Dirty hands are one of the leading causes to how foodborne illnesses or bacteria spreads. Washing your hands is essential in not only keeping yourself clean and safe from any sort of bacteria or germs, but it preserves your home and environment, alongside your family and loved ones. COVID-19 is relentless as it will cling to your hands if you’re not careful.
The kitchen is a place where many activities can occur: from cooking, preparing food, washing dishes, and washing your hands as well. Because of this, your kitchen needs to have a well-prepared hand wash sink to control your food and your people’s cleanliness.
Do you think COVID-19 needs an invitation into your home kitchen? No, it doesn’t. Let’s take a look at what you can do at home to prep a kitchen handwash sink so that everything stays clean, hygienic, and safe!
What You Need
- Running hot (should be up to 120 degrees Fahrenheit) and cold water
- Paper towels or tea towels to reduce waste
- Antibacterial hand soap
- Hand sanitizer or other disinfectant solution
- Drain cleaning solution or vinegar and baking soda
How to Properly Wash Your Hands
Here are some instructions on how to properly wash your hands:
- Please use warm, clean running water when you’re rinsing your hands.
- Apply soap to both hands and scrub everywhere for a minimum of 20 seconds
- Don’t miss the spaces between your fingers, under your nails, wrists, and forearms too.
- Then rinse your hands thoroughly with the warm, clean running water.
- Finally, dry your hands with a paper towel or hand dryer.
It is recommended practice to always wash your hands when:
- You’re preparing any food or dish
- Whenever you enter the kitchen
- Before you touch any dishes or utensils
- When you’re changing to or moving to another task
- When you’re preparing food after handling raw food
- After touching any dishes, utensils, equipment, or appliances
- After contacting any part of your body besides your clean hands
- After going to the restroom.
- At any time that you cough, sneeze or blow your nose
- After you eat or drink anything
- After you come into contact with an animal
- After you touch any sort of seafood
Safety and Hygiene Tips
You can generally keep the disinfectant solution and drain cleaning solution tucked away under the sink since you won’t be using those daily. It’s still good to have on hand just in case things get messy at the sink. Now that you have all these items and know-how when exactly to wash your hands, let’s talk about some additional best practices for practicing safety and hygiene.
Access to water
The kitchen handwash sink needs access to both hot and cold water to effectively clean and disinfect your hands. It will also help remove odors, grease, oil, etc., so it doesn’t pass onto other things you come into contact with.
Cleaning your sink
Remember that in addition to washing your hands, you also want to clean down your sink. That’s potentially a breeding ground for bacteria because all the germs are getting rinsed off your hands.
Remember to routinely wipe down your kitchen hand wash sink with disinfectant solution, primarily focusing on the handles, your soap dispenser, and any part of your paper towel dispenser.
You’ll need to periodically wash the drain as well, as minerals and junk will build up and eventually clog the drain. You can use a home remedy like pouring baking soda and vinegar to let it sit for a while and then flush warm water down. In addition, there’s the option of drain cleaning solutions too.
Separate sink basins
To absolutely protect yourself, the food you cook, and your family and friends you feed, it is best practice to have separate sinks for handwashing, utensil or dish cleaning, and food preparation. Cross-contamination is very dangerous, especially if the food, dishes, or hands aren’t washed properly.
You also shouldn’t wash your hands in other sinks that are designated for other activities. Not only might your hands bring some bacteria over to the sink, and it will contaminate the sink there, but your hands may bring bacteria back to the other sink or areas in the kitchen that you’re attending to. This goes the same for food preparation or utensil or dishwashing in other sinks as well.
Conclusion
Washing your hands is essential for your own health and safety, as well as others around you. The kitchen is an area that not only several people will use, but it’s an area that can quickly spread any bacteria or virus to your family because food and dishes are prepared there.
Not only is it safer to have a proper method to wash your hands, but it’s equally important to keep the area of the kitchen hand wash sink clean and disinfected.
Stay healthy and safe by doing your part to keep your kitchen handwash sink clean!