like 20 minutes for salmonella and e. coli)?
Given that I'd wonder if cleaning every 3 months actually makes much difference, except for maybe a couple days right after you clean. Past that any that were missed in the cleaning will have repopulated back to whatever levels they were before the cleaning.
Such values are AFAIK under ideal conditions, usually meaning on a wet surface or submerged in a watery/damp environment at a mild temperature, with sufficient nutrients .. not really how most people store things like chopping boards or other kitchen equipment.
What does that mean to you? That it will happen to an individual multiple times a year? That it will occur in a large city a few times a year?
The risk is hugely overblown in my opinion.
Home dishes don't need to be sterile, they just need food and grease removed.
There are 48 million cases for 350 million Americans a year. Experts say most involve factors at home, I.e. improperly stored leftovers involve both systems, but are attributable to the at home fault..
> The risk is hugely overblown in my opinion
Sure, only about 3000 Americans die a year of food poisoning and most of them will have had other contributing health factors..
I simply reject this idea that a person who thinks food safety is easy is doing food safety really well.
Restaurants have additional complications and risks of not knowing the health of their guests, etc, and having a high volume of food and therefore bacteria passing through. The average home cook scaling up their behaviors would be much more dangerous and doesn't recognize the indicators of mistakes that would kill one of those unlucky 3000 as a house guest.
I think that is a high estimate of incidence and mortality, but even taken at face value, I still wouldnt call that common. we are talking about a once every 5 year event, or if we apply a pareto (20%/80%) assumption, once every 25 years for a normal healthy person.
For a normal healthy person, I think getting some diarrhea once every 25 (or 5) years isn't a big deal. This tracks with my anecdotal evidence, where most adults can recall having food poisoning one or two times. This, based on my risk tolerance, doesnt even rank on my list of concerns.
