Hot dishes before meals, brushing teeth after meals... These seemingly 'hygienic' good habits, you may be doing it wrong

Generally, Cantonese people go out to eat in a restaurant, whether it is for morning tea or a banquet, the first thing they may do after sitting down is "lǒng bowl". The specific operation is as follows:

first step

Put the chopsticks upright, place the mouth of the teapot along the chopsticks, pour the tea into the cup, and stir the chopsticks quickly;

second step

Pick up the spoon and put it in the cup and stir with the tea;

third step

Put the slightly hot teacup upside down in the bowl, then hold the bottom of the cup and let the mouth of the cup turn around in the water;

the fourth step

Pick up the bowl, shake it very arrogantly, let the tea wash the wall of the bowl, and then pour the tea that has passed through the bowl into the tea basin.

In just 10-20 seconds, a set of "Wing Chun" can be played smoothly. The lǒng bowl is a habit engraved in the bones of the Cantonese. Is it good or bad? Does ironing tableware before meals really have a sterilizing effect?

1. Can hot dishes and chopsticks be sterilized before meals? tell you the answer

Boiling water to scald a bowl, what exactly is hot? First, let's analyze what residues are generally found on tableware.

Microorganisms that commonly live on tableware, including bacteria, viruses and molds. Bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella, etc.; viruses such as hepatitis B virus, hepatitis A virus, etc.; mold (fungi).

Unexpectedly, there are so many invisible hazards hidden in unclean tableware.

Once unclean tableware is used, people with strong resistance may not have much reaction, but people with low immunity are prone to diarrhea, vomiting and other digestive tract infection symptoms .

Are the utensils used in restaurants clean?

Regarding the hygiene of tableware, the Nanjing market supervision department conducted random inspections on tableware of local catering units. This sampling inspection involved 35 batches of tableware from 21 merchants. It was found that the detergent residues and microorganisms all met the national standards, but among the grease residues, grease residues appeared in 29 batches of tableware .

Can hot dishes and chopsticks before meals "kill" these bacteria?

If you really want to disinfect and kill microorganisms, you need to use hot water (100 ℃) for more than half a minute to achieve the sterilization effect . For the water temperature provided by the restaurant, it is difficult to achieve this condition, so the probability of scalding pathogenic bacteria is relatively low.

Although it is impossible to sterilize the tableware by ironing before meals, it still has a certain effect on removing some residual detergent, grease and floating ash on the tableware and chopsticks due to incomplete cleaning.

Therefore, when dining out, you should pay attention to check whether there are foreign objects and dust on the tableware, and ask the waiter to provide hot water to scald the tableware as much as possible, especially to soak and rinse the chopsticks . When bringing children to dinner, it is best to bring your own tableware to ensure cleanliness.

2. 6 habits that seem to be "hygienic" may actually hurt the body

In fact, some seemingly good hygiene habits in daily life are likely to bury health risks to the body.

1. Brush your teeth after eating

The mouth will rapidly acidify after a meal, and the enamel on the surface of the teeth will begin to demineralize and soften in texture. If you brush your teeth right after a meal, it will increase the wear and tear of the teeth, but it is not conducive to protecting the enamel.

Suggestion: Rinse your mouth with water after meals to take away food residues in your mouth . It is best to use a fluoride mouthwash, which can speed up the mineralization of teeth and allow them to harden again.

2. Washing the private parts is healthier

Private hygiene is indeed very important, but for healthy women, the vagina itself has the ability to clean itself, its lactobacilli can maintain the balance of the vaginal environment, and the pubic hair mucosa can effectively prevent the invasion of external harmful bacteria.

Frequent doubling of the vagina can flush out beneficial bacteria and can cause damage to the mucous membranes, weakening the protective layer. Therefore, do not use the gynecological cleaning solution indiscriminately for cleaning. For daily cleaning of the vulva, you only need to use running warm water .

3. Nosebleeds

When nosebleeds, many people will consciously lift their heads, thinking that this is the best way to stop the bleeding. In fact, this method is very wrong. Not only will you not stop the bleeding by raising your head, but it will cause nosebleeds to flow from the back of the nasal cavity and the mouth, and swallow them into the stomach, causing stomach discomfort, or into the organs, causing choking.

When nosebleeds occur, the correct approach should be to use cold compresses to constrict the small blood vessels in the nose with cold stimulation to stop the bleeding; or pinch one side of the nose with your fingers to the nasal septum, and use compression to stop the bleeding.

4. Frequent earwax removal

Sichuan people like to pick their ears very much, and "ear picking" can be seen everywhere in the streets and alleys.

But earwax, despite its indecent name, protects the ear canal to a certain extent. On the one hand, it has moisturizing properties, which can block sand and water droplets from irritating the eardrum; on the other hand, it can protect the eardrum from sound waves, and at the same time prevent the invasion of external pests and bacteria.

Frequently plucking the ears, the posture is wrong, it is easy to cause damage to the skin of the ear canal, and even cause bacterial infection, and even cause otitis media in severe cases.

5. Pick your teeth with a toothpick

After meals, everyone is used to picking their teeth with toothpicks to remove some food residues. However, toothpicks are not suitable for everyone. For people with healthy periodontal and small gaps between teeth, improper use of toothpicks may not only cause the gaps to become larger, but also accidentally injure the gums and cause periodontitis .

For friends with small gaps, it is still recommended to use dental floss or a dental floss stick to pick teeth, while friends with large gaps can use a toothbrush. Consider using a toothpick unless the jammed item is very hard.

6. Let the food cool down before putting it in the refrigerator

Families cook, and occasionally there are leftovers. Many people will wait until the food is completely cool before putting it in the refrigerator. However, this approach can easily lead to bacterial growth.

After the food is cooked, the temperature of the food drops to 60 °C, and the bacteria begin to appreciate; when it drops to 40-30 °C, it will enter a period of vigorous reproduction , and only when it drops below 6 °C, the bacteria will enter dormancy.

Therefore, for food safety, it is best to put it in the refrigerator while it is still hot, and store it at room temperature for no more than 2 hours.

3. Dishwashing is also stressful, and 4 misunderstandings should be made as little as possible

After dinner, the most troublesome thing is to wash the dishes. But this matter is related to the health of the whole family, so these common dishwashing mistakes must be avoided:

• When the dishes are stacked together after meals, the bowls that were originally not very oily were also contaminated;
• The oil in the pan is poured into the sewer, which is easy to block the sewer;
• Detergent is directly applied to the bowl, which not only wastes water, but if it is not rinsed cleanly, the residual detergent will also be harmful to health;
• Soak the bowl in water for a long time, and the food scraps will start to ferment, and a large number of microorganisms will grow.

For tableware, high temperature disinfection is a common disinfection method. If you want to disinfect at home, the really effective methods are these two:

1. Boil

Put the washed dishes in boiling water for more than 5 minutes to kill common bacteria.

2. Microwave

Microwave can kill E. coli within 3 minutes, and kill bacteria that cause diarrhea and colitis within 6 minutes. But for utensils that can't be put in the microwave, it's not feasible.

Maintaining good hygiene is certainly good practice, but overdoing it can backfire. Some daily "dirty things" are actually not as dirty as everyone thinks, and some seemingly "hygienic" living habits will actually harm the body.

References:

[1] "Can Cantonese people's scalding tableware be disinfected? An experiment with 860 pairs of chopsticks tells the truth". Tencent Medical Dictionary. 2021-01-09

[2] "Nine health habits that hurt the body the most, the doctor advises you not to stick to it". China News Weekly. 2018-03-09

[3] "Using boiling water to scald tableware and chopsticks to disinfect? Don't be naive, the correct way is these two! 》.Health Times. 2019-05-09

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