This area in your kitchen is full of bacteria!
You might think that most of the bacteria in your kitchen is on your towel, bin, or cutting board. And there are a lot of bacteria in those places. But the biggest breeding ground for bacteria in your kitchen is a place you probably never guessed: your spice rack.
Research
Many of the food poisoning cases happen in the comfort of our own homes. Unfortunately that is a fact. But new research shows that your spice rack may be the biggest culprit. The Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) of the United States Department of Agriculture conducted this research. Nearly four hundred people were instructed to prepare a turkey pastry in their kitchen. The only order was for them to use basil, salt and pepper to flavor the pastry. What the participants didn’t know is that the researchers put a so-called ‘tracer’ in the turkey. If you add this to the food, you can track traces of that food and how people spread it around the kitchen while preparing a dish.
Dangerous surfaces
That tracer allowed researchers to see how participants touched certain surfaces and spread bacteria in the kitchen. The most obvious places where bacteria have been found are countertops, cutting boards, sinks, and knives that have used them. But nearly half the time the participants were cooking, the tracer was found on the jars of spices they were supposed to use. And that means your chopping board, counter or sink aren’t the most dangerous places in your kitchen. Your spice rack may be the cause of food poisoning.
Solution
Fortunately, there is a solution. You just have to make sure you wash your hands and the jars of herbs when you’re done using them. This way, bacteria cannot remain on the bottles of herbs. And they won’t be able to make you sick.
Read more: Find out: Here’s what you can do with expired herbs
Source: AD | Image: Unsplash