How often should you wash your towels?
Is once a week enough to wash your towels? Or, like some, once a month?
Perhaps you should reach for a clean towel daily?
With the pandemic still a recent memory last year saw an unprecedented global rise in over a dozen communicable diseases.
One contributing factor cited by the American Medical Association was hygiene, specifically the role of the humble bathroom towel.
Professor Elizabeth Scott is a professor of biology and co-director of the Simmons University Center for Hygiene & Health in the Home and Community.
The manager of a groundbreaking 1982 study examining the bacteria lurking in hundreds of homes, she filled in Sunday Morning's Jim Mora on the dos and don'ts of our fluffy fibres.
"Every time we use a towel, bacteria are being transferred from our skin to the towel, potentially from our respiratory system if we're coughing and sneezing, potentially from our gastrointestinal system.
"Consider that we touch every single part of our body with a towel."
So how often should we wash our towels?
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The American Cleaning Institute recommends washing your towel after every 3 to 5 uses.
Scott thinks this is overdoing it. Instead, she recommends once a week as a loose rule of thumb.
"In a healthy household where no one's suffering from any infections once a week is okay."
However, this comes with a few caveats.
"In a situation where anybody is suffering from any kind of infection, skin infection, respiratory infection, or gastrointestinal infection, then it's really important for those individuals to have their own towel and for that towel to be washed daily, or even more frequently."
"Anyone who has a skin infection with something like staph aureus, really should not be sharing."
Towels should also be washed at a high temperature and kept thoroughly dry - this is doubly important for those with infections.
"I have seen studies where pathogens have been recovered from fabrics that have been cold, washed, but dried in the sun."
And if you can, avoid hanging your towel near a toilet.
"And there is quite a lot of research going on into the potential contamination of the environment surrounding a toilet when it's flushed.
"There definitely is evidence that the surrounding environment, immediately surrounding the toilet bowl, can get sort of an aerosol splash.
"So the way around that really is to do with the high temperature. That's the best way to eliminate bacteria from towels."
She notes that along with the kitchen sponge, the often overlooked and overshared kitchen towel is also a common source of infection spread.
"In my experience, have their own bath towel, but they tend to share hand towels."
Because while a nasty bug might be merely inconvenient today, many of these common infections are set to have devastating impacts over the coming decades.
"The UK government has signalled that by 2050, some 10 million people around the world will die of infections that cannot be treated any longer because bacteria are so resistant.
"So any way that you can reduce your risk of infection in your own environment is another way of preventing having to use antibiotics.
And above all - remember - wash your hands.
"Washing with soap is the gold standard."
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Neighbourhood Challenge: Who Can Crack This One? ⛓️💥❔
What has a head but no brain?
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Poll: 🗑️ Would you be keen to switch to a fortnightly rubbish collection, or do you prefer things as they are?
Aucklanders, our weekly rubbish collections are staying after councillors voted to scrap a proposed trial of fortnightly pick-ups.
We want to hear from you: would you be keen to switch to a fortnightly rubbish collection, or do you prefer things as they are?
Keen for the details? Read up about the scrapped collection trial here.
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83.3% Same!
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16.7% Would have liked to try something different
7 tips for buying your Christmas ham
It’s the centerpiece of the Christmas table, so when you’re peering into the supermarket chiller or ordering from the butcher, choosing the perfect ham can feel like a daunting task.
Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing one to bring home with you.
1. What type of ham to buy
You’ve got some decisions to make when it comes to the type of Christmas ham you’re going to buy.
Cooked on the bone (COB) ham is the traditional Christmas ham. If you’re buying a half ham, you’ll have the choice of the shank or fillet end. The shank is the part with the bone sticking out that gives the ham that traditional look. The fillet end is the round part that gives more meat. If you’re deciding whether to get a whole ham or half, consider how quickly you’ll be able to eat it all. You only have about a week to eat an opened ham before it will go off, so it can be a good idea to get two halves. That way you can eat one half during the week of Christmas and save the other for January.
Champagne ham has had the bone removed and only has the hock left on, so it’s easier to carve.
Pressed ham – also known as continental ham – has had the bones removed and has been pressed, so it’s also easy to carve.
2. Check the pork percentage
The label on a packaged ham will say what percentage is actually meat. Hams are injected with brine, to keep them moist, and additives. The brine injection level for manufactured hams is usually between 10% and 35% of the ham's weight. A manufacturer that wants to produce a cheap ham will add more water to bump up the weight.
3. Know how to tell if it’s New Zealand pork
By far, most of the hams bought in New Zealand this Christmas will be from pigs reared overseas. New Zealand imports pork from about 25 countries. It’s frustrating for New Zealand pig farmers because this ham can come from farms that don’t have to meet the same animal welfare standards as we have in this country. As a result, overseas meat is often cheaper.
If buying New Zealand pork is important to you, look for:
words on the packaging like ‘New Zealand pork’ or ‘born and raised in New Zealand’
4. Have a good look at the ham
If you’re going to be glazing your ham, look for one that is covered in a finger-thick layer of fat. This will give you the thickness you need to make good score lines.
New Zealand Pork’s website also advises looking for a ham that has a meaty texture rather than one that looks wet or rubbery. It says the ham’s skin should be smooth with even colouring. “If the knuckle is sunken, it may be overcooked. If the rind is buckled or uneven, it may be a sign of dryness.”
5. Ask a lot of questions
If you’re ordering your pork from a butcher, you probably won’t be able to compare hams like you would at the supermarket. So, make sure you ask lots of questions, now that you know what you’re looking for.
You could ask:
Is the ham made from New Zealand born and farmed pork?
What will be its injection percentage?
What flavours will it have?
You could even ask if there’s a glaze the butcher thinks would work particularly well with those flavours.
6. Know what size you’ll need
If the ham is the only meat on your Christmas menu, New Zealand Pork advises allowing 1kg of ham for five people. Or if you’ve got other meat options, 1kg will feed about six to eight people.
7. Know the best hams in New Zealand
The best hams of the year were awarded at the 100% New Zealand Bacon & Ham Awards earlier in the year so you can check out which ones got medals. Some of them are only available in the city the butcher is based, but a Farmland boneless ham available nationwide won a gold award and Woolworths bone-in and boneless hams picked up bronze.
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