How to Clean Your Cutting Board

The recent salmonella outbreak from ground turkey has food safety front and center in the news again. It also raises the old debate about how to disinfect food preparation surfaces in the kitchen to prevent cross-contamination. One of the most important things is to properly clean your cutting board.

I personally use wooden cutting boards.  I keep two in my kitchen.  If I am preparing meats, they go on one board, and “not meat” goes on the other board.  I do the same with my cutting knives.  Now, I am not some germ-phobic person, this is just the common sense way I was taught to cook many many years ago by my mother. It also makes it much easier to clean your cutting board when you know what has been on it.

There have been some interesting studies about the safety of wood versus plastic cutting boards. Consumer Reports has a good article that states research shows that either wood-cutting boards or plastic-cutting boards can be safe.

I wash my boards in much the same fashion as described in the study, with hot tap water, a sponge, and dishwashing soap.  Instead of using sodium hypochlorite (regular bleach), I use Vital Oxide, which is a much safer antimicrobial spray.  Instead of using sodium hypochlorite to kill, it uses chttps://allergystore.comhlorine dioxide.

It won’t take the color out of my dishrags or kitchen rug if a little splash on it.  Also, Vital Oxide doesn’t have the harsh bleach smell and won’t cause respiratory problems the way bleach can.  But it sure does kill bacteria and viruses.  Although the FDA has approved Vital Oxide for a “no rinse” application around food surfaces, I still rinse the boards after I have sprayed them down.

I guess old habits die hard.

Til next time

Everybody Has a Concrete Floor

The first time I ever heard about someone staining the floors in their home was about 15 years ago. We had a friend that didn’t like the carpeting but could not afford to replace it with tile or wood.

Susie’s solution was to rip out the carpet and stain her floors. Up until then, the only stained concrete floors I had seen were in warehouses and garages.

Fast forward to today and it is everywhere. I now see it in homes, restaurants, and stores. It’s easier to take care of and in most cases cheaper than tile or wood floors.

We have been telling our customers that carpeting is not a good thing to have it when you have allergies. No matter how clean it looks it still holds all sorts of allergens including pollen, dust, grass, and dust mites. I believe staining is a nice alternative that should be considered.

Anyway here are a couple of videos I ran across on Youtube while looking for more information. The first one just confirms what we already know. The second one is step-by-step instructions.

Video – Controlling Allergens With Concrete Floors

Video – DIY Concrete Staining: How to Stain Concrete Floors

Wishing you the best of health

Mike Krause
AllergyStore.Com
800 771-2246

Allergies and Dust during the Holidays

The other day my daughter and I were taking the Christmas decorations down from the attic and she just started sneezing and got all stopped up. Had to stop working for a while and take her Claritin.  Seems like holidays can inadvertently bring allergies and dust together.

I hadn’t even thought about it until I read an article in the St. Petersburg Times -Dusty decorations, Christmas trees, and cold weather can touch off allergies, asthma and it reminded me that we all need to be careful, especially those with allergies and/or asthma when digging through stuff we have stored.

So many times those stored items have dust.  Allergies and dust don’t go well together.

Before you just grab that box off the top shelf in the closet you may want to take a look on top. It doesn’t take much time for a layer of dust to build up. Plain household dust can have mold, pollen, dirt, dander, and a few other allergens that can cause your allergies to flare up. If the boxes are coming down from the attic they can also have some fiberglass mixed in. Nasty stuff.  You might want to wear a mask like the QMask to protect yourself.

Funny how much dust settles on stuff you only touch every 12 months or so.

Wishing you the best of health
Mike Krause

AllergyStore.com – Helping customers since 1989
800 771-2246